My Journey to Locate My Half-Brother I’ve Never Met
The hidden narrative: uncovering the unknown
Nearly everything about a family’s history has a backstory. Sometimes it’s so hard to open up those chapters because they are layered with emotion. That was the case with my dad’s past. The unfolding of this backstory begins with my grandmother who, at age 14 or 15, became pregnant with my dad. I was told much later it was believed his biological father worked on an oil rig. All I know he was never part of my dad’s life, ever.
I will never know if my dad ever knew his father’s name. This part of my dad’s life was never discussed in our immediate family. I never asked him about it. As a rule of thumb, I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes before asking questions. I assumed if he wanted me and my brother to know, he would have told us.
Another part of my dad’s life was that he had a first wife (as the story was told to me) and he had a child, a son. This, too, was never shared with me or my brother. My dad must have been ashamed of how he came into this life. He must have had a sense of failure that his experience with his son’s mother didn’t work out. Did he think my brother and I would have a different opinion of him?
My father was born on November 4, 1932, in Downsville, Union Parish, Louisiana, a…
