"Hey, i have a question?" waiting for a reply from my family member.
"Whats up?" they responded
"Did my father deny me to you?" I went straight to the point.
"There was some speculation but he still claimed you, well to me anyways he did." They were lying to make me feel better, i said to myself.
"Okay, thank you." I exited messenger and got ready for the walk to my friends house. I was getting my shoes on when I felt a vibration, it was the family member.
"Why do you as??" I hesitated on telling them about his funeral but decided who cares who knows.
"Birdy told me he had sex with my mother around the time I concieved but he doesn't want to do the DNA test because of his wife." I put on my coat and said my goodbyes.
"What the hell?!?!?" I didn't bother replying. I put in my ear buds, turned the volume to max, and started walking. I felt the cold air hit my face, it made my eyes water. It was windy and wet from the snow that melted weeks before but because of the lack of sun everything was soaked.
I walk past people,looking straight ahead, I don't do small talk. I want to get to point A to point B without incident. One more block and I will be there, I said to myself trying to catch my breath. Being in lockdown has been brutal. I didn't give a damn about the curve when I needed human interaction before I went mad.
I knocked on the door and my friend Lee opens it;
"HEYYYYYYY" she squeals as she gives me a big hug "How's it been?" we make our way to the table and I sit my ciggarettes and MTN dew down.
"Shits nuts Lee, I am driving myself crazy trying to figure out if the weird guy from the funeral is my father or the fat drunk who wanted shit to do with me was my father" I said lighting a ciggarette.
"I don't know why the guy said what he did, have you been drinking?" the question caught me off gaurd.
"Nah, I stopped after the funeral. I still crave it though. I just dont want to be like either of my parents and I know if I drink one more I won't be able to stop" I saw the tears well up in her eyes.
"Kat you'll never be like them, you are too good of a person to end up like that" she reached for my hand and she squeezed it tight.
Lee was a friend since Summer pre-Covid.I opened up a lot with her about my father and mother issues. She knew about my addiction and how I struggled to stay sober the fist few months of my children being removed. Just because I didn't drink doesn't me I didn't want to or struggled talking myself out of it. She knew about my best friend who passed in 2013. She knew a lot. I felt she got it because her own family was chaotic too. We sat and chatted about different things for the rest of my time there.
Fast forward to a year later. I moved to a different city which really is nice for my kids to grow up in but for me I miss the sounds of gun shots and cop cars. I always loved the sound of chaos. I dont like the violence and death that comes with both of those things but I got so use to it that now its hard to fall asleep with out them. I finally let go of the fact I would never know the truth.
Months went by and I heard a ding on my phone.
"Hey, I got a 23 & Me for all of us to do!" it was my sister.
"Oh, how fun. I tried to get one a year ago but my neighbors were stealing my mail and had to get a refund." My neighbors stole more than just mail, they signed up for debit cards in my name to cash stimulus checks.
"Well I know how much the unknown bothered you so I figured we all could do one and it be really cool to do!"
I didnt want to tell her how I knew they all thought I didn't share the same father as they did. I didn't want her to know the jealousy I felt that they had memories with him that I never had. I didn't think their life was peaches and cream but they still had everything I never had. Photobooth photos with all of them, fishing at a lake, photos of them throwing leaves in the Fall, MEMORIES! None of them understood and just thought I was being a "victim". They got their clousure with him. They had their time to be angry at him. They had their reconcile with him. Everything I would never get. Was it my own fault? After the age of 18 sure the hell was. BUT I didn't choose a man over having a relationship with a child I claimed I never got to raise.
I didn't make excuses as to why I didn't take my child after they broke down in my car that they were being touched and their mother was hitting them. It wasn't disipline it was abuse. Being slammed into a bed post over me telling my eldest brother he wasnt my fathers son because he said I wasnt his daughter. Then, called a whore anytime a boy looked in my direction. Telling me I wanted the attention of her boyfriend because of the clothes SHE would buy ME.
None of them understood. I am happy they don't but they got closure. They accepted his dead beat ass. I couldn't and maybe thats my own problem but I WAS A CHILD! I HAD TRAUMA HE REFUSED TO GET ME HELP FOR!!! My mind was racing and I threw my phone across the room. I couldn't tell them anything because they just didn't get it. HE had YEARS to get a DNA test but didn't. Do not tell me how I should feel when you all were raised by family and I was raised by an ex husband of a cousin who I believed was my mom who walked out on us when I was only 5.
I relived all the memories all at once. The panic of it all caused me to vomit. I couldn't breathe. "Get yourself together bitch, you don't owe anyone shit. You don't anyone answers." Through the tears I tried my best to give myself a pep-talk. Making my way to the back door to smoke a cig I grabbed his ashes and threw him outside. I was full of anger that I worked so hard to control.
I tried to distract myself for the next few weeks. Knowing the kit was going to be here soon. When it finally arrived I threw it in the cupboard. I wanted to lie and say I did it. That way I knew we'd never link and they would have the satisfaction that they were right all along. Then a part of me wanted to do it and have it link to prove each and every member that I WAS his daughter and now they can't say the reason they don't like me is because I wasn't his daughter. I knew both were not right to do.
