Afterword

It's been just over a year since the results of a DNA test came back and revealed that I have a first cousin that lives just minutes away from me, a revelation that changed my life. In addition to being a new cousin, I found out that I am an uncle, great-uncle, and half-brother for the second time. And most incredibly of all, I found my biological father. He'll celebrate Father's Day next week for the first time in his life at the age of 86. More about that later.

The DNA juggernaut seems to have slowed for now, although I do still get a surge of adrenaline every month when 23andMe says I "have new 20 relatives" and I wonder if there is some fresh, new shock awaiting me. We've all settled in nicely, and my half-sister, nieces and nephews will be visiting us next week, their first trip to California together.

So it seems as good a time as any to take a step back and share the ways that this whole journey has surprised me, saddened me and thrilled me, and try to summarize the things I've learned about myself and this whole journey.

Schrödinger's Son

In the well-discussed theoretical physics thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger, if you are handed a box that has a cat in it, you may have a box that has a live cat, or a box that has a dead cat. Until you open the lid, you don’t whether the cat is alive or dead. The paradox of “Schrödinger’s Cat” theorem is that, until you take off the lid, the cat cannot be either alive or dead; he argues that the cat is both alive and dead, and that the fate of the cat can’t be known until it is seen. His physics point is that the result of a phenomenon depends more on the viewer than on the phenomenon.

I’m not arguing subatomic physics here, but I do believe that in many respects, I am "Schrödinger’s Son.” Let me explain.

To do so, I need to start here with my opinion on a controversial topic, abortion, for reasons that will become clear later. One of the arguments that the pro-life movement uses in its attacks on abortion rights is some variation of this: ‘you can’t abort a fetus because that zygote might become the next Beethoven.” This argument is ridiculous, and one need only look at “Schrödinger’s Cat” to see why. Of course, Beethoven became Beethoven. But we can say that because we’ve long ago opened the lid on the box that contained Beethoven. If we were alive in 1770 and were debating whether a fetus would become Beethoven, that’s a fallacy; that’s “Schrödinger’s Beethoven.” The lid is still closed. That may become Beethoven, but it just as possibly could become Napoleon, a pauper, a seamstress, or Hitler’s grandfather. We can only know these things in hindsight, after the lid has been lifted.

So I look back on all that I have been through the last 12 years, and I have to say I have sizable gratitude that Ellen decided not to abort me in a back alley. (This was before Roe vs. Wade.) However, the only reason I can have gratitude that she did is because the lid is off of the box. If I had been adopted into a family that beat me, and I became a hardened criminal, would that make my gratitude less meaningful? What if I had died of an infant’s disease at 1 month before being adopted? Would I still be grateful?

No. Gratitude in this case is a “Schrödinger” moment, it only exists because the lid is off the box. In the case of women understanding their options, I firmly stand behind their right to choose while the lid is still closed.

Looking at this from another angle, I think Tom can clearly think of this as a “Schrödinger’s Son” moment, but only now that the lid has been taken off. The connection we have is obvious, and it feels like it is 57 years of father/son bonding crammed into a couple of days, without all of the father/son fighting crap that so many go through. It’s been great.

 But the lid is off now, for both of us. We know who we are. We’re not suffering a father’s early adult fathering insecurities, or a teenage son’s indignant, stupid rebellion. We’ve been thrust into this, lid off, as an 85 year old man who has finally experienced one of life’s greatest joys, and as a 57 year old man, well past the worst cramps of his insecurities who is finally discovering what it feels like to have a real father, even if it’s condensed into just a few days, weeks or years.

Frankly, our whole relationship is kind of a reverse-Schrödinger’s thought experiment: If I had been born to Ellen and Tom and stayed in a family relationship with them, what would that have looked like?

In an alternate universe, I can picture that as being total chaos. Ellen probably wouldn’t have stopped drinking, Tom probably wouldn’t have had the life-saving help that he got in this dimension. And God knows what hell I would have experienced or put them through. In that alternate universe, I can clearly see that I am a complete disaster.

In this universe, there was only one outcome that makes sense, where I have the people I need to make my life work and create a meaningful existence where I try to change the world through music, where Ellen gets sober and finds her lifelong love, where Tom pulls his life together and meets Nancy, and they both eventually meet the son that they likely unwittingly procreated in a brief tryst in a Colorado snowbank and introduce him to the rest of his huge family. I am “Schrödinger’s Son,” lid off the box, living my best life.

Prologue

If you’re telling a story, whose is it? Is it yours, because you’re the one telling the story? Is it the listeners' story, because they’re experiencing it for the first time? If it has universal human themes, does it belong to everybody? Maybe it belongs to nobody?

