Lately I've been feeling intensely reflective about who I am and where I come from. In a certain respect, it's something I try not to dwell on; much of what follows is a painful story for me, and highly personal in nature. But I can't deny the powerful way it's shaped me in my innermost being. I can't not tell this story, no matter how truly afraid I am to put even these bare outlines down in writing.
In the late 1980s, a married businessman with three children - two sons, one daughter - moved to my area to consult for a company there. While there, he and a significantly younger coworker fell for each other. And during that time, they carried on an affair. She, the coworker, who had been married a few times before but hadn't had any children, found herself pregnant. He, the businessman, had fathered a child out of wedlock, behind his wife's back. And so, about nine months later, an emergency Caesarean section was required to deliver the child; he was being strangled to death by his own umbilical cord. He was born alright, but there was little hope for his survival, miniscule as he was (a mere seventeen inches in length, and less than four pounds in weight). He probably wouldn't survive even that night. But he did. He lived. And I am he.
Now, in time - I'm really not sure when - the affair came to a close, though certainly not for lack of love between the parties. The man's family - my dad's family - never learned about what happened. The wife had some suspicions for a time, I'm told, but her search for answers turned up nothing. To this day, my dad has never told his family what he did. Never told his wife about the affair. Never told his children that they have a half-brother out there in the world. I can understand the fear. Who knows what sort of ramifications that might have on his nuclear family, on his household? So in one sense, I can't blame him - or, at least, I can understand.
Meanwhile, I lived a fatherless life. I was raised by my somewhat protective mother and grandmother - undoubtedly the source of my unbridled masculinity and athletic prowess. (I hope the sarcasm isn't lost on anyone.) Oh sure, every now and then my dad would come to visit, when he could do so in secret. For a long time, he had a position working outside the country, and would often swing by our house on his return before going home; and he'd bring me this trinket or that trinket, a little souvenir of life further south. So I might see him once or twice a year, for a few hours at a time. That was my connection with my father. When I was a child, I couldn't understand what the situation was. I remember pleading with my mom to explain to me how he could be my dad if he and my mom had never been married. I was always rebuffed with a, "I'll explain it when you're older."
I did get older, and eventually I came to have a growing understanding of what the situation really was. I was a bastard. Born outside the confines of marriage. I had somewhat a sense of being a shame. I was a secret. His family could never know, could never find out. They could never learn what he'd done, could never find out that I exist. My existence itself would be too much of a scandal. And so, from youth for the rest of my life, carrying the secret in silence would be my responsibility. My burden to bear, to preserve the domestic peace in a family I don't know. My family that I don't know.
When I was eight, my mother married again. I gained a new house, a new father. Suddenly I was the only member of my household with my last name. See, I never had my dad's last name. I wish I did. But I don't. I got the last name that my mom had when I was born, which she in turn had from her scumbag ex-husband. A dreadful, bland, common last name I've always hated. A man I never met, a man I never had any connection with, nor ever cared to have any connection with - and it's his last name that's marked me throughout my entire life. I hate it. I hate it when people ask me about the "B[****]" family, and I have to weigh whether or not to yet again give an explanation that I'm the only one with that last name in my entire family, save perhaps ten or more generations back. All that connects me with my real father is my middle name, which is his given name. But someday I'd love to legally change my name, to drop the abomination I've borne my whole life and finally take the name that should have been mine by birthright. (Of course, whenever I mention the desire at home, my mother chastens me with warnings of how terribly dangerous it would be if the secret were finally unveiled.) My birthright... if I hadn't been, of course, a bastard.
Bastard. It has a harsh sound, doesn't it? It's a bit of a vulgar term. Used often as an insult. I could soft-peddle it. Choose a less-vulgar equivalent. But I won't. No. I'm not writing this to hide from the reality. I'm writing it to lay it bare. And I am a bastard.
