And the holy ghost

I would like to be done with it. I would like it to occupy less of my mind and my heart. Part of me hopes that by writing about it once again, just once more in the endless string of attempts to make sense of it, I can stop. I can say that I am done.

Five years ago, my brother and I discovered that the dad that brought us up was not our biological dad. That we had not been told the truth about this our whole lives and that in fact, we both were the product of a three-plus-year affair my mom had with the lineman of our local power company.

These lies of omission had the best of intentions, of course. The absent truth was meant to spare us. Of course. I do now understand that and have these past five years been working on adjusting my internal origin story and even my name. For a long time, even my name was in doubt.

Well, so what? What is the big deal here? I mean, it doesn’t change anything, right? You still have the life you had, right? You’re still you, Right?

Kind of. I mean, who am I? What really is my name? Don’t get me started on that rabbit hole. I mean, yes, I have the life I had, but now I also have this new light of truth, which is supposed to set me free. And it kind of does, and it kind of doesn’t. That’s just the way things are these days: freedom and confusion without conclusion.

This “truth” sends me off on an overly long journey to discover more. Who was my real dad? ( I now know this) My now half-sisters who I grew up with as whole sisters, were also holders of THE SECRET about us. And then there are a half dozen other half-siblings I’ll never meet, along with my biological dad, because they are gone from this earthly plane. All except for one half-sibling who wants nothing to do with us. We not only did not know our father and his biological family. We did not know our mother’s biological family either, because she was given away at the age of 3. We did not know a single biological ancestor other than my mother. No grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. It was as if we came from nowhere. Ours was a family of ghosts. Our ghost family DNA flows through us and makes up half of me. Half of my physical and spiritual inheritance of which I experientially know nothing. What is your story, ghost family? Whatever it is, it is at least in part, my story as well. Illegitimacy, as it turns out, is part of the real family story.

Fortunately, some biological nieces and nephews, and cousins have reached out to us. We never knew each other existed before the magical DNA revelation of a discomfitingly close relationship. In fact, the same force flows through each one of us. On our father’s side, there is the lineage of the lineman, or in the case of the cousins, the lineman’s sister. Nieces and Nephews and cousins! Ancestors in the thousands and family history in which my brother and I are but secret bit players with an asterisk. Bit players born on the wrong side of the sheets: bastards in the blinds.

How do I feel about that? OK, actually. I like the idea of being a love child. I will, in fact, take anything with the word love in the title. People who know me know this.

When we were growing up, it was like we came from nowhere. My mom had been given away by her parents at the age of 3, and then disowned by her adoptive parents. We never met a single one of her ancestors until my brother started on this path and we met a 3rd cousin who also happened to be quite a family historian of my mother’s biological tribe. They are a colorful lot.

For the first 68 years of my life, 70 for my brother; neither of us had ever met a biological ancestor on either side of our family, but now we have people. Now after all of this life, we know where we came from. All of a sudden. Just like that. A treasure of truth, an explosion of sadness and joy too.

It is five years down the line and I know more than I did. The father that brought us up and was so difficult to live with, to be with, is in fact not our father, and in many ways that is a relief. How was it for you Dad whose last name we bear? Who fed us and scolded us and lectured us for not being good. Did you know, Dad who is not our dad? Did you? My brother and I both have elaborate and complex theoretical answers to that question. That’s what we have. Theories that are as likely false as true.

And mom, I know you felt the truth would hurt us, and perhaps hurt you. I am glad you had some good times and relief with the lineman. I’m sorry there couldn’t be more for you, you wonderful, long-suffering, dedicated human being. I wish you could forgive yourself and the man you were married to, but know that your sons feel only love for you. Thank you. Rest in well-deserved peace. I want you to know that I would so much rather know the truth now than remain in the darkness.

I guess that means that I will not be putting all of this to bed, as much as I want to. But, as I said, it is now five years down the line and I think that maybe this doesn’t have to occupy as much of my head and heart now. Maybe. As we both know, I have been wrong about things before. Just to demonstrate, I’m heading off to north Ireland soon and to the home of the name you gave me where I will be playing the Londonderry Air in your honor. I am going because, as it turns out, I’m not Czech, I’m Scots-Irish and English, and I want to go there because I am part of the people who came from there. Because, as it turns out, I actually come from somewhere and a long line of someones. Even the illegitimates have homes and histories and I am going to visit mine, so that I can try and l to let it go just a bit and return as an integrated love child to the present which is all anyone of us ever really has…………………..knowing too that the past is always with us and that I will never be done I will try and be in the present more often, where I would like to live now in the gift you and the lineman have given to me. And for that. And for the holy ghost. And for every moment, I am grateful once again.

— DanielSouthGate