"Don't ever give up!" It's the resounding cry to all
on so many adoptee support pages.
I agree.
I believe.
I encourage others to keep believing.
More people are testing their DNA than ever, and there is more potential for results than ever.
And yet sometimes, I can’t be the one to carry the search for
a while. Even though it’s my own.
My friend Gayle came to me a while back and said, “Let me
handle the search. Don’t focus on it right now, just let me do it.” I never
asked her to do that. I would never expect her to do that. But, she offered.
And in my exhaustion, I fell into her arms and simply said, “thank you.”
Gayle taking the lead came after previous searches that slayed me. I cried more
tears cried than I ever knew I had inside me each time a DNA test came back and wasn't a match. On the one where I met "M" and so desperately wanted her to be family, I remember getting the results and immediately scheduling a massage, my whole body hurt so much because of the anguish. I can still call up in my mind what it was like to lay on that massage table with tears falling down through the face hole the entire time, gathering a literal puddle on the floor. After all of that and more, I
think Gayle knew instinctively that I didn’t know if I had one more try in me. She said,
“When you don’t have it in you, I have it in me…”
Gayle has told me she will never, ever, ever, ever, ever give
up. And I love her for it. I expect nothing and she gives everything. She works tirelessly with all of my DNA results and makes
trees. And then more trees. She comes up for air once in a while and tells me
if she found anything.
Although I haven’t struck DNA gold yet, I still recommend DNA
testing to everyone. I have discovered so much through DNA that has been valuable to my search. Last August through new DNA results on Ancestry, a family
secret in my biological maternal family was revealed. My natural mother had warned me that if I did DNA I may "upset the apple cart" (her exact words) and now I know what she was talking about. In reality, it upsets absolutely no one's apple cart who is committed to living truthfully and transparently.
Through the revelation of that secret, I came
to realize that we had been headed in the wrong direction for a while. My search team wasted a lot of time barking up the wrong trees because of misinformation. There were tips I was given that were lies…with no other
intention than to throw me off on the search. It’s my thought that one reason
it was important for them to try to throw me off was because if and when I find my natural father, it
may have potential to reveal more on the details of the other secrets.
Being lied to hurts but it’s built my resolve even more on how to
live. And I’ll take it this far to say – how God wants everyone to live.
We need to all live like a DNA test.
It doesn’t lie.