Anyway, I still had the occasional biannual visit from my dad, my real dad. I always looked forward to it so much. I couldn't wait to see my dad again. But then, one year, he never came. And the next year, he never came. Nor the year after that. Nor the year after that. And you get the picture. I didn't know why. Had he stopped loving me? Had he stopped wanting to see me? That much I couldn't believe. For years, I thought perhaps he had died somewhere, maybe even overseas. My dad was dead, for all I know, for all anyone told me. And so I lived with my mom and my grandmother and my stepfather - a large man with strong views on disciplining children who made sure to warn me every few days or so that I'd likely be dead before I turned twenty, and who - in the service of teaching me to swim - would at times hold my head forcefully underwater until I began to drown, and only then release me for a breath before repeating the process. (I simply can't imagine why I'm now practically a hydrophobe!) At least the physical abuse was less frequent than the verbal abuse - but I often lived somewhat in fear in my own home anyway. I seem to remember at times seeking refuge in my room because he was less likely to interfere with me there. ('Coincidentally', I'm fairly reluctant to leave my room these days.) I loved him - somewhat - but he never understood me (never really saw fit to try), and I never understood him. Eventually my parents separated, in part at my insistence, because I wanted to get away from there. The separation was good for us all, I think. My stepfather's illness allowed him to mellow somewhat. As I grew, he began to show me respect. We could enjoy one another's company. I no longer felt I had to fear him. (Not that things were always bad or always terrifying before - not even close - but beyond my threshold to bear anyway.) I felt safe loving him, finally. We finally had a decent relationship, in the months leading up to the end. He succumbed to cancer in the fall of 2006.
But now I have to backtrack a ways. Several years earlier - on 25 August 2004, to be precise - I got an e-mail, which I still have. It was from someone I never expected: my dad. He apologetically explained the reason he'd dropped off the map for years. He hadn't wanted to interfere with my relationship with my new dad, my stepfather. He didn't want to be in the way. And so he stopped visiting to let us live our own lives. For years, I thought my dad was dead. I've mentioned this part of the story to a few friends, and I've been surprised to learn that they're usually surprised that I don't hate my dad for it. Here's a portion of what he said to me in that e-mail:
Ever since then, I've gotten to see him a couple times per year, for a few hours each visit. Whatever he can spare, really. I've corresponded with him by e-mail, best as we can. (The last e-mail exchange we had was in preparation for our meeting this past summer; I haven't seen him or heard from him since, though to be fair I haven't e-mailed him since then either, though I should. He was hoping to visit me late last month, but the timing didn't work out for him.)
A bit before he popped back into my life, I found a new hobby: genealogy. I love genealogy. It's one of my passions. I love learning more about who I am, who we are, where we came from. According to those old e-mails from 2004, the first time we met up again, I pestered him to provide me with some genealogical info on his side of the family, which he did. I kept at genealogy for a while after that before setting it aside for a number of years. A couple years ago, one of my mother's cousins got me back into it again, and I've learned so much about both sides of my family.
Anyway, like I said, lately I've been feeling reflective. I'm big on heritage. I'm big on family. I know of my family on his side of things.... but I don't know them. And I can't find the words to express how badly I wish I did. 'Wish' isn't a strong enough word. 'Long' isn't even a strong enough word. Ever since I was a child, one of the deepest longings, wishes, desires of my heart has been to not have to live in secret like this, but to be able to have real familial fellowship with my own family. I've always wanted to have the family bonds I never could. My longing has always been that I could know - I mean, really know and be known by - my dad's side of the family. No fear of reprisal. No fear of 'outing' him and his past. No fear of disrupting his life and ruining his own family. If I could have that.... if I could publicly be one of them, be acknowledged as a son of my father, a brother of my brothers and sister.... I mean, they don't even know me. I'm their brother, and they've never even heard my name uttered. They don't know I exist. And that breaks my heart. It always has. This has always been hard for me. I know I can't really reach out fully to my paternal extended family, because if his nuclear family finds out, there's no telling what the harmful repercussions could be. From youth on up, I was always warned about the need for secrecy. But that's no way for a child to live. That's no way for anyone to live. And yet I was given the heavy obligation to live in private as the secret child, the bastard, the one no one can ever know about. I can never proudly say in public, "This is who I am," without first having to carefully way the probability that there'll be fallout from it. It's always been rough on me.
