McDaniel Family Journal

I don’t typically blog about myself or things that occur that are unrelated to Brighton, but I’m going to for this posting, just because I’d like to record it for future reading 🙂

As some of you may or may not know, I have never met or spoken to my father. I was raised by a single mother and have never had any type of father-figure in my life.  To make a long story short, my mother met my father while she was in the Army and stationed in Germany, and she never told him that she was pregnant with me.  Anyway, as I got older, she always told me who he was, his name, and a few other miscellaneous details about him, and even though I wanted to look him up, for fear of rejection or whatever…I never did.

As the years have gone by my curiosity as grown and grown, and since having Brighton and taking note of how similar he is to BOTH me and Rudy, I decided a few months ago that I would whole-heartedly search.

Well, I came across a phone number a few months ago, but couldn’t work up the courage to call it 😉  I hemmed and hawed and thought “What do I say?”, ” What do I do if I get an answering machine, or a wife?”. I was afraid of rejection, denial, a wrong number, everything 😉  So…after a couple months of procrastinating, and a mental pep rally to psych myself up, I finally called it last Sunday (12/7/2008). I was making Thanksgiving II (I hadn’t had time the weekend before), Brighton was taking a nap, and Rudy was at the office.  With my stomach in my throat, I called the number and the machine answered (ugh!). I left a message (of which I had not rehearsed) saying something about looking for (his full name) and that I might know an old Army buddy of his. Not a complete lie, I’m sure they were buddies 😉 – but not the whole truth either. I mean what do you say…Hey, my name is Carole and ….it’s a girl? 🙂

Well, I left the message and had gotten back to cooking when the phone rang about a hour later.  I swear, my heart skipped a beat.  I looked at the number and sure enough it was the one I had just called.  I answered and I really don’t know how, since I couldn’t even catch my breath 😉

He said that he was in fact the Daniel that I had asked for, and was wondering what Army buddy of his that I knew.   I had to take a second, so I said something like hold on, and I went an grabbed this piece of paper that I had that my mom had given my before she left.  It has his Battallion # and where they were stationed, etc. I wanted to make sure I had the right guy, before I dropped the bomb 😉

So, I was like “Well, do you remember a Patricia Griggs (my mom’s name a the time), and he was like “Yeah, I dated her for a while”, and again, I had to catch my breath 😉 I had to stop myself from laughing, as I get incredibly giddy when I get nervous, and because he said dated…I think they did a little more than date 😉 – So then I said “Alright, well, are you sitting down?” (LOL) and he said yes, and I proceeded with “Well, my name is Carole, I was born on October 20th, 1979, and Patricia is my mother.  She has told me that you are my father”. SILENCE

I was petrified and since I hate awkward silences, I started to say something (who knows what), but then he said “Well, isn’t that somethin’?”. I just laughed.   I don’t remember everything that was said after that, but he began talking about how he and my mom had met, how many kids he had, etc.   He told me that I sounded like one of his daughters and immediately asked for my address so that he could send me pictures. I was in shock.

Since last Sunday, we have spent 2 or 3 nights on the phone, and he is planning a trip to come see me and Rudy and Brighton in January.  He lives in Des Moines and with the 4 half-sisters that I already have from my mom’s previous marriage, and his kids…I have a total of 9 half-sisters and 1 half-brother!

To sum all of this up…. I couldn’t be happier 🙂 It has always been hard answering people when they ask about my dad. There’s not much to say when you’ve never had one, and you get tired of explaining, so I’m glad that those days are behind me.  It’s a very strange thing to not know where you came from, and I am very grateful that he is so excited to get to know me and shed some light on the other 50% of my DNA 😉

I’m also happy for Brighton. I can now share with him not just medical history and genetic traits, but a whole other family in Iowa that he can get to know and love.  He has two grandpa’s now 😉

Filed under: Family Events on December 13th, 2008