 My birthmother, Joyce (on left), three years before I was born. The tall guy in the back is Jesus. Not that I'm a name dropper...
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The Truth Behind the Lies... The tale told by the evil lying social workers (not that I'm bitter) was as follows: Joyce, my birthmother, was a 19-year-old college freshman. She had been valedictorian of her graduating class in high school which was, it seems, a time honored tradition in her family. Her older sister had been valedictorian of her class and her younger brother, about to graduate high school, was valedictorian of his class. Joyce had left her small town to the north to attend a large university. While working in a local family-owned restaurant she met a charming 24-year-old married man from the mystical land known as Ohio (Indiana without the glamour). They had an affair and I, in all my illegitimate glory, was the result of that liaison. He promptly returned to his wife and child and she, not wanting to bring shame to her prominent and brilliant family, felt she had no choice but to put me up for adoption. How's that for a tale of sacrifice and woe? It's a Lifetime Movie just waiting to happen. What really happened was quite different. The pathological liar of a social worker had my birthmother's name correct and she did work as a waitress. After that the similarities between the stories end. Both birth parents were 22 years of age. He was divorced and had never lived in Ohio. She had lived in a small town to the east, not the north. Not only had she not been her high school class valedictorian but she had quit school 6 weeks into her senior year because she was pregnant with her first child. None of her siblings had been valedictorian, either. I think it's safe to say no one in the family had ever uttered the word. Everett, my birthfather, was given only one brief paragraph in my adoption file. His ethnic background was described as "average"; whatever in the hell that means. That's like saying "He was very tall and thin in a short and dumpy sort of way." He met Joyce while on furlough from the army. They went out only two or three times. He told her he loved her and she believed him. She got pregnant but before she realized it he had returned to Korea. She called his mother's home but was told by whoever answered the phone that Everett had returned to his base overseas. Joyce hung up without explaining the call. She then went to an attorney in hopes of getting child support from Everett. The lawyer, a demonic slug about as charming as the social workers, actually told her that it was ILLEGAL to get child support from a man in the U.S. armed forces. Don't you just LOVE it? "Care for a little lube with that violation, ma'am?" He never knew about me until 33 years after the fact. While Joyce could tell me every minute detail of him and their brief time together, Everett doesn't remember her at all. You can only imagine my pride. |
