What Are the Chances?

It was February of 2006, and I was sitting in my living room talking with my husband and mother. I was thinking about my father, whom I had never met. I wondered if he knew about me or thought about me. How would he feel about my new marriage, or knowing that he has grandchildren? I had asked my mother a few questions about him over the years, but I never showed interest in knowing about him. “What is his name?” I asked my mother. When she told me, I quickly jumped up, sat at the small desk, and went to Whitepages.com. I typed in my father’s name and the last known city of residence and pressed enter. “Today was the day! I was going to find my dad,” I thought.

There were over 200 names and addresses of my potential father. I had no idea where to begin, so I wrote down the first fifty names and phone numbers. The excitement of my new decision was still lingering, but now my stomach felt heavy, and I was getting nervous. I dialed the first number and listened to the ringing from the other side. After a short minute, an answering machine started speaking to me. I did not think about what I was going to say if someone or something answered. Once I heard the beep, I quickly blurted, “Hi, I’m looking for my father. Please call me back if you knew my mother” and stated her name and the return number to call. After I hung up, I knew I was not ready for this process, but I kept moving forward. With shaking hands, I dialed the second number on the list. I received a loud screeching sound, and the operator stating that the wireless caller was no longer available. I felt a bit of relief. Maybe I was not as prepared to meet him as I thought I was.

By the third call attempt, my husband could tell I was second-guessing this idea. “Would you be willing to call some of the numbers for me?” I asked. He must have felt sympathy for me as he responded “Yes” while grabbing the phone from my hands. He dialed the third number on the list, and a woman answered. My husband explained that he was calling for his wife, and we were looking for her father, and gave the woman my mother’s name. The lady responded, “Please wait one moment.” That one minute felt like a lifetime to me, and I kept thinking, “Could this be my father, and does this lady think we are crazy?” My husband started talking with a man next. I will never forget the drop in my stomach when I heard my husband say, “Yes, I think that she would like to speak with you too.” I could not believe it. “This is it,” I remember thinking, “We found my dad.”

I said, “Hello,” with a trembling voice. Were the walls closing in on me, or was it just my tears making it hard to breathe? He was very emotional and could not stop crying himself, so he asked if he could call me back the next day. He needed a little time to “get himself together.” I talked with his wife for a moment, and she said, “I’ve known about you since our first date, and we’ve waited for you to show up on our doorstep for 20 years.” To know that he was just as emotionally unprepared for this encounter was shocking to me, but it made me feel so loved and wanted.

We talked the next day for over an hour when he called. We asked everything you could ever imagine. He wanted to know how I grew up, what kind of grades I had, where I lived, and what type of person I was. I wanted to ask if I had siblings, what his wife was like, and if he ever thought about me. There were a lot of tears and emotions on both sides. I never knew something was missing from my life until that day. Now, we talk all the time and have planned to meet in-person by next summer. I cannot wait to hug my dad and talk face to face. We have waited a long time to finish the connection that we found 14 years ago.