"Dad"
Everyone knows how it's supposed to work. Meet someone, fall in love, get married and have kids. For my mom, it wasn't quite like that. She fell in love with Norbert, a man nine years older than her, and to her understanding separated from his wife at the time. They spent lots of time together and she really thought he may very well be the one. When she found out she was pregnant with me, she told Norbert and he informed her that him and his wife were getting back together and she was on her own. Heartbroken my mom walked away.
On November 8, 1980 I was born. Norbert wasn't there, not even to sign the birth certificate. When he finally did see me, he said I had red hair which meant I couldn't possibly be his. When I was two, he came and visited me and my grandma. He told her he could see that I was his and that he had an accident working. According to him, the doctors had told him he would only live for 6 more months. He told my grandma that if anything did happen to him, that I would be well taken care of, and he walked away.
My mom being as devastated as she was never tried to contact him in any way. We moved to another part of the state and they assumed the worst had probably happened to Norbert. They never questioned it and growing up neither did I. Whenever I tried to bring up the topic of my "dad" my mom dodged the questions. Grandma would sometimes answer them, but she still didn't know much.
It was in about the year 2000 that I was missing a big part of the puzzle of my life and went searching for my dad. After scouring all the information I could, I took the leap and decided to search the Social Security Death Index. My heart sank as soon as I saw it. Norbert J Popp died July 1999. I had been too late. I was sad and ashamed for not looking for him sooner.
I connected with someone on ancestry.com, and they had a copy of Norbert's obituary. It seemed our family trees crossed somewhere in a distant way. I read the obituary to find out the details. He had died in a veteran rehabilitation center. He had three kids, John, Jessica and Jared. Of course, I was not listed. I was that skeleton no one wanted to bring out of the closet. Learning that I had siblings was almost too much for me to take.
I tried to contact his brother in hopes of finding out more about him, but his brother was gravely ill. Both Norbert's parents were gone. Every time I tried to reach out to someone I was shut down. No one wanted to admit that I existed. An entire family that I will never know because they simply cannot accept that Norbert was my dad.
Not too long ago, I went searching for my siblings. I found two of them. My sister and I talked for a very long time but never met. My younger brother is still my friend on Facebook but talking isn't something that happens very often anymore. When I did talk to them, I found out that "dad" was really a piece of crap. Four kids that we all know of and he didn't do a single thing for any of them. Didn't even know them. The oldest John was the only one who spent time with "dad" but refused to talk about him.
With Jared, my younger brother, we joked about how many seeds Dad had planted out there. He was at least privileged enough to get Norbert's last name and child support. He met Norbert once and said he was so out of it that he didn't even know where he was. Apparently, his being hurt was true, he just didn't expect to live another 19+ years.
This will always be a huge hole in my heart, but I guess I was lucky. If he was that big of a piece of crap I'm glad he wasn't in my life. I had my grandpa who was an awesome father figure for me. He was always there. I miss him more than I could ever imagine. Norbert, on the other hand, I don't miss. I wish I knew more about him and that side of my family, but that's more for genetics and hereditary reasons than because I want anything to do with them. They found it acceptable to ignore me all these years and that is absurd.
On November 8, 1980 I was born. Norbert wasn't there, not even to sign the birth certificate. When he finally did see me, he said I had red hair which meant I couldn't possibly be his. When I was two, he came and visited me and my grandma. He told her he could see that I was his and that he had an accident working. According to him, the doctors had told him he would only live for 6 more months. He told my grandma that if anything did happen to him, that I would be well taken care of, and he walked away.
My mom being as devastated as she was never tried to contact him in any way. We moved to another part of the state and they assumed the worst had probably happened to Norbert. They never questioned it and growing up neither did I. Whenever I tried to bring up the topic of my "dad" my mom dodged the questions. Grandma would sometimes answer them, but she still didn't know much.
It was in about the year 2000 that I was missing a big part of the puzzle of my life and went searching for my dad. After scouring all the information I could, I took the leap and decided to search the Social Security Death Index. My heart sank as soon as I saw it. Norbert J Popp died July 1999. I had been too late. I was sad and ashamed for not looking for him sooner.
I connected with someone on ancestry.com, and they had a copy of Norbert's obituary. It seemed our family trees crossed somewhere in a distant way. I read the obituary to find out the details. He had died in a veteran rehabilitation center. He had three kids, John, Jessica and Jared. Of course, I was not listed. I was that skeleton no one wanted to bring out of the closet. Learning that I had siblings was almost too much for me to take.
I tried to contact his brother in hopes of finding out more about him, but his brother was gravely ill. Both Norbert's parents were gone. Every time I tried to reach out to someone I was shut down. No one wanted to admit that I existed. An entire family that I will never know because they simply cannot accept that Norbert was my dad.
Not too long ago, I went searching for my siblings. I found two of them. My sister and I talked for a very long time but never met. My younger brother is still my friend on Facebook but talking isn't something that happens very often anymore. When I did talk to them, I found out that "dad" was really a piece of crap. Four kids that we all know of and he didn't do a single thing for any of them. Didn't even know them. The oldest John was the only one who spent time with "dad" but refused to talk about him.
With Jared, my younger brother, we joked about how many seeds Dad had planted out there. He was at least privileged enough to get Norbert's last name and child support. He met Norbert once and said he was so out of it that he didn't even know where he was. Apparently, his being hurt was true, he just didn't expect to live another 19+ years.
This will always be a huge hole in my heart, but I guess I was lucky. If he was that big of a piece of crap I'm glad he wasn't in my life. I had my grandpa who was an awesome father figure for me. He was always there. I miss him more than I could ever imagine. Norbert, on the other hand, I don't miss. I wish I knew more about him and that side of my family, but that's more for genetics and hereditary reasons than because I want anything to do with them. They found it acceptable to ignore me all these years and that is absurd.
Here is the only thing I have of my "dad", a picture.
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