Growing up, one of my favorite things was to tell people, “I’m adopted.”
“Really? Adopted?” My peers’ eyes would grow wide with curiosity and interest.
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“Well, sort of…” I’d explain that only my Dad had adopted me, and that my Mom was a biological parent.
My peers would become unimpressed. “Oh, you mean you have a step dad.”
“No, he’s not my step dad...he adopted me.” Alas, seven year olds did not quite grasp the idea of one-parent adoption. It didn’t stop me, though. I kept initiating this conversation with anyone who would listen-- because the topic was all but forbidden in my house.
I knew two things for sure: my parents got married when I was two years old, and shortly after I started kindergarten, I legally became a Trader. Details about my biological father were never freely given. It hurt my Dad’s feelings when I asked those kinds of questions, like he wasn’t good enough. It brought back not-so-great memories for my Mom. So it wasn’t discussed. But over the years, through careful prodding and knowing how to gauge when Mom felt like having a real conversation, I learned some details.
His name was Steve Kelley. He went all through school with my mother. They both rushed into marriages shortly after high school, and after the subsequent divorces, reconnected. I was conceived, and Steve’s mother convinced him to leave us both. This was all the information I had until I was twenty years old, and my uncle, my mother’s brother, let something slip.
It was late at night and we were deep in conversation when he mentioned having found Steve on Facebook a few years prior. “Man, do his daughters look like you,” he said. This statement rocked my world. Daughters...this had somehow never occurred to me. I never thought that this faceless person who rejected the idea of a child would ever go make a family with someone. And so, in July of 2016, I finally realized that if I wanted real answers about my biological father, Facebook was the way to get them. I sent a friend request at 2:30AM.
It took nearly two weeks to get a response. In the meantime, I looked through every single picture I could find. I saw his face for the first time. I saw our resemblance. But the majority of the photos I found were of softball games, school dances, blonde hair, and green eyes. His three daughters. And my uncle had been right-- they did look like me. If you put my picture next to theirs, you might guess we’re cousins… I favor my Mom too much in the face to really look like Mark or his daughters… but the resemblance is definitely there, and it spooked me.
By the time my request was accepted, I had done some digging. I’d seen Steve’s wife Facebook page, his daughters’ Facebooks, Twitters, and Instagrams. I even looked up his mother’s Facebook page. I contacted someone Facebook listed as a mutual friend- someone I went through school with and I trusted. I called Andrew, explained the situation, and asked what he knew about Mark or his daughters. He told me what he knew, where Steve worked, what the girls were like, what his Steve's was like… He said, all around, Steve was “a really good guy.” Andrew encouraged me to further contact Steve, and even gave me his cell number. When I hung up the phone, I vomited. I was in over my head, keeping this whole situation from my mother (who would just be incredibly angry I even tried to contact Mark), essentially just an emotional wreck.
I considered my options. I could use the phone number Andrew had given me, but what would I say? I could send him a Facebook message but, again, what would I say? What do you say to the man who didn’t want you, but three years later said “yea okay” when another baby came along? I regretted searching for him on social media. I regretted social media stalking his wife, mother, daughters. I felt like a creep. And if I had done any of this in the real world, instead of via the Internet, I really would be a creep. Though these girls are technically my half-sisters, Steve gave up any parental rights to me when I was six, when the adoption was finalized, so, really, legally, I had been essentially stalking underage girls that I have no relation to. It all suddenly felt dirty and wrong. I gave it up...for awhile.
A long-time family friend had been through a similar situation with her bio-father. Amber, one of my mother’s best friends, who knew Steve both from school and through his and Mom’s relationship, had reconnected with her biological father a few years prior. I contacted her, and sought her advice. She told me to be tenacious. That if I wanted any type of contact or relationship with Steve, I couldn’t take no for an answer. She suggested I send a Facebook message, and gave me an idea of what to say. Finally, after much internal struggle, I sent the email.
I told him who I was, as if he wouldn’t have known. I told him that I wasn’t looking for him to be my dad- I already had one. I told him I didn’t want to upset his family, or cause any kind of drama… I just wanted a conversation. I’d take it any way I could, via email, phone, over coffee, et cetera… I told him I’d understand if he ignored my message. Facebook notified me when Steve read the message… he has not yet responded.
I wish I had some sort of cohesive idea to wrap this up with, a pretty bow on a crappy package. But I don’t. I didn’t get what I wanted. I didn’t meet Steve Kelley after twenty years of wondering about him-- I didn’t even have a conversation with him. His daughters probably don’t know I exist, which if fine, I suppose. All I learned is that social media lets us be creeps. We can stalk, and find out that our half sisters play softball at a high school 30 minutes away. We can pinpoint where our biological grandmothers live, where our would-be step mothers work. We can read our daughter’s pleas for acknowledgement, and apparently feel justified in ignoring them. And it’s all okay, because it’s not real. It’s just Facebook.
