Dispersed DNA: A Trail of Siblings
I am almost positive my biological single handedly was the inspiration of the term man whore. Like for real.
I know most of you know what the result of promiscuous sexual relationships is…….or any sexual relationship usually: KIDS!!!! Well pregnancies, I can’t really confirm if they always result in children. For my biological dad specifically, it resulted in at least three children. I am pretty sure there are SEVERAL others, some that he may know about and honestly some that he has no idea exist.
I am mostly sure that I was his first child. He was married to my mother, and during that time, they had me and my sister Jessica. I was born in 1985 and Jessica came along in 1987. At some point, not really a shock, my Dad began cheating on my mom, or, maybe he just started getting caught cheating on my mom. This lead to my parents getting a divorce around 1993, shortly after my dad got someone pregnant, and along came my half-brother Zachary in 1994 I believe. I remember my mom telling me a story about how devastated she was when my dad told her he was having another child, she said it hurt her heart that he would have another kid when he didn’t take care of the two he already had. To make things sting a little more, he told my mom how excited and proud he was of this new baby, because he was finally having a SON, and it just so happens that Zachary was born on my fathers birthday. (How beautiful right? Ugh.) The audacity that man had to tell my mom that after completely abandoning his two children with her is sickening. But that is right in par with everything else that my dad has ever had the nerve to say, so not really surprising.
Now, what about all of those kids that we don’t know about? I have been told several times that I have another sister, somewhere in the Rayne/Crowley area. I have never tried to do any digging into that. There definitely was a time, after my sister died in 2015 and Zachary died in 2017 that I had this overwhelming sense of loneliness, which made me think about finding all of these random children my father produced, or at least try to. Ultimately I decided that wasn’t what I really wanted. Jessica was my sister, my friend, the one person who knew it all. Zachary and I didn’t really have a relationship but we at least shared DNA. I couldn’t handle the thought of trying to establish a bond or a relationship with a stranger.
I was also very certain that I didn’t want to put any effort into the ridiculous task of actually finding these maybe siblings. Looking for siblings, with absolutely no background information, and a Dad who most certainly didn’t remember the women he slept with, much less the ones who he happened to impregnate, seems like a shitty job, with an impossible goal, with zero pay, that would take far too much of my effort. Ya know, after my Dad divorced my Mom, he didn’t exactly run in the circles of people who would be swabbing their cheek to send in a sample to 23andMe. I have done some Ancestry.com stuff, but no one else seems to be claiming ole James Paul as their father.
I think a really big part of me has avoided potentially finding any siblings mostly due to fear. I don’t think I can handle much more loss and grief. So when I think about adding new people into my life, including possible brothers and sisters, I don’t think about the fun and potential memories, instead my brain gets flooded with the possibility of getting to know these people, and maybe even liking them, which means something would happen for me to lose them, specifically death. And death makes me sad, and I have had enough for a long, long time. So I don’t let knew people in because it just adds to my list of people to miss and be sad about. [Obviously something I will be discussing with my therapist soon]
So….. would you want to meet a random kid your dad fathered somewhere in the world? Or maybe even a child that one or both of your parents placed for adoption before you were born?