I've never known my brothers. I've never known my sister. I've never known my nieces. I never got to see or be seen by either of my paternal grandparents, and now it's too late for that. I've never known any of my aunts, uncles, cousins on that side of the family. What's perhaps just as bad, I've never gotten to really know my heritage. I'm big on heritage. I want to know where I come from, what legacy I carry through life, what contributed to who I am now. There are entire ethnic groups I have to be wary about publicly identifying myself with in certain contexts - my own people. An entire culture, an entire history, an entire set of traditions that my birthright should've influenced my childhood, should've shaped my dialect and my speech patterns, should've sculpted the way I view the world. But it didn't. It didn't because I was artificially severed from it by the circumstances of my birth and by the need for secrecy and separation. Those traditional recipes, I've never tasted. Those proverbs, that history.... I've lived cut off. Oh sure, now that I know some of the story of my people - my own people! - I've read a number of books, studied the history, learned about the genocide, and whatnot.... but it's not experiential. It's abstract, fuzzy, and second-hand at best. But I should have fed on this as a living tradition. But I never was. And I doubt I ever will be.
No disrespect to my maternal heritage and lineage, of course. I'm immensely proud of it. Much of the past year, I've been focusing all but exclusively on exploring it, now that I have the resources to do so. I've got a growing consciousness of what it really means to be Pennsylvania German, to have roots that go back not merely to Lutheran and Reformed immigrants, but even to an assortment of German Anabaptists, to simple illiterate farmers for whom English was a second language at best and often a foreign language entirely, even for some of those born and raised in the United States. I identify quite well with my mother's lineage and heritage - but it isn't all of me. There's more to my family than this family; there's more to my blood than this blood; there's more to my rightful cultural inheritance than Amish Paradise. But that's all I've ever had, and often barely that. And to me, that's a crime. It breaks my heart.
Take one of my most predominant ethnic heritages on my father's side; for reasons of privacy, I'm not certain I can even be safe mentioning it here. (It kills me to have to withhold it like that, as though it were a matter of shame.) I identify very strongly with it. I'm in awe at the strength, the suffering, the sacrifice that people went through. All four of my grandmother's grandparents were immigrants from that people. I've joined a few Facebook groups discussing their history and culture, groups united around descent from that people - and at times I scarcely know what's going on. I have nothing to contribute. I have no family stories, I have no family traditions. They were stolen from me by my circumstances. And it kills me. I've never gotten to tell my dad most of this. I'm afraid to. I'm afraid of causing pain. I'm afraid of consequences. I'm afraid of being abandoned, deserted, unloved. I've always been afraid of that.
I feel conflicted on a regular basis. I want nothing more than to be publicly who I am. But I can't. It isn't permitted me. I have a responsibility and a burden, the obligation of secrecy. I love my dad. I don't want any harm to come to him or his family. I don't want to disrupt their life or his marriage. I love him. But I resent the burden. I resent it beyond words' power to convey. Because it keeps from me what ought to be mine, what any person ought to be able to have: family, heritage, belonging, identity. I'm without father, with only half a heritage, half a cultural inheritance, half a family, half a self. Sometimes I'm mad. Sometimes, honestly, I want to break down in tears. I'm resisting the urge right now. It matters that much to me. This burden isn't fair. It wasn't my choice that made me a bastard. It wasn't my choice that kept me a secret from the beginning. I wasn't the one with the responsibility of confessing what was done. And I can't not say that there was and is such a responsibility, though it isn't my place to speak of it. I never asked for this burden, but it's mine. I inherited an impossible situation: I can reach out for family to end my private suffering only at the expensive risk of breaking family bonds and hurting someone I love. I'd give nearly anything to have the issue resolved, to finally gain my freedom. I've taken small calculated risks in the past - got to know one of my father's cousins (safely, in that their branches of the family have been long estranged), even follow my half-brother on Twitter. A risk each and every time. I hate it. I want to be free. But I can't be. Certainly not in the foreseeable future, not until it's too late, and probably not ever.
I suppose that's just the irresolvable burden of bastardy for me.
