4. A Cousin and an Obituary

On the afternoon that I had given my Ancestry login ID to Bridget, I headed off to the grocery. It was a gray Sunday. As I was pulling into my driveway, my phone rang through my car. It was Bridget. “Don’t kill me”, she said, “but I found two cousins, and sent messages to both of them as if I were you.” My first reaction was laughter. Like, what the heck?! The next feeling was disbelief. It had only been 2-3 hours and she had already located cousins? What I know now, is that Ancestry makes it easy for you, pointing out which relatives are closely related. Bridget, being familiar with the site, could easily see this. She had found two 2nd-3rd cousins. What was more crazy is that one had already responded.

“So, one of them is listed by initials only, and the other by name. The named one hasn’t responded, but I have a response from the other.” Turns out the initials were those of a child, so I won’t use them here. It doesn’t change the story. That child’s mother responded. She explained that she had submitted her child’s DNA because the father had been adopted, and they were just curious about heritage…they hadn’t really been looking for people. She went on to say, though, that it sounded like I was related on his side, and not hers. (When Bridget had contacted her, she had mentioned a couple of other relatives that appeared in my Ancestry report) She said that she’d be happy to ask him if he’d like to get in touch with me if I was interested.

It was at this point that Bridget handed communications back to me. Of course, I was interested, and within another couple of hours, cell phone numbers had been exchanged, and my phone was ringing. On the other end was Patrick.

I literally don’t know how or where to begin to describe this, but for me, the connection with Patrick was instant. He is FULL of life, and that came right through the phone, even though he’s hundreds of miles away. Something along the lines of “HEY! So, it sounds like we’re cousins?!” was how the conversation got started.

Patrick told me all he knew about his birth and adoption. He was born in the same area that I was. But, when he was very young, his family moved away, so he wasn’t raised here, and has always lived hundreds of miles from here. The only information he had of his birth parents was a photocopy of a newspaper article reporting the death of his birth father in 1978. All identifying information had been blacked out. His first name was there, and there was a picture of him. He was a handsome young man, and was described as a good athlete, a good student, and someone who was well loved by all he knew. He died of a ruptured vessel in his brain while jogging. Patrick didn’t have any information about his birth mother.

Meanwhile, Bridget was hard at work, trying to find whatever information she could with what she had from my Ancestry report. Remember that other cousin? Well, he never did respond to her message, but Bridget was able to search and find his father’s name. Then, she quickly did a Google search of that name. At 6:25pm (about 5.5 hours after she logged in to my account), she said “I think I found your birth mom’s and Patrick’s birth dad’s side. Patrick’s dad and your birth mom are brother and sister. I think. And I think unfortunately your birth mom has passed away.” This was sent by text message, and the next message was an image of an obituary for “Lori”…my birth mom. It would be weeks before I could prove that to be the case, but I knew it was her as soon as I saw her.

It wasn’t necessarily because I feel that I’m her spitting image, although I do see similarities between us. I also didn’t immediately read the obituary and piece a few things together. I just looked at her, and I knew it, and I was so, so sad. I remember where I was sitting. We were still having work done in our kitchen, so the whole family was in the basement family room, and I was on our old couch. I looked up from my phone, and through tears, said to my husband- “I think I’ve finally found my birth mother, and she’s gone.” It’s hard to describe, even today, feeling a loss like that. I never knew, or will know her. But I did, and still do feel that loss. More about that later, though…I don’t want to get off track.

I went on to read the obituary, and was texting back and forth like crazy with Bridget. There was mention of parents and siblings, nieces, and nephews, but no mention of spouse or children. That would line up with what she told me in her letter in 1994. Then, there was also mention of a brother who had preceded her in death…and his first name was the same as Patrick’s father’s in the newspaper article! I felt like the story was coming together, even though there was sad news. I had now been linked by DNA to two of her nephews, and the obituary of this woman (at least in my mind) matched the description of the woman who wrote the letter signed “Your birth mother”. Bridget and Patrick agreed.

Looking back, I don’t know what, if any, my next step would have been if Bridget had found my birth mother alive and well. I don’t know that I could or would have contacted someone who had so clearly told me they didn’t want that. I try not to dwell on this too much, because that wasn’t the case. Now that I knew she had passed, the next decision was whether to reach out to her family. I made that decision quickly. Bridget and I found a few siblings on Facebook, (we had the names from the obituary) and I sent messages that evening. I wrote and re-wrote them. I tried to word them as carefully as I could, but really, there was no getting around the amount of shock the messages would potentially bring. I truly did not intend to upset anyone’s family, but I just wanted answers so badly. At this point, I felt like those answers were so close, I wasn’t able to resist asking for them. So I sent the messages, and sent up a TON of prayers. Of all the scenarios I imagined, I never could have imagined the one that was about to unfold.