a different dad

On Thursday morning I was sitting in the kitchen, Rebecca was making breakfast and Indy was getting dressed for the day, and my phone rang. When I picked it up, I saw my middle daughter Hopie’s name…

I can’t tell you the last time she called me.

I had been praying that she, or Heidi would call. Many times. And strangely, earlier that morning in particular. I hadn’t seen either of the girls in a year and they’d not spoken much more than a sentence at a time to me in more than two. So to see Hopie’s name come up on my phone felt like an answer to prayer.

“Dad, I need to talk with you. Can we meet out in the cemetery on Saturday around one o’clock?” her voice said.

“Sure Hopie, I’ll meet you there”.

And so on a bench beside Joey’s wooden cross, after two and a half years, Hopie and I sat down together and had our first conversation. Actually, she talked and I listened. Which was fine with me.

I had no idea what she wanted to talk with me about. And honestly, it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to see her. To have the opportunity to look into her eyes and her look into mine, with hopes that she might realize that we aren’t enemies. And that I love her deeply.

And looking back now, I can’t help but think my wish came true. Although in a way that I never expected.

“I know you know that Heidi and I recently reconnected with our birth mother, and we’ve gotten close in the last two years”, Hopie began. "and she shared something with me that I think you need to know”.

“I don't want to hurt you. But you need know that I took a ‘23 & Me’ test and it turns out that I have a different Dad than Heidi and Indiana."

I’m not sure what I thought Hopie was going to say, but I was not expecting to hear that.

“My birth mom told me that there had been someone else, and that she was fairly certain that I was his. And she wanted me to know”, Hopie said as tears streamed down her face, “and so I took the test and it confirmed what she said”.

“You’re not my father”.

I just listened. Not quite sure that this was really happening. Processing it the best I could.

“I’ve known for a while now”, she said, “and can’t keep it a secret anymore. I made a video that I’m planning to share, but before I do, I just wanted to tell you in person, so you don’t hear it from someone, or some place else”.

I took a deep breath. “Thank you Hopie for telling me”, I said.

”I don’t know if this is a surprise to you, or if you knew already”, she continued, with tears still falling, “but I wanted to make sure you knew, before I tell other people”.

When she finished, I asked her if she’d like for me to respond, or if she just wanted me to listen. And she said “sure, go ahead”.

“I didn’t know” I told her, and I didn’t. “But in another way Hopie, it doesn’t completely surprise me”.

And I shared with her my memory of coming back from Japan in January of 1988 when I was in the Marines after my unit’s six month deployment to the Middle East, and how me and her mom weren’t doing well, and when soon after, we found out that she was pregnant, how frustrating it was. How it was a difficult time to add another child to the mix, when our marriage was a mess and we were already struggling.

And I shared how that next September I was in the hospital room on the day she was born and how special it was. That she’d come a week or two before her due date and how when the nurse handed her to me, I noticed how beautiful, but also how fully formed and long she was. And how long her fingernails were. And I told the doctor innocently, “wow, she’s really developed for being so early". And how the doctor said, “Oh no, she’s not early… this baby is a week or two past due”.

And I told Hopie how I stopped and looked up, and I told him, “she can’t be late, because I didn’t get back from Japan until the second week of January…” And how the doctor and I stood looking at each other uncomfortably for a few seconds, me trying do the math in my head, before he finally said, “I don’t know what to tell you, except… this baby is way past her due date”.

And I shared with her that I had stored that moment away, and not really thought of it again until she was about a year old.

“Your Mom and I’s relationship had continued to go from bad to worse and we had decided to get divorced. She was going to leave Heidi with me and take you with her”.

“I pleaded with her to let me keep both of you girls, but she insisted on taking you. And so it was then that I asked her if you were mine, or if something had happened when I was gone overseas. She told me again and again that nothing had happened and that yes, you were mine. And that was that”.

“You and her got on a plane and Heidi stayed with me. But we wrote your mom letters and called her, always asking if I could come get you, so you could be with Heidi and I.”

And I explained how one day a few months later, your Mom called and said I could come get you. “And so I flew to Florida and picked you up and from that moment on, I kept you and I raised you”.

Hopie knew the part about her Mom taking her and how when she was a year and a half old, I came and got her. But she didn’t know anything about the questions I had before that.

And so I told Hopie that I guess a part of me knew.

But more than that. I told her I didn’t care. That this news and this blood test doesn’t change anything for me.

“I love you as my daughter and I always will”.

And then Hopie told she told me how she had made contact with the man who was her real father. And how they’d met and have begun getting to know each other.

“Do you want to see a picture?” she asked.

“Yes, I’d love to”.

And as I sat on the bench beside my thirty-six year old daughter, she held up her phone and shared a picture of her with a stranger who was now her real father.

Life is strange.

Forrest Gump probably said it best. When each of us wake up and greet a new day, we never know what we’re gonna get.

After Hopie came home to be with Heidi and I, we only saw their birth mom twice in all the years that the girls were growing up. Once when they were about 7 and 9, she was passing through Nashville and stopped to see them. By then she’d had another child, and though the girls were excited to meet their mom, they said it was more like meeting an aunt or someone they’d heard about, but didn’t have a connection to.

Years later when the girls were both out of High School, Heidi found their mom on Myspace. And she came and visited them again. She even came here to the farmhouse and Joey and I and she and the girls had a nice dinner and visit with her.

By then she had a couple of kids and seemed to have found happiness and a life she was proud of. And thankfully, I had too.

I’ve had a few days now to think about my talk with Hopie. About the big picture and what might change now, and what the future is going to look like.

And honestly, all I can think is how thankfu; lI am that she called me. And that God gave us the opportunity to look into each other’s eyes and talk together. I hoped for the chance to let Hopie know how much I love her.

And God gave it to me.

My love for Hopie isn't based on us having the same blood running through our veins, I love her because she’s my child, even if technically as the video she shared later that same day says, she’s not.

As I mentioned in my last blog post (and a number of them before that), its been quite a year. And now this weekend to learn this, is a lot to process.

I’ve had a couple of people text me since Hopie shared the video, asking if I’m okay. And I am. I’m disappointed and sad that it took three decades to learn this. But the truth is…I mostly hurt for Hopie.

Hopie has such a tender heart, filled with child-like wonder and light, even in the darkest of days. It's heartbreaking that she has had to deal with such an incredible amount of pain and loss in her relatively short life. Way more I think than most people do in a lifetime. This is going to be hard for her I know. Making sense of something that’s hard to make sense of. Finding out that who you were, and also 'whose' you were, is not what you’ve been led to believe your whole life.

And I also hurt for Hopie’s Mom. Knowing that she carried that secret around all these years. I can only imagine how hard that was, and how scary it must have been for her to finally tell the truth. All these years later, I don’t fault her Mom now for keeping this from Hopie, and from me. I’m sure she had her reasons. She was young and I’d like to think did the best she could with what she had and who she was at the time.

The truth is, if it weren’t for God’s grace in my own life, I’d be curled up in a fetal position right now, with all the mistakes I’ve made through the years.

Life is hard. And so is marriage, and parenting. Especially when you’re young and don’t have a clue what you’re doing. No positive role models and no faith to guide you. It’s bound to lead to broken promises, broken families and broken hearts.

Every day, I believe we get the opportunity to change and to grow and become what we wish we could've, and should've, been before. To be different Dads and Moms, and husbands and wives, than we were before.

I’m thankful to still get to be learning how to be a better father in my old age. To my little one who is about to turn 11 next week (and is SO excited about it). And also to my older girls.

Heidi. And Hopie. Who are 38 and 36.