Take, for instance, the story which I am unwinding. My version tells my part of it. But there is also the mother who gave birth to me, and gave me up for adoption at birth and then worked to suppress the memory until I found her 45 years later. Then there is the story told from the perspective of the other child she gave up for adoption, who found her 58 years later, or the story of her daughter and grandchildren; is it her story? And there’s the story of her oldest daughter who knew none of this, and is grappling with all of it. My mother is a grandmother and great-grandmother (x3) for the first time at the age of 80. Whose story is this?

And then there’s the young Air Force airman, assigned to make sure that the airmen under his command made up to the Colorado ski resort and back, unharmed, who remembers meeting a woman on the slopes for an unnamed fling. Is his story true? Does it connect with the other stories? Does it matter if it's true? I mean, never let the truth get in the way of a great story, right?  My father is a father for the first time at the age of 85. Whose story is this?

And then there is his first cousin, who all of a sudden discovered that a man who lived just a few minutes away from her might be the son of that airman, and decided to help him discover the truth. Is this her story?

And then there is all of you, dear readers. You have settled onto this because there must be some universal truth here. What is it? Is it fatherhood? Motherhood? Parenting? Home? Family? Happiness? When I first found Ellen, what resonated with everyone was not my search, it was that first question she asked me in our first phone call: "Are you happy?"

Am I?

Secrets

 Good starting points before you venture into this post: The circumstances around my adoption: https://acustatic.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-22-1963.html

...and more importantly, this post, which is a complete primer for all of you who may be trying to catch up on what this is about: https://acustatic.blogspot.com/2010/09/october-1963.html

Good to go? 

OK, buckle up. Because as hard as this has been for ME to keep up with this far, in the last two months it has become exponentially more confusing, confounding, surprising, life-changing and life-affirming.

Here's Why My Heart is Breaking

Here's why my heart is breaking. It's not because of police violence against black Americans. It's because we've known this was happening all along. Whatever the justification, white people have been fine looking the other way from racism, sexism and hatred in their own country, communities and even their own homes.

So white people, we're supposed to believe you now? We're supposed to believe that you'll all change, now that the evidence of America's original and continuing sin is overwhelming? Forget belief, for a moment; here is what I know:

As a kid in the late 60's, I listened as a father of a friend angrily used the 'N' word when talking about Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, at the dinner table.

Also as a kid, I listened as my Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Fullerton said that Catholics and Mormons were evil.

In high school I listened as my fellow white students called the Latinx students spics, wetbacks, and worse.

I listened as a child when a young man (who later became an evangelical pastor) laugh when I used the phrase "Native American spirituality" because, he said, they weren't capable of spirituality.

When I worked at First Congregational Church, I watched as some people left that church, angry because they were going to make the church 'open and affirming' of gays and lesbians. The people they were insulting had sat beside them in the pews for years.

Have I done any of those things myself? I don't remember doing it, but likely so. I'll cop to it, even if I believe it would have been inadvertent. I do remember a time when I was a kid talking about the movie "Midway" I had just seen, and I was so excited about it, I blurted out "then they shot down that Jap's plane." I immediately realized that my aunt's partner, Tae Yaki, a survivor of the internment camps was sitting at the table. I'm sure she forgave me and I never mentioned it, but the horror I felt has stayed with me.

Where is your horror white people? Or more importantly, where has it been all these years?

And the horror now? We all watched as our fellow Americans voted for the worst human being on the planet for President, for whatever reason: Hillary, e-mails, immigration, health care, conservative ideals... blah blah blah. YOU are the horror. A woman I've known and loved my whole life said she did it because of health care. When I pressed her on his racism, she dropped the "my best friend is black" card. Another person said he did it because of conservative principles, even though Trump is the complete antithesis of conservatism. He lied to make you think he was a conservative, and now he's proven how gullible you all were. I cannot anymore pretend that I am OK with that. You owe the world an apology.

And now we watch as white militia morons storm state capitols and see no reprisal, but black women are killed in their own homes and black men are suffocated or shot by police officers in horrific numbers. And yet some of you white people STILL insist on defending the status quo, to the point that you'll swallow any conspiracy theory that comes around the bend because it's easier than recognizing that the only simple answer is that America is fucked up and has been most of its history.

I've been pretty silent through the last week, mostly because the floor needs to recognize the voices of the young and the people of color who are rightfully fed up with all of this: the racism, the ignorance, the corporate theft, ignoring science and what is happening to our planet, a President whose depravity knows no basement.

But this is my testament: I will not listen to the things I have listened to in my lifetime without shutting you up. You cannot ignore our past in my present or my presence any longer. Black Lives Matter.