In the late 1980s, a married businessman with three children - two sons, one daughter - moved to my area to consult for a company there. While there, he and a significantly younger coworker fell for each other. And during that time, they carried on an affair. She, the coworker, who had been married a few times before but hadn't had any children, found herself pregnant. He, the businessman, had fathered a child out of wedlock, behind his wife's back. And so, about nine months later, an emergency Caesarean section was required to deliver the child; he was being strangled to death by his own umbilical cord. He was born alright, but there was little hope for his survival, miniscule as he was (a mere seventeen inches in length, and less than four pounds in weight). He probably wouldn't survive even that night. But he did. He lived. And I am he.
Now, in time - I'm really not sure when - the affair came to a close, though certainly not for lack of love between the parties. The man's family - my dad's family - never learned about what happened. The wife had some suspicions for a time, I'm told, but her search for answers turned up nothing. To this day, my dad has never told his family what he did. Never told his wife about the affair. Never told his children that they have a half-brother out there in the world. I can understand the fear. Who knows what sort of ramifications that might have on his nuclear family, on his household? So in one sense, I can't blame him - or, at least, I can understand.
Meanwhile, I lived a fatherless life. I was raised by my somewhat protective mother and grandmother - undoubtedly the source of my unbridled masculinity and athletic prowess. (I hope the sarcasm isn't lost on anyone.) Oh sure, every now and then my dad would come to visit, when he could do so in secret. For a long time, he had a position working outside the country, and would often swing by our house on his return before going home; and he'd bring me this trinket or that trinket, a little souvenir of life further south. So I might see him once or twice a year, for a few hours at a time. That was my connection with my father. When I was a child, I couldn't understand what the situation was. I remember pleading with my mom to explain to me how he could be my dad if he and my mom had never been married. I was always rebuffed with a, "I'll explain it when you're older."
I did get older, and eventually I came to have a growing understanding of what the situation really was. I was a bastard. Born outside the confines of marriage. I had somewhat a sense of being a shame. I was a secret. His family could never know, could never find out. They could never learn what he'd done, could never find out that I exist. My existence itself would be too much of a scandal. And so, from youth for the rest of my life, carrying the secret in silence would be my responsibility. My burden to bear, to preserve the domestic peace in a family I don't know. My family that I don't know.
When I was eight, my mother married again. I gained a new house, a new father. Suddenly I was the only member of my household with my last name. See, I never had my dad's last name. I wish I did. But I don't. I got the last name that my mom had when I was born, which she in turn had from her scumbag ex-husband. A dreadful, bland, common last name I've always hated. A man I never met, a man I never had any connection with, nor ever cared to have any connection with - and it's his last name that's marked me throughout my entire life. I hate it. I hate it when people ask me about the "B[****]" family, and I have to weigh whether or not to yet again give an explanation that I'm the only one with that last name in my entire family, save perhaps ten or more generations back. All that connects me with my real father is my middle name, which is his given name. But someday I'd love to legally change my name, to drop the abomination I've borne my whole life and finally take the name that should have been mine by birthright. (Of course, whenever I mention the desire at home, my mother chastens me with warnings of how terribly dangerous it would be if the secret were finally unveiled.) My birthright... if I hadn't been, of course, a bastard.
Bastard. It has a harsh sound, doesn't it? It's a bit of a vulgar term. Used often as an insult. I could soft-peddle it. Choose a less-vulgar equivalent. But I won't. No. I'm not writing this to hide from the reality. I'm writing it to lay it bare. And I am a bastard.
