Fast forward a couple of months. I had spoken to Art and his wife Pat a few times over the phone. It seemed that I had caused one HELL of an issue with the family! Art and his mom, as well as Pat and her mother-in-law just didnt see eye to eye at all. Pat and Art kept trying to get her to accept me but she was so very mad that they had invited me to the wedding that there became a huge rift between them. And, because of the closeness of Russ to his mom, there was a huge rift between Russ and his brother as well. In discussing this with Art, he told me that he had never gone back to visit with his mom anyway, after she told him that his birth father's name etc was none of his business. He just took off and never felt the need to go back, even to visit. I continued, and still continue, to receive a Christmas letter from Karen (only from her). Usually with pictures of their girls, they now had three.
I am not sure when exactly it happened, but the calls stopped coming from Art and all letters were returned to me. The phone number I had had been disconnected. In the Christmas letter, Karen said that they had lost touch with Art and Pat and no one had heard from him. This continued on for several years. The girls grew into beautiful young ladies, and time marched on.
In about 2013-2014, I learned from Karen's Christmas letter that Liz had Alzheimers and they were going to put her into a facility. Gradually she began to not even recognize them. This does concern me and every time I forget something I think, DANG will I get this Alzheimer's? sigh.. I guess we will just have to see, won't we? As of Christmas 2015, she was in bad shape I was told. But now I can fill out those questionnaires and say that I have Alzheimer's in my family.
A week or so into January of 2016, I received a letter from Karen with an obituary and a leaflet from the service of my birth mother. She had passed away. I truly didn't know how to feel. I was sad for the family, as anyone would be for the family of someone who passed, but how did I feel about HER passing? I just couldn't put a finger on my feelings. To this day, I am still not sure. But I do believe that in living with God, she now no longer has to live with the terrible guilt I felt that must have led her whole life. The guilt of having three children out of wedlock when it was looked on as so bad by her family. Maybe even the guilt of giving me up. Is that just my own soul trying to sooth the abandoned feeling I might have had? I don't know. I never really felt abandoned. I was so lucky to be so loved and cherished in the family that chose me, maybe that is why abandonment wasn't an issue, or at least one that didn't seem to bother me much.
I started thinking that Art must not know that his mother was gone. It really bothered me that he didn't know. So, in true Pam fashion, I stuck my nose into the internet to try and find my brother again. I googled and searched and looked for days. Finally, I decided to pay one of these "we can find anyone" web sites where you have to pay for information. BINGO!! I got a list of his and Pat's addresses for the past, well for his past whole life! I immediately unsubscribed from the web site and it only cost me about $20.00 to find his address and phone number. Pretty good I thought. He and Pat had CERTAINLY moved around a lot! Not sure what that was about.
I called and Art answered. He was quite surprised to hear from me, I think it must have been about 15 years since anyone knew where he was, not sure of the amount of years. but that is close. I asked him if he was sitting down and I told him about his mom. He was very quiet. Then he thanked me and thanked me. We talked a bit about him moving around, he said that Pat just likes to keep moving!! haha Wanderlust I guess. But not far, as they were in Washington state. Art was a cook in the Navy and a darn good pastry chef. (he had made his own wedding cake and decorated it!) So he really didn't have much trouble as a vet with good cooking skills. Pat had had a stroke and Lymphoma and was in a wheelchair and on SSDI, so he had to take care of her some of the time. We hung up promising to keep in touch. (he is NOT a computer guy) so email isn't much of an option.
If some of you reading this know me, you know I post often on Facebook. About my life, nothing about politics or religion, just life happens sort of things, pictures of my grandson, and pictures of my cats. LOL Well, just so happens that I posted something about my birthmother passing, me not knowing how to feel and that I found my brother and told him! I was excited to find him. I had no clue how his brother and sister-in-law had felt all those years he had been gone from everyone's life.
I was quite surprised to get an angry message from Karen, as she was a friend on Facebook. I had not understood the hurt they had all felt when Art just cut off all communication with everyone. They were left alone to take care of Liz in her time of need, with no way to even find Art, let alone have him help. I was devastated, to say the least. They were angry at me for finding him and angry at me for telling him about his mom. I apologized and felt horrible that I had taken things in my own hands, but it was done and there was nothing I could do about it. I was even more upset that I would maybe lose the small connection I had with Karen, and through her, my brother and my nieces. I said everything I could think of to her to apologize. I hoped that she would reconsider her anger towards me and forgive me because I just had no clue. (sometimes I act out of idiocy) I think she finally forgave me and we moved on. Thank GOD!!
Flash to April of 2017. Art called me one day and asked me a favor. Pat really had wanted to do a DNA test and had noticed that 23andMe was having a sale. Art wanted to know if I could purchase a kit and send it to Pat for her birthday which was in May. He would send me a check to pay me back. Sure I said, no problem! I went on line and purchased one and had it sent.... but, that got me thinking, I REALLY would love to do a DNA test for myself and see if I would be able to find my birth father or at least some of his family since he was probably gone. So I purchased one, spit in the vessel and sent it off! I also started looking at Ancestry. I had had a subscription years ago off and on doing a family tree for my adopted family. Which was fine, but I started realizing that although it was interesting, none of the folks who I had never met were not MY blood. I renewed my subscription and even signed up for the world wide portion to maybe trace my birth mother's side too. I never had gotten much information at all from my brothers, and certainly not my birthmother.
So I waited for my DNA results.
I think I got my results in about August of 2017. Not sure of exactly when. I was pretty shocked again how my ethnicity panned out.
I knew the European but the Great Britain must have come from my birth father's side! Then I saw the other, the one from the USA.
WOW! Now that is really concentrated in one area!! My birth father must have been from this area and all his relatives must have lived there all their lives! Thus began my DNA search.
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