When I was about twenty-three, I had worked at a local bank as a bank teller. I had gone to work that day, just as I had every day before that, and I just happen to wait on a customer, and it wasn’t just any customer. The man came to my window and asked to do a cash advance. I proceeded to process the transaction and I had asked for the man’s driver license and his credit card. I didn’t pay much attention to it, until I noticed the name. It was the same name as my dad (that was typed on my birth certificate). I thought to myself, it’s just a coincidence because it was a common name. So I didn’t think much of it until I saw the address. When I turned eighteen, I decided to call the Friend of the Court in Michigan to the county as to where the child support case was filed. (So that is how I got his previous address) And I had remembered it and that was the address on this guy’s license. This indeed was my dad that I was waiting on. He was the customer standing in front of me. I started to shake and I was trying to stare at him and memorize him and everything about him. How tall he was, what color his hair was, what he smelled like and the sound of his voice. While watching him stand there, I noticed that he was wearing a wedding band on his ring finger so I knew that he was married, and then my mind wandered as to if I had other brothers and sisters out there, and if his current wife and family knew anything about me. I had completed the transaction at my teller window gave the man (my dad) his money and let him walk out the door. I was in complete and utter shock. I wanted to run after him and tell him that I loved him and that I have missed him and that I have been looking for him all this time and I wondered if he knew who I was. I told one of my co- workers that it was my dad. I don’t remember really anything after that moment.

In the beginning, I must have given a false impression that my life was just perfect. When actually, it wasn’t even close. When I was younger I lived with my grandparents, my mom (for a short while) my brother, in addition to aunts and uncles all under one roof. We had a large house, with four bedrooms and once I had shared a room with my mom and one of my aunts that lived in the house at that time. When it was time the aunts and uncles moved up and on with their lives my brother and I were the only ones left in the house that stayed. They became our guardians because we lived under the same roof and my mother would come by and visit from time to time so we did get to see her. But as for my dad, he was never around. Growing up, I was the one who asked a lot of questions about my dad and why he was never around. It was strange to my peers that I went to school with that I didn’t know my dad nor did I know a thing about him. The only thing that I did know about him was his name and how old he was because that is the only information that was typed on my birth certificate. I always wondered what he looked like, if he would like me, if I would like him, and so on and so forth. And it seemed to be puzzling to them as to why I didn’t know him or a thing about him, until now and when I had asked about him to family members I never seemed to get a straight answer or they gave me an answer that made it sound like I didn’t want to know him. Well actually, I can’t say that I know him as of yet, because still to this day, I haven’t met my dad.

Its funny how you go thru life growing up and wondering where you get a lot of your traits, your features and where your personality comes from. I have known my mom my whole life, so I just figured in due time, I would find the missing piece. When I felt ready, it would happen somehow someway. I had come from a large family and I had a lot when I was growing up but on thing just seemed to be missing, and that was my dad.

Did he even know it was me since the stories I have been told was that he did have visitation of me until about 6 months of age and he did know my name. Or the story of how he and my mom were suppose to get married, or my mom didn’t marry him because she didn’t want him to favor me and not my brother. (and I did have a name plate at my station that day of just my first name) or just the fact alone that I look like him, did he realize that is was me? Did he look for me ever? Did you wonder about me and how my life was or where it was taking me at all?? Ever since that day I have vowed to myself that when I was ready, I would get all these questions answered. I deserved that much and I always carried the fear that I wanted to do it sooner before it was too late.

As I went through life and went through having a baby at the age of 20, a failed marriage that lasted just over a year, being a single parent and graduating from community college, I was acquiring life moments that I was experiencing all without my dad by my side to comfort me and give me guidance that I so had wanted from him all this time and wondering how much more I could endure without him, and how many more life moments he would miss. Would he be proud of me as to the way I would always walk with my head held high or how I would handle the situation that I was in at any given moment and walk away from it with a lesson well learned? Would he be mad that I didn’t take the “normal” path of going to college, getting married and having a baby, in that order? Or would he be the type that would hug me and let me know no matter what, he loved me anyway? Yet again, questions that I didn’t have answers to but yet I was getting closer and closer to finding things out for myself.

Years later, I had learned that my grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer and died a week and two days after she found out she was sick and my grandfather had died the same year of advanced emphysema, and I had gotten laid off from my job, and I had lost my house that my son and I were living in, and I had to move back home with my mom and step dad, when I thought that all hope was lost, I happened to meet the man of my dreams. I needed someone to come and take me away from this nightmare I had been living the past twenty something years. I needed a little bit of light and he was my night in shining armor that just showed up out of nowhere.

I needed a change and I knew this was my way out. I knew that if I was going to go, this would be the time to do it because nothing was holding me to stay in my hometown. It was now or never and I knew if I didn’t do it now, I would never leave. All of it was going to be left, friends, family, and memories. This was it, I was leaving the only life I knew behind and I had only one shot, and I was leaving behind also the idea of finding my dad. Or was it just the beginning of thee embark of my new adventures to come with a new outlook on life.