I opened the kit with tears falling down my face and spit in the tube. Sealed it up and looked at my fathers ashes and said, "Fuck you for having me do this at 27 years old, fuck you for denying me, fuck you.". With that I walked to the UPS drop box and tossed in. I opened my phone and clicked on my sisters message.
"I did it and its in the drop box" I pressed send. I was drained. I didn't care how it came out. It didn't change shit. I always had to prove who I was and it didn't change in my adulthood either. They never had to prove they were his kids, they look just like him. I felt my phone buzz. I seen her message.
"Great!" I tossed my phone in my pocket and went home. I wanted to hibernate. I brought his ashes back in and sat him on the table. I sat down and stared at them. I felt my face get warm and over whelming feeling of anger.
"You did this. You. You had every oppritunity to get the test done but you didn't. You were afraid of the answers? So, you left that burden on me? On your other children!? You are a fucking coward! You claimed you were a man of your word, that you'd give the shirt off your back for anyone right? Yeah as long as they weren't your fucking kids, right dad? Right?! I mean your empty promises and your lies that spewed from your mouth to your own kids, but would claim you were a "man of your word" and "I am an honest man" was bullshit. You were a coward who ran anytime when shit got hard. You relasped as soon as I came into the picture. I remember that day, getting out of your purple van. Couldn't even walk straight. What did you say to me? "love me for who I am not for what I do"? YOU are the reason shit never worked. You ran while EVERYONE else chased after YOU! You failed as a husband TWICE and you failed as a father"
My throat hurt after yelling but I felt a weight lift. I realized I got my urge to run from the man I dispised the most. We had more in common than I realized. I spent the next few weeks trying to pass time as I waited for the results. It felt like years but in reality it wasn't even a month until I received the email. I was afraid to open it. I was scared that this would mean I had to tell that weird creep who called himself my fathers best friend that we had to do a DNA test. I finally clicked the email open and went directly to the app.
The results:
*Sisters name*: 49.5% related
*Sisters name*: 49.6% related
I took a screenshot and sent it to everyone who denied me. EVERYONE who made me feel like shit and questioned who I was. I was full of anger I grabbed my fathers ashes and screamed "LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE! I WISH YOU WERE HERE TO ANSWER FOR THIS YOU COWARD! YOU HAD NO REASON NOT TO BE MY FATHER! YOU HAD NO EXCUSE!" with that I threw him outside. I slammed the door and I cried. Part of me wished he wasnt so the abandonment would've made sense. He had every oppritunity to get the test done but he didn't he left that on everyone else. I left that on everyone else as well because I wasnt going to do it.
I wasn't about to continue proving who I was or why I had his last name. I didn't owe anyone those answers. HE owed them those answers NOT ME. Now that I knew I felt like a chapter closed. The anger was still there but I knew. Everyone knows now. Everyone who denied me at the funeral knows now. "I hope theyre eating their words and I hope they feel like idiots", I thought to myself. I wasn't angry at my siblings. They did their best not to let me see. They knew he denied me and they tried to hide their own assumptions that I wasn't their sibling.
It wasn't their fault our father lied. Wasn't their fault he was a coward. Wasn't their fault he was a dead beat. I didn't blame anyone but him. He could stay outside. His ass didn't deserve to be in my home. I never told my siblings all the emotions I felt. I knew how they felt about him. I know they made excuses just like I made excuses for my mother. We would never agree and that was okay. They knew their father. I was happy for them. I was sad they lost their father and have to go through the pain of losing him. He wasn't my father. My father left me with a stranger when I was 12. I didn't know the man. He no longer deserved to have the title "dad" leave my mouth.
He never earned the title "dad". He was never there. Now I have to learn who he was from others but right now I dont want to. I don't care how good of a person he was or how many kids he helped raise, he didnt raise his own kids. He may have been a good person but he was a dead beat. I don't think dead beats should be in the "good person" category.
As time passed I calmed down and spoke to my counselor about all the emotions.
"It's normal to feel the way you are, he wasn't the dad you needed. Anyone could portray themselves to be anything to suit their own narrative. Those who seen him as a good person is because that's what he wanted them to see. He didn't want anyone to know his dark secrets and to see the bad and pain he caused his own children. It would've tarnished, his image. You have to come to terms with a lot of things Katherina but it isn't your fault for why he was the way he was.", She looked sad for me which is what I hated the most.
I didn't want pity I wanted someone to understand. I wanted someone to just listen and know I wasn't a bad kid that I just needed help but no one wanted to help me, telling me to get over it isn't helpful. Unless your dad ditches you to a family for 12 years and the man who raised you leaves you on the dead beats door step I dont want to hear shit about how I should've handled it or how I should feel. I never got help for the shit back then which is why I am so messed up now. Instead of helping me they wanted to toss me out and not deal with me anymore. I just wanted to be understood...
I knew my DNA but I don't know who I am...