High Holy Days

My mom had started her decline suddenly and quickly. In July of 2008, I called her on the way home from a "Relay for Life" event. She was very confused, and I could tell something was wrong, and called her neighbor to check on her. She reported back that she had been taken to the hospital, likely with a minor stroke. I flew up to be with her and made arrangements for her to move into Assisted Living in the Mennonite village she lived in. She never made it. A month later, right before the move was planned, she had a second stroke and was in the hospital. She came out and moved to the convalescent care. I made plans to fly up and see her and finalize the Assisted Living arrangements. But in early September, I got another call: she was not well enough to live on her own. Within two weeks, the call was worse: she had stopped taking water. She would be dying within days. I booked my flight.

It was September 22, 2008.
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As a musician, I have been asked to sing for church/temple services of every kind my whole career. My first job was at Santa Ana First United Methodist Church. Then came First Congregational Church (U.C.C.), where I worked almost fifteen years. During that time, I sang at Jewish High Holy Days Services, Episcopal services, Catholic services and landed at a Presbyterian church, where I have now logged 16 years and counting. I've often joked that, if I end up in front of St. Peter, I'm going to ask him which pay stub he wants to see.

I first sang High Holy Days services at Temple Beth Ohr in 2001. I know that for a fact because one morning I left the house knowing that I had on my schedule: "meeting at Connect4Education in Woodland Hills in the morning, TBO rehearsal at 7pm."

That date was September 11, 2001.

My project in Woodland Hills meant a 2 hour drive if I didn't leave early enough. So I left at 5:45am, give or take, and heard the radio reports of the plane hitting the first tower as I pulled onto the freeway. By the time I got to my destination, it had all happened. Only an Angeleno can recall the most devastating event of his lifetime as "I was on the freeway..."

That night, we gathered at the Temple, not sure if we should rehearse or pray or,... there was no advice in Torah or any other scripture about how to handle that day. I assume we rehearsed, I honestly don't remember. But I do know that my memories of 9/11 are inextricably linked with Temple Beth Ohr.
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When I arrived in Oregon at my mother's bedside, she was largely non-responsive. But she would occasionally nod her head if I asked a yes/no question. I had the presence of mind to know that I wanted to ask her about her final resting place.

I told her that I had been thinking about it, and it seemed to me that the place she lived when she was happiest in her life was when she and my dad lived in Denver. I asked her if she would be happy knowing her final resting place would be in the Rockie Mountains. Without hesitation, she nodded her head yes.

The next spring, Lynda and I flew to Colorado to scatter her ashes in the Rockie Mountains. But of course, that is a different story one that ends in my finding my birth mother just a few months later. That September night in 2008 though, as my mother faded away, I was faced with a horrible dilemma. I had booked my return flight for September 28, assuming my mother would not last that long, and knowing that I was contracted to sing at Temple Beth Ohr on Erev Rosh Hoshanah (the evening service of the evening/morning pair), 8pm on September 29. As the 28th wore on, I made my decision to say my goodbyes to my mother, drive to the Eugene airport and fly home.

When my plane landed late that night, it was September 28, 2008.
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With the exception of a few years, I have sung High Holy Days at TBO every year since 2001. Services have landed on September 29 quite a few of those years. This year it happened again.

But of course there are other high holy days (lower case.) There was the day my father died in 1985, as well as the Christmas Eve six months later when the full weight of his death landed on me. After my mom's death, there was my mentor's passing in 2013, and my aunt (my mother's sister) that same year. After 2013, the danger seemed that every day should be made holy, because you never know who you will lose at any moment. Maybe all days are 'high' and 'holy.'

This year at High Holy Day services at TBO - the closing Yom Kippur service (Yizkor), which focuses on grieving those who have gone before, was particularly powerful. The cantor sang a song that had the entire room weeping, some almost uncontrollably. I listened, and thought of all of those high holy days where the world that I knew before had disappeared: the days when dad, mom, mentor and aunt had left us. I, too, wept.

That date was October 9, 2019.
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When I returned on my flight back from Oregon, I checked with the care facility. There was no change in her status. I left my house and drove to La Mirada, sat down for the pre-service rehearsal and did my job. At 7:50, ten minutes before the service was to begin, my cel phone rang. I stepped out, and took the call; it was Oregon. My mother had passed. I shed the tears I needed to, and swallowed the rest. I stepped back inside, and was able to get through the service until the end.

Rosh Hoshanah is the Jewish New Year. That service ends with "Shana Tovah", which basically translates to "Happy New Year." I cried as we sang it, for the first time letting my guard down. I was not there at my mother's bedside when she died. I couldn't be: it was High Holy Days.

