We all experience life-changing moments, hopefully many more positive – weddings, childbirth, getting that new job we’ve always longed for – than the not-so-memorable ones.
One of my best of the best happened 20 years ago, on June 11, 2005.
That’s the day I became part of a new family – well, not new but my original family – when I heard, for the first time, the voice of someone whose blood I shared. A member of the family I would’ve grown up in, having a different life in every conceivable way, if the nearly 40-year-old mother who gave birth to me in February 1961 hadn’t made the painful – but absolutely right for her other three children and for me – decision to place her baby for adoption.
Twenty years. The thought makes me shake my head in disbelief while waves of gratitude wash over me. Those are feelings that have been constant since I was luckier than a lottery winner to have the help of angels on earth in finding my three older full-blooded siblings.
After spending two hours speaking by phone to my oldest brother Crys (Crystal Edward) Workman for the first time that day, I already knew we had a bond that would stick. Not only did we have the same birthday – his 2/28/44 and mine 2/28/61 – but his soft-spoken, kind-hearted, welcoming attitude and demeanor in our first visit had won me over. I would soon find out that’s just the kind of person Crys is.
And this was on a cold call in which I started by nervously telling Crys who I was, that I had been born and adopted in his hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, and that I had received news/records indicating that he, his brother Robert (Robin) and sister Teresa (Terry) were most surely my siblings.
We squeezed a lot of learning about each other into that call, and he talked freely about our late mother Betty, his father Bob and the man’s drinking problems that had caused so much family heartache and ended the marriage.
What we soon pieced together but wouldn’t know for sure until a few weeks later – after Crys, Terry and I had a DNA test when my family met them and their families in the Denver area – was that Bob was also my father. And when I got my hands on the decree showing Betty and Bob divorced in April 1959, we realized their indiscretion that resulted in me – the judge had made it clear Bob was to stay away – occurred a little over a year after their divorce.
Regardless of what happened back then or how fate steered the life courses it did, I believe that finding a path back to my birth family was providential. Although I waited until I was in my early 40s to embark on the search, I had always known I would at some point – even though I didn’t learn until I was a Texas A&M student that Isaac, the brother I grew up with, and I were adopted.
Over the past 20 years, during which my two children have grown up to become adults in their early 20s and I’ve reached my 60s, my birth family journey has been one of emotion, discovery and sharing time with my siblings when life allows it. Unfortunately, that hasn’t included our brother Robin since his passing at age 61 in January 2009. I’ll always be grateful we had a handful of years to get acquainted, but I still regret not making the most of that time.
Since Robin’s death, it’s been Crys, Terry and me. On average, we’ve seen each other about once a year. The trips with Terry, her husband Rick and even once with my wife Kay and our kids to Huntington, the city where I was born and my siblings grew up, have been priceless for me. Getting to spend time at our mother Betty’s grave, seeing homes where my family lived long ago and so many other treasured memories from those visits will remain with me forever.
I always say Crys, now 81, is one of the kindest, most compassionate, smartest people I’ve ever met. I’m not exaggerating. He amazes me with his knowledge of all things practically every time he sends a text. It means the world to me that we share interests (sports, music, including classical) and personality traits (generally quiet and introverted).
As for our beautiful sis Terry, who has me in age by a little over six years, I consider it a blessing that I have her dark brown hair (well, I *used to* before I went gray!) and her dark brown eyes. The little girl who didn’t even know our mother was pregnant before she had me couldn’t have been more astonished to learn she had a little brother that weekend 20 years ago when I first made contact with my sibs. She has been as loving, understanding, patient, giving, funny, accepting and all-around wonderful a Big Sis as I could’ve ever dreamed of having.
Kay told me tonight that she can’t believe it’s been 20 years. I can’t either. I wish I’d found my birth family 20 years earlier – not only because I’d have had all those extra years with them but also because I could’ve met our mother, who died of lung cancer in 1992. After all, after growing up with my alcoholic, abusive adoptive mother Olga, it was Betty for whom I was so desperately searching.
But I know I’ll meet her someday. And I also know that finding and sharing these special years with my siblings has been a glorious gift I never, ever expected to receive.
I’m pretty sure Betty had a little something to do with that. ❤
A Life of Words 