So, the old addage "there is always a light at the end of the tunnel" turns out to be true after all. Sixteen years of searching... Who would have thought that after 16 years of searching that the search would actually prove fruitful? I thought I searched in vain. I thought I was just going through the motions, because if the search were going to yield results, wouldn't it have done so years ago? How is it that the Goddess seems to know exactly when to intervene? At the point when hope seems lost, when it seems there is nothing left to do but give up and give in... I found him. I found him in the same place I have been looking for years.... I found him basically right where I left him. Someone must have had him cloaked before. It's the only excuse I can think of. Why else wouldn't I have been able to find him before? And after 16 years, it was no longer even fathomable to me that he might have ever been looking for us, but evidently he had been... since 1996...
So, how do you tell your 16 year old fatherless child that his father has been found, and not only has he been found, but that he wants to make up for lost time, forge a relationship, be a part of his life? How do you tell your 16 year old that you can't even talk to, or even be in the same room with, the biggest news of his life?
You drive over to the hospital he is in and put a picture on the table in front if him. And you don't say a word. You let him look and you let him connect the dots. And you hope when it's time for you to speak, to answer his questions or confirm his assumptions, you hope that your voice still works. And somehow, it does. Somehow, when he asks who it is and you don't answer, somehow he figures it out. "Is this my dad?" he asks. I nod. "You found him?" he asks. Again, bobble head. "Does he want to see me?" This time, the nodding causes the tear ducts to well up. But he doesn't notice. His head is down and he is sobbing viciously into the crook of his arm. His whole body shakes. When he finally looks up, he asks how I found him and it's time to tell the story.
You drive over to the hospital he is in and put a picture on the table in front if him. And you don't say a word. You let him look and you let him connect the dots. And you hope when it's time for you to speak, to answer his questions or confirm his assumptions, you hope that your voice still works. And somehow, it does. Somehow, when he asks who it is and you don't answer, somehow he figures it out. "Is this my dad?" he asks. I nod. "You found him?" he asks. Again, bobble head. "Does he want to see me?" This time, the nodding causes the tear ducts to well up. But he doesn't notice. His head is down and he is sobbing viciously into the crook of his arm. His whole body shakes. When he finally looks up, he asks how I found him and it's time to tell the story.
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