It was September 29, 2008.

Colorado

When I was nine or ten years old, my mom began a serious relationship with a man - Jim - that she thought would lead to her second marriage. We all went on many camping trips together, mom and I and Jim and his daughter, Julie. My memories of those trips make up some of my most vivid childhood memories: camping in Cuyamaca, water-skiing on Trinity Lake, fishing at June Lake, tenting at Pismo Beach. I learned to fish, pitch a tent, light a fire, cook a camp meal and how to snipe hunt on those trips.

I began to consider the very real possibility that Julie might one day soon be my stepsister. For a variety of reasons, that never happened. My mother's relationship ended with Jim one summer day in 1976 in a surprising and very sudden way. I didn't see it coming. I don't think Jim did, either. What happened next though was one of the best memories I have of my mother, despite a relationship that had way too many bad memories to recount.
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My wife's daughter and two grandchildren are on their way to Colorado, a giant road trip through CA, NV, AZ, UT and CO. They're in Utah tonight, and will be with friends in Colorado tomorrow. It will be a great trip for them, with memories that will last a long time.

Their trip is what brought back the memories of my mother and Jim.
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One mid-summer night in 1976, my mom told me we were going to Jim's, and we got in the car and headed to their house in north Fullerton. I trundled along as a dutiful son, and when we got to Jim & Julie's, I had no clue that anything was different.

"I'm breaking up with you, and I'm leaving tomorrow with Stan and we're going back to Colorado."

Those were the words she said to Jim. My words were - and 43 years later I'm pretty sure about this - "We're What?!" I don't recall what Jim or Julie said. I'm sure they were as shocked as I was.

In retrospect, and knowing my mother through adult eyes now, I think she wanted to deliver something that was designed for the greatest possible drama. She wanted to get back at Jim for... God knows what. My mother was theatrical to the core and seemingly incapable of distinguishing between perceived slight and actual harm; everything was an attack.

What she had planned in advance was a two-week summer vacation for us, a road trip to Colorado. She seemed to want to scope out the possibility that we might move back there, to the place where she had been happiest in her life, the place where she and my dad had adopted me. But she didn't tell me that, let alone Jim. Instead her words just sat there in the room. We left awkwardly, and she told me about the vacation the next morning.
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I kept a notebook of that trip. I wish I still had it. I was (and still am, to a point) a nerd when it comes to maps, geography and statistics. But in it, I keep a log of:

• Every city/town we drove through
• It's population
• It's altitude
• The passes we drove over
• The longest stretches we drove

...and a bunch of other things that have been lost to the desert of my memory. Here's what I do remember, though, as clear as a bell:

• Our first stop was Las Vegas. In Caesar's Palace, she sat down at the slots in a hallway. I begged and she gave me 10 nickels. I found a quiet machine, put the nickels in, and won $10. I was 12. Luckily, I was tall and no one batted an eye.
• The next day, on the road leaving Vegas, she pulled over and told me that I needed to know how to drive on this trip in case something happened to her. I drove three miles on a desert stretch, my first driving experience.
• This was the only time I've ever seen the Grand Canyon. On the trip, we also saw the Royal Gorge bridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mesa Verde and Four Corners.
• This is embarrassing, but for years the address that showed up for various mail-marketing/TV ads was in Pueblo, CO for some reason. I was sleeping as we drove through Pueblo. When I woke up and saw I'd missed it, I cried and was angry at my mother, who was undoubtedly completely unaware why I'd care about Pueblo. To this day I haven't seen Pueblo. I think I'm OK with that now.
• She wanted to see the place my dad had worked in Denver (12yo yawn) and the house I was adopted into (wish I knew where it was now.)

My mom somehow arranged a tour of the chapel and grounds at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. (A few years later she somehow managed to get us onto the USS Enterprise in Oakland/Alameda Naval Station, too.) She had her strengths.

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When we got home, my mom seemed happier for awhile, and I had a lifetime of memories to carry along with me. As I think about S, G and A heading into Colorado, I hope they have that kind of trip: one that heals and that gives G and A a trove of lifetime memories that they will always be able to draw back on.

When my mom passed in 2009, Lynda and I took her ashes to the place where I knew she had been happiest: Rocky Mountain National Park. Even though I've lived all but the first 6 months of my life in Southern California, a piece of me remains in Colorado. That piece didn't come from my birth certificate or where mom is resting. It came from that trip, the only tie I had during her lifetime to the place I was born. Thanks, Mom.

And to S, G & A - make memories: beautiful, lasting transformative memories.