With a click of my computer touchpad, my life was transformed. One minute I was the person I had been for nearly 60 years, and with the revelation from my 23AndMe results, I was another. I opened the 23AndMe “your DNA relatives” webpage, and as expected found Paul, my beloved older half-brother – we were a 25.7% DNA match. But there was also a half-sister. A sweet-faced 29.3% DNA match. Huh? In an attempt to prove this anomaly wrong, I immediately ordered an Ancestry.com DNA kit, and there I discovered another half-sister, and then another!
Following a fraught but exciting journey of discovery over the next couple of months, the man who I thought was my dad (Harvey Watson) morphed into an interesting tale. My “father” went from the creative, loving but alcoholic man with a 9th-grade education whose life ended when I was 15, to George Tomlinson, a mercurial man with a penchant for the ladies who fathered eight daughters (that we know of, including me). George was a WWII pilot and brilliant lawyer who died about five years ago at 95. Most of the sisters who came before me knew of each other and George, but there was another sister who, like me, recently had the shock of her life.
What I have learned of love, loss, lies, and family secrets since this discovery could easily fill a memoir, but I don’t need to write one. I’ve discovered I am not alone; thanks to low-cost access to DNA testing, the narratives of so many of our lives are being rewritten. At this point, I feel as if the stories of lives upended, magical discoveries of unknown children, and adult children discovering their birth parents have been told so many times that new revelations, even family secrets unraveled, no longer raise an eyebrow.
For me, now that the initial shock is extinguished, and all the secrets revealed, I feel nothing but gratitude, even giddiness. While one of my eight sisters sadly died long before my discovery, and one remains a mystery, the five I do know are gifts. Through the challenges and uncertainties of their lives, they have grown into the most open-hearted, wise and loving people I have ever met. Each one is a miracle to me.
The most difficult aspect of this journey was how to talk to my mom, the one harboring this secret for nearly 60 years. Would she willingly tell her story now? Even with the benefit of two separate DNA tests confirming paternity I couldn’t wrap my head around how Harvey wasn’t my dad. I needed her to tell the truth. The history as I knew it was that at the time of my birth my mom lived in tiny Aberdeen, Washington, was married to Harvey, they were raising my two half-brothers (both from different fathers), she was working for a dentist, and they never traveled. So, my mom must have had an affair, but when, and how, and how on earth did George make his way to Aberdeen in 1960? By that point in his life, George had already served in WWII, graduated from college and law school, fathered six of my sisters, and presumably lived in Oregon. While George attended the University of Washington on the GI bill, nothing logically placed him in Aberdeen.
My mom was the only person who could fill in the blanks, and I feared she would feign ignorance – she often deflected uncomfortable subjects. Finally, I mustered the courage to send her a long, heartfelt letter of love and forgiveness, and it worked! It provided the permission she needed to share the tale of her short, passionate love affair. George came into her life at a time of despair, swept her off her feet, and I am the result. Harvey was never the wiser and bestowed on me unconditional love.
I am still who I am, and nothing has altered my feelings for Harvey. I believe he loved me into being and tried to the best of his abilities to be a good dad. Based on stories from all but my youngest sister, it took George decades before he could truly show love, so I’m grateful I wasn’t part of that turbulent journey.
While reading Dani Shapiro’s memoir Inheritance, which beautifully tells her DNA story, I discovered a quote by Pema Chödrön (Buddhist teacher) that resonates with me: “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in a no-man’s land.” I’m mostly grateful for the many times I’ve been thrown out of the metaphorical nest, my world turned upside-down, because with pain comes growth and discovery.
Stephanie Daley-Watson is a retired corporate lawyer, spouse, and mother of two newly adult children. Stephanie spent nearly 30 years practicing law and is focusing (along with her husband Christopher) on making the world a better place over the next 30. She is a newly minted wellness coach focusing on healthy aging. Stephanie is an avid cyclist, lifelong learner, and novelty seeker.