So which brings me to the present time. I had gotten a message to ask a certain person to be my friend on Facebook. This person, just so happen to have the same last name as my dad that I had been looking. I thought to my self "could this be really possible?" Who is this person and are they somehow related to me? So just by chance I asked this person to be my friend on Facebook. In little time, I had started a conversation with this person, we chatted it up for a minute and then the questions started. I asked what his dad’s name was, and he responded, with the same name that had been typed on my birth certificate. In addition, I said that the same name was the name of my dad too. This person I was having a conversation with was my half brother. I was in shock, here is part of a missing link that knew nothing about me. He was asking questions as to how my mom and our dad met and how old they were when they were together. In return, I was asking questions as to whether or not dad was still alive, I was just hoping at this point I still had time to make connections. Then later in the conversations the harder questions came about if his mom knew or not and I honestly had no idea. He had also told me that I had an older brother and a sister as well. Here is this whole other family that belonged to me that knew nothing about me all this time. I have to admit that it was pretty cool and he was very accepting to this and the situation that was just given to him. I kept thinking this whole time that I was conversing with my brother that they are going to think I am a scam artist and think that this is all a lie. I would have been horrified. My heart sank but I kept proving to him that this was true and in fact kept coming up with facts and answers to questions that he needed the answers too as well. Then he felt under pressure on his end because he didn’t know if his mom knew this secret or not, so he was plotting a way to tell dad that he knew, just in case his mom didn’t. I didn’t want to be known as a family wrecker because I didn’t know who knew and who didn’t know. That remained to be found out by all who was involved. After talking to my brother I found out that myself, my sister and my brother (who I was talking to on Facebook) were all a few years apart. This made me think back and then I have to admit I got a little angry because we would have been close growing up because we were all so close in age. So in the days following, I was downloading pictures like crazy to get them up on my page so my brother could see what my immediate family was all about. Including pics of my husband, my son and my daughter. During this whole time, I was pregnant with my third child (another girl) due to arrive in early July. We had talked off and on and he was downloading pics of the family as well so I could learn who these new people were about to be introduced in my life. In addition, trying to get pics of dad on there too just so I could see what he looked like from the last time I had waited on him at the bank. It had been quite awhile since that day and I was sure he had changed a lot since then.

As I was looking through the pictures, all of the qualities that I had started to be quite obvious that I belonged to these people in the pictures. Smiles, eyes and facial features were all there and very similar. It was scary and happy to me all at the same time. Here is this chance that I had been given and I wasn’t about to turn back now. I was ready for this new beginning that I was about to embark on and at least I had my best friend beside me to go thru this with me, there wasn’t anything more I could have asked for at that moment.

Since then I have established a good relationship with my brother, and from there he had talked to my sister about the whole situation. My sister, on the other had was a little more cautious of this whole situation that was put before her. I could understand but all in the same time, my whole life I had wanted a sister and now I finally have one. I was excited that I finally got what I wished for but it was going to take a little longer then I had hoped for. I had requested my sister as a friend on Facebook as well but it took her quite some time to accept it. Finally she did, and I had have very little contact with her since then. Through the grapevine, she is having some personal issues that she needs to deal with first before she can start to have a relationship with me, which I have been very understanding to and have given her space as asked. And I am standing on the sidelines waiting very patiently.

I just remember telling people this story and have them all ask me the same questions “Why didn’t you say anything to him?” Looking back now, I was wondering what I could have said, something like “Here’s your money have a great day, and oh by the way, I’m your daughter”. Or something else along the lines of “See you later, dad.” In that situation, I was just in pure shock that I have waited all my life to meet this person, and now he was a customer in my bank that I just waited on. It was pure chance of luck that he just happen to walk into my branch that I worked in of all places, since where he lived (at the last address I knew of) was forty five minutes away, and what would the odds be that he would walk up to my teller window that day and that I of all people would wait on him. I will never question the odds of that day because someone that day wanted me to have my time and taste of what I had been missing all this time. I never told my mom about that day and I would tell people that I have met on this life’s journey time and again about my crazy story of how I waited on my dad when I worked at a bank. People are in such amazement, its still crazy to me even now after all this time.

I had always wondered of how my life would have been different if I would have said something to him that day.

Did he even know it was me since the stories I have been told was that he did have visitation of me until about 6 months of age and he did know my name. Or the story of how he and my mom were suppose to get married, or my mom didn’t marry him because she didn’t want him to favor me and not my brother. (and I did have a name plate at my station that day of just my first name) or just the fact alone that I look like him, did he realize that is was me? Did he look for me ever? Did you wonder about me and how my life was or where it was taking me at all?? Ever since that day I have vowed to myself that when I was ready, I would get all these questions answered. I deserved that much and I always carried the fear that I wanted to do it sooner before it was too late. This past summer, I got the chance, and took it, to meet the one person I had been missing all my life, my dad.