Anyway, I still had the occasional biannual visit from my dad, my real dad. I always looked forward to it so much. I couldn't wait to see my dad again. But then, one year, he never came. And the next year, he never came. Nor the year after that. Nor the year after that. And you get the picture. I didn't know why. Had he stopped loving me? Had he stopped wanting to see me? That much I couldn't believe. For years, I thought perhaps he had died somewhere, maybe even overseas. My dad was dead, for all I know, for all anyone told me. And so I lived with my mom and my grandmother and my stepfather - a large man with strong views on disciplining children who made sure to warn me every few days or so that I'd likely be dead before I turned twenty, and who - in the service of teaching me to swim - would at times hold my head forcefully underwater until I began to drown, and only then release me for a breath before repeating the process. (I simply can't imagine why I'm now practically a hydrophobe!) At least the physical abuse was less frequent than the verbal abuse - but I often lived somewhat in fear in my own home anyway. I seem to remember at times seeking refuge in my room because he was less likely to interfere with me there. ('Coincidentally', I'm fairly reluctant to leave my room these days.) I loved him - somewhat - but he never understood me (never really saw fit to try), and I never understood him. Eventually my parents separated, in part at my insistence, because I wanted to get away from there. The separation was good for us all, I think. My stepfather's illness allowed him to mellow somewhat. As I grew, he began to show me respect. We could enjoy one another's company. I no longer felt I had to fear him. (Not that things were always bad or always terrifying before - not even close - but beyond my threshold to bear anyway.) I felt safe loving him, finally. We finally had a decent relationship, in the months leading up to the end. He succumbed to cancer in the fall of 2006.
But now I have to backtrack a ways. Several years earlier - on 25 August 2004, to be precise - I got an e-mail, which I still have. It was from someone I never expected: my dad. He apologetically explained the reason he'd dropped off the map for years. He hadn't wanted to interfere with my relationship with my new dad, my stepfather. He didn't want to be in the way. And so he stopped visiting to let us live our own lives. For years, I thought my dad was dead. I've mentioned this part of the story to a few friends, and I've been surprised to learn that they're usually surprised that I don't hate my dad for it. Here's a portion of what he said to me in that e-mail:
Guess who? Yes it's me. I called your mother at work recently after I heard she was no longer with R[****]. she gave me your email address. I have missed you and now I realize that going away was not the right thing to do. I was trying to stay out of the way with R[****] and your mother as I felt he resented my visits. I wanted to give you guys a chance. But it still was not meant to be and now we have missed all this time. I am truely sorry and hope you can someday forgive me. I asked your mom not to tell you about me contacting her the other day so I hope you will not be angry with her. She is worried about that. [...] Your mother is so proud of you and so am I. I would like to come see you this Friday if it is okay with you. Please let me know. I am working a job but can get off work to come so let me know. Hope to see you soon.... Love, DadBut no matter. I was just happy to learn that he was alive and wanted to see me. And of course I wanted to see him. I love him. I love my dad, even if I barely feel like I know him. I always have and I always will. So I answered him a few hours later:
Of course I want to see you. I'm not mad at all. I would love to see you Friday. You just made my year, Dad. Love, J[*******]
A bit before he popped back into my life, I found a new hobby: genealogy. I love genealogy. It's one of my passions. I love learning more about who I am, who we are, where we came from. According to those old e-mails from 2004, the first time we met up again, I pestered him to provide me with some genealogical info on his side of the family, which he did. I kept at genealogy for a while after that before setting it aside for a number of years. A couple years ago, one of my mother's cousins got me back into it again, and I've learned so much about both sides of my family.
Anyway, like I said, lately I've been feeling reflective. I'm big on heritage. I'm big on family. I know of my family on his side of things.... but I don't know them. And I can't find the words to express how badly I wish I did. 'Wish' isn't a strong enough word. 'Long' isn't even a strong enough word. Ever since I was a child, one of the deepest longings, wishes, desires of my heart has been to not have to live in secret like this, but to be able to have real familial fellowship with my own family. I've always wanted to have the family bonds I never could. My longing has always been that I could know - I mean, really know and be known by - my dad's side of the family. No fear of reprisal. No fear of 'outing' him and his past. No fear of disrupting his life and ruining his own family. If I could have that.... if I could publicly be one of them, be acknowledged as a son of my father, a brother of my brothers and sister.... I mean, they don't even know me. I'm their brother, and they've never even heard my name uttered. They don't know I exist. And that breaks my heart. It always has. This has always been hard for me. I know I can't really reach out fully to my paternal extended family, because if his nuclear family finds out, there's no telling what the harmful repercussions could be. From youth on up, I was always warned about the need for secrecy. But that's no way for a child to live. That's no way for anyone to live. And yet I was given the heavy obligation to live in private as the secret child, the bastard, the one no one can ever know about. I can never proudly say in public, "This is who I am," without first having to carefully way the probability that there'll be fallout from it. It's always been rough on me.
