Home | Culture And Society
I never knew my father. I was the last of six children raised in a Mexican family by an older mother and siblings 10-15 years my senior, who shared a common father. They never passed up the opportunity to throw in my face that my father was of German descent. Talk about alienation! I was the only family member who didn’t speak Spanish: they didn’t teach me so I wouldn’t understand them when they spoke to each other. I’ve always felt different somehow, a stranger in my own family. My brothers bullied and tormented me, my sisters tyrannically mothered me, and my mother… my mother was incapable of seeing beyond her own injuries, controlling and alienating by way of anger and blame, always keeping me at arm’s length. I craved love and acceptance so much, I regularly cried myself to sleep. Growing up, I heard a few snippets of conversation here and there that allowed me to put together a rough portrait of what my father may have been like. A hard-working laborer, he met and fell in love with my mother soon after her divorce. The relationship was short-lived; as was her usual way, she pushed him away. I couldn’t blame him for not keeping in touch with me: in those days, when one left the mother, one left the children. I understand, he made several attempts to see me throughout the years, but she drove him away. When my mother passed away from Alzheimer’s a couple of years ago, the thought of locating my father, getting in touch with my missing half, began to surface more and more often. I fought it, partially out of guilt, some perverted sense of disloyalty to my deceased mother, partially out of fear of the unknown, of disappointment. I’ve had enough rejection to last me several lifetimes. And yet, I knew the day will come when I couldn’t resist the urge to know my father any longer. My sister told me she was pretty sure he still lived in the same neighborhood, not too far from where I’ve lived my whole life. As luck would have it, around the same time, I met and began to date a woman who knew of PeopleFind.com. She insisted on helping me find my father, coaxed me out of complacency, urged me to overcome my fears. Through her, I found out how easy it would be to find my father, how easy it would have been all along. With PeopleFind.com, even the more complicated searches for missing persons were now pretty much a snap, opening a completely new frontier for people finding each other all over the country. I must say, I am not very computer-literate, but when I finally gave in and used PeopleFind.com, I found my long-lost father within a couple of keystrokes. The only information I needed to provide was his name. In that moment, I found out more about him than I did in forty years. He married, had two other children, worked at the same factory, lived in the same house ten minutes away from me. All these years, for all I knew, he could have been halfway across the world! I now had his address and phone number. I wished I could see his picture, search his face for any resemblance to mine, but I knew that for that I would have to make the next move and meet him in person. When that day finally came, it was like the veil was finally lifted, and I found the missing part of me. He was so happy to hear from me, he cried. As we got to know each other better, we became closer and closer. It was as if each of us was finally filling the life-long void, painting in the blank spots, revealing the full picture of who we really were, and saw a reflection of ourselves in each other. Thank you, PeopleFind.com, for helping me find my father, and in the process finally find myself.
Article Source: http://blogticles.com
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
