Thank you for joining me!
I have and continue to learn so much about myself, family, friends, human nature, and the true kindness, as well as cruelty of people, through the discovery of my biological family. So, you may be asking, Lezlee, how did you get to this point? What made you first start thinking something wasn’t right?
The answer is not an easy one because the feeling evolved over time. Yet, I can admit, looking back I am sure I started realizing there was something underlying my existence at a very young age. My parents married after my mother graduated from high school in 1958 and had my brother in 1961. They divorced, remarried (not sure of the date at the time of this post), had me in 1963, and quickly divorced again within 6 months. As I look back this was a tickle I kept in the back of my mind and wondered “Why”?
My father married my stepmother when I was three. My stepfather and mother also married when I was the same age. My stepfather raised me as his own. I had two truly amazing men in my life. Honestly, I just thought it was normal and the way things were supposed to be. There were rifts between my mother and father through the years. Sometimes it was about custody, visitation, and other times, it was about child support payments. I find it a little ironic that my mother was fighting a man for child support when she fully knew that I was not his child. But that is for another time.
The first, biggest indicator that there was an underlying secret was when I was 26 years old. It was my father’s birthday, and I was taking him to El Chico to celebrate. I was recently married, but my husband was unable to go to dinner with us. We had a lovely meal, just my father and I-no husband and no stepmother.
As we were finishing our meal my father makes a comment about how much I look like my mother. He doesn’t stop there. He proceeds to tell me how hard it is for him to be around me because I remind him of her so much. WOW! what does a daughter say to that? I answered with a feeble “well, I can’t really do anything about how I look and who I look like”.
He says, “well, if you only knew” and that was it!
No explanations.
No answer to my question of “what do you mean by that?”
An 800 lb. gorilla placed in my lap that would soon breed a lifetime of secrecy and no answers for another 32 years.
I went home, got in the tub, and cried my heart out. How just a few simple words, wrapped into one sentence could hurt so much…..”If You Only Knew”. Those words have had a powerful impact on me, and it would not be the last time I heard them. Not by a long shot. They would become 4 words I resented, but the words that drove me to the truth in later life.
Have I changed? Of course, I have! But I think for the better and I Am Still Lezlee!