I've never known my brothers. I've never known my sister. I've never known my nieces. I never got to see or be seen by either of my paternal grandparents, and now it's too late for that. I've never known any of my aunts, uncles, cousins on that side of the family. What's perhaps just as bad, I've never gotten to really know my heritage. I'm big on heritage. I want to know where I come from, what legacy I carry through life, what contributed to who I am now. There are entire ethnic groups I have to be wary about publicly identifying myself with in certain contexts - my own people. An entire culture, an entire history, an entire set of traditions that my birthright should've influenced my childhood, should've shaped my dialect and my speech patterns, should've sculpted the way I view the world. But it didn't. It didn't because I was artificially severed from it by the circumstances of my birth and by the need for secrecy and separation. Those traditional recipes, I've never tasted. Those proverbs, that history.... I've lived cut off. Oh sure, now that I know some of the story of my people - my own people! - I've read a number of books, studied the history, learned about the genocide, and whatnot.... but it's not experiential. It's abstract, fuzzy, and second-hand at best. But I should have fed on this as a living tradition. But I never was. And I doubt I ever will be.
No disrespect to my maternal heritage and lineage, of course. I'm immensely proud of it. Much of the past year, I've been focusing all but exclusively on exploring it, now that I have the resources to do so. I've got a growing consciousness of what it really means to be Pennsylvania German, to have roots that go back not merely to Lutheran and Reformed immigrants, but even to an assortment of German Anabaptists, to simple illiterate farmers for whom English was a second language at best and often a foreign language entirely, even for some of those born and raised in the United States. I identify quite well with my mother's lineage and heritage - but it isn't all of me. There's more to my family than this family; there's more to my blood than this blood; there's more to my rightful cultural inheritance than Amish Paradise. But that's all I've ever had, and often barely that. And to me, that's a crime. It breaks my heart.
Take one of my most predominant ethnic heritages on my father's side; for reasons of privacy, I'm not certain I can even be safe mentioning it here. (It kills me to have to withhold it like that, as though it were a matter of shame.) I identify very strongly with it. I'm in awe at the strength, the suffering, the sacrifice that people went through. All four of my grandmother's grandparents were immigrants from that people. I've joined a few Facebook groups discussing their history and culture, groups united around descent from that people - and at times I scarcely know what's going on. I have nothing to contribute. I have no family stories, I have no family traditions. They were stolen from me by my circumstances. And it kills me. I've never gotten to tell my dad most of this. I'm afraid to. I'm afraid of causing pain. I'm afraid of consequences. I'm afraid of being abandoned, deserted, unloved. I've always been afraid of that.
I feel conflicted on a regular basis. I want nothing more than to be publicly who I am. But I can't. It isn't permitted me. I have a responsibility and a burden, the obligation of secrecy. I love my dad. I don't want any harm to come to him or his family. I don't want to disrupt their life or his marriage. I love him. But I resent the burden. I resent it beyond words' power to convey. Because it keeps from me what ought to be mine, what any person ought to be able to have: family, heritage, belonging, identity. I'm without father, with only half a heritage, half a cultural inheritance, half a family, half a self. Sometimes I'm mad. Sometimes, honestly, I want to break down in tears. I'm resisting the urge right now. It matters that much to me. This burden isn't fair. It wasn't my choice that made me a bastard. It wasn't my choice that kept me a secret from the beginning. I wasn't the one with the responsibility of confessing what was done. And I can't not say that there was and is such a responsibility, though it isn't my place to speak of it. I never asked for this burden, but it's mine. I inherited an impossible situation: I can reach out for family to end my private suffering only at the expensive risk of breaking family bonds and hurting someone I love. I'd give nearly anything to have the issue resolved, to finally gain my freedom. I've taken small calculated risks in the past - got to know one of my father's cousins (safely, in that their branches of the family have been long estranged), even follow my half-brother on Twitter. A risk each and every time. I hate it. I want to be free. But I can't be. Certainly not in the foreseeable future, not until it's too late, and probably not ever.
I suppose that's just the irresolvable burden of bastardy for me.
Courageous.
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