FAMILY
The Day My Mom Dropped the Bomb
She beamed with pride while my eyes slowly opened wide
My mom had her old Lippes Loop intrauterine device (IUD) plastered between the plastic sheet protector on the first page of my baby book. I stared at its snake-like shape and took it out at times to feel it throughout my childhood without really knowing what it was.
I knew it was used for birth control, according to my mother, but how such a thing could be used to prevent pregnancy was beyond me. I was a very inquisitive child, and my mom did not have the patience for my seemingly endless questions. Eventually, I stopped asking.
This included questions about my father, who was never in the picture — any picture. I have never seen so much as one photo of him.
My mom used to tell me this story of how, one day, she went to take a photo of my dad and realized that the camera didn’t have any film.
Why she never made any attempt before then or afterward is a mystery to me. When I asked her this question as an adult, she simply raised her eyebrows, twisted her lips, and looked away.
No further questions or answers, at least not that day.
My mom became pregnant with my brother by accident. It was a one-night stand. I wasn’t privy to this information until I was in my late teens. His dad was the epitome of a rolling stone.
Decades later, my brother found out about siblings he had who were mere months apart from his date of birth.
In the book of parental etiquette, parents aren’t supposed to have a favorite. However, despite my brother being my mom’s only son and firstborn, it became clear to me over time that I was her favorite.
I hated that.
I loved my brother dearly and wanted him to be showered with the affection I could sense he so desperately craved. My attention and affection only seemed to bother him.
Maybe it was because I was six years younger than him. Maybe it was because he was sent to boarding school a few years after I was born and loathed it.
Maybe it was because he overheard or knew that my mom had me on purpose, whereas he was an unwelcome accident.
Kids tend to hear and pick up on much more than many parents realize. I became aware of that as a child, and it has stuck with me into middle-aged adulthood.
Neither my brother nor I had any kind of relationship with our fathers. What surprises me most about this is that our mother was extremely close to her father. She was his favorite out of eight children. Yet she made it extremely difficult for my brother and me to be in touch with our fathers.
She never filed for child support and thus raised two kids by herself as a single Black woman in the ’70s, '80s, and early ’90s.
I commend her strength and resolve.
She sent my brother to boarding school because it got him out of the projects, and it was paid for by charity. She was trying to protect him and help give him a better life than she believed she could provide at the time.
He was my only steady playmate and sibling, and I missed him more than words can say.
My brother returned home at 15 years old. He became a father a couple of years later, before graduating high school, and had his second child at 20 years old. I became a devoted auntie and regular babysitter.
I think this all made my brother and I seek out answers about our fathers on our own, without help from our mother.
Over time, with the rise of the Internet and the dawn of Facebook, my brother discovered a great deal about his father, as well as many half-siblings.
Over the years, I hired a couple of private detectives, had a few friends help, and did extensive research on my own to find out anything I could about my father.
My mother claimed he attended Yale. That’s the first place I checked after graduating high school and learned how to look through college alumni records. Nothing there with my father’s name.
She said he worked for Johnson & Johnson for some years. No results from that alleged tidbit of information.
His date of birth, full name, and the city she said he was from were all written on that first page of my baby book. I never doubted that information while growing up. Now, I am skeptical about everything.
Something the second detective I hired said has stuck with me for years,
“I think you’re dealing with someone who does not want to be found.”
Talking about my dad to my mom was never a comfortable conversation. She only liked to tell me that I was as stubborn as he was and that she had me intentionally. She always wanted a girl. She had her tubes tied right after I was born
My mother had told me that she and my father met while dancing. He told her that he was Irish. My mom’s older sister was married to an Italian man. They both had a thing for white men, which wasn’t easy to find as Black women in the 70's.
I knew that my father left my mom a few days after she told him she was pregnant. She accused a friend of his of being racist and influencing his decision to leave. She told me that she thought he would return someday. He never did.
Many years later, during a conversation I had with my mother, I put together what I think is the biggest reason why I never heard from my father again.
Honestly, looking back, I’m amazed that it took as long as it did for it all to click.
I was visiting my mom from Seattle and really wanted to try to get more answers from her about my father. I gave her fair warning beforehand, and she was more open than usual. I had also started asking her seven brothers and sisters, as well as her mother, about my dad.
It turns out that my mom very much wanted one more child, a girl, and felt that at 26 years old, time was ticking. She also very much wanted a child with a white man. So she took out her IUD in an attempt to get pregnant by my father.
However, she never discussed any of it with him. She waited until after she was pregnant to tell him. I’m still uncertain if he thinks the IUD failed or if he knows she took it out.
My head was swimming with the reality of what my mom had done, and I could tell by her face and mannerisms that she felt mildly guilty but more proud and justified because she got what she had strongly desired: a biracial child who looked white.
It felt like a bomb had exploded in my heart, and I wasn’t sure how to react.
I thanked my mom for her honesty and for opening up to me and ended the conversation with her that seemed to have no end in my own head.
My mom had already told me that she was adamant about not seeking child support when she could have because my dad had accused her of becoming pregnant in order to get money from him.
That cut her deeply because she was in love with him.
However, I don’t think she realized just how much she hurt him by taking out her birth control and having unprotected intercourse without his consent.
The truth I uncovered that day made me feel like I was dying of shame. My mom had no idea. I gave up hope of ever finding my father and tried to focus more on improving the relationship I had with my mother.
Wounds come in all shapes and colors. Thankfully, so does healing.
