A Broken Tree Page 15

  As for me, I would like to meet someone from Timmy Jacobson’s family someday, although I’m not sure when I’ll be ready, or how well this information will be received. I would like to see photos of the man who fathered both me and my younger brother, Tim. We only have the one photo from his obituary now. Although he’s eighty-two in this picture, he still looks very much like Tim. We’d like to see photos of him as a young boy, a teenager, and as a young adult.

  I would also like to learn about his grandparents and aunts and uncles. I’ve done extensive genealogical research on Timmy’s family line, and have learned a lot about our shared ancestors. I know how most of them died, where they went to school, what they did for a living, and some other interesting things, but I’d like to learn more about what Timmy and his siblings and parents were like.

  I found a man who worked with Timmy ten or fifteen years before he died and he shared a few stories about him. I’m sure his kids could tell me so much more if they were willing to talk with me. I don’t know whether Timmy wrote down any of his own memories, but if he did, I would give almost anything to read what he wrote. I just want to learn more about this man who is a part of me.

  In addition to the stories, Tim and I would love to know something about his family medical history. Although I’ve learned how Timmy, his parents, and his grandparents died, I’d also like to know additional details about their health not recorded on death

  certificates.

  With all the family histories I’ve gathered over the years, I have learned that people need to have a history of their own to connect to. They need to know whose blood it is that flows through their veins, and learn the stories of their people. We need to know who we are and what we’re made of. This is what makes me want to eventually make a connection and learn more about my biological father’s family.

  If you could legally prove your relationship to another man, you might have a right to receive an inheritance. Would you ever consider doing something like that?

  No, never! None of us are in the least bit interested in doing anything like that, nor was that ever our intention when we started this investigation. Regardless of whether any of us have a legal right to an inheritance, we would never believe we have any right to move in on anyone else’s inheritance.

  You have proven through DNA testing that the man who raised you is not your father. Would you be interested in getting the children of Timmy Jacobson to donate DNA samples so you can remove any doubts that their father is, in fact, your biological father?

  I can only speak for myself, but I feel that we have already proven through AncestryDNA’s testing services that Tim and I come from Timmy Jacobson, and not his brother, Ray. A few years after doing the testing with Andergene Labs, I sent in a saliva sample to AncestryDNA and learned that my DNA was connected with some of Timmy Jacobson’s family members.

  If the possibility presented itself, I would certainly be willing to collect DNA samples from our half-siblings, in case some new technology becomes available that could possibly tell us more about our family lines. Of course, the problem is obtaining samples without compromising ethics, and without telling them everything I know. When we got samples from our mother, I didn’t feel bad about not telling her that we wanted her DNA to find out if Mark was our real father. We had a right to know the truth about ourselves, and knew it would never come from her if she knew what we were up to. She was the only source still living who could provide us with any real information.

  But with my half-siblings, I cannot ethically justify tricking them into giving me a DNA sample. If I ever get samples from any of them, it will be because they provided them willingly, with knowledge of what I’d be using the samples for. I would be willing to tell them the part of this story that deals with them and their father, but not the details about my siblings.

  So, yes, it might be valuable to take that extra step and find out through yet another avenue that our conclusions are correct. If the cost of DNA testing continues to go down, and I eventually feel comfortable approaching fellow descendants of my biological father, then I would definitely be interested in double-checking our conclusions.

  Will you ever make this information known to the descendants of your biological father’s grandchildren

  after your half-siblings have all died?

  At this point in time, I would prefer to leave it to my children to share this information with Timmy Jacobson’s grandchildren. With each generation of separation, the sting of what happened will be significantly reduced. I don’t think it would be a problem for Timmy Jacobson’s grandchildren to learn this secret. I don’t think I want my children to tell them the whole story about my siblings, however. These grandkids could very easily still be in our hometown where the grandkids of my siblings’ biological fathers also live. I prefer to keep it within reasonable limitations and respect the privacy of the living where at all possible.

  What did your siblings think when they first read this book?

  I made it a point to have some of them read an early draft because I wanted to make sure I was correctly representing their responses to what we learned through this investigation. It was interesting to talk with them after they read it. Each of them had an emotional response. I think Carlee expressed what many of them were feeling when she said, “I finally finished reading your book. I didn’t

  like it!”

  I was taken aback by her response, so I called her to find out more. At first, I thought she didn’t like it because I had the story all wrong, or maybe she thought I was blowing things out of proportion, or being too harsh on Mom. After some discussion, she finally came right out and said she didn’t like it because it brought back too many unpleasant feelings. She told me that during my investigation, when I called her with each new discovery, she was fascinated to discuss each piece of the puzzle, figuring out how it all fit together. We would talk about each revelation and see what memories we might have to help explain why that event took place.

  But once all the pieces were put together into one big narrative, Carlee said it was simply too overwhelming. It all sounded so terrible. It brought back memories she had forgotten and didn’t want to be reminded of again. I think some of the other siblings who read early drafts agreed.

  I know I also felt discomfort as I reviewed each draft. With each new discovery I described, I felt a sense of sadness that none of us were able to grow up in a normal family, with each child conceived by the same mother and father. I kept thinking how grateful I was that I hadn’t known about any of this until much later in life, when I was better equipped to deal with the information I was discovering. As a man in my late fifties, I had long since given up the notion of our family being anything like the Cleavers, but I still loved my siblings and thought that we’d all turned out pretty well in the end. Nonetheless, it’s been a life-changing shock to discover the truth about our family. Reading about it hasn’t been easy for any of my siblings. I expect that the next generation of our family will not be as deeply affected by this story. Time and space will separate them from the impact of what we have learned and personally experienced. Maybe that is what people mean when they say that time heals all wounds.

  Of course, people outside the family who read this book experience none of these feelings. To them, it’s nothing more than a fascinating family history. Many are surprised to see how successful we have become, given the unusual origins of our family structure.

  How have these revelations affected the relationship you and your siblings have with each other today?

  Even though we have all faced some significant challenges throughout our lives, as most families do, we have always been a relatively close-knit family, with the possible exception of Neil. I think discovering at such a young age that Mark was most likely not his biological father has had a big impact on him. For most of his life, he probably experienced emotions similar to what an adopted child might feel. I wonder whether he felt that he wasn’t like the rest of us. The
fact that Neil and Mom never got along very well created an environment woefully lacking in any sense of love and nurturing that a child needs growing up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Neil never felt he was a part of our family. He comes to most reunions and some special events, but he doesn’t stay long. I’m not sure when, or if, that will ever change for him.

  The rest of us take great pleasure in visiting each other, and make it a point to get together as often as we can. Our little town outside of Chicago is still our home, and we try to meet there when we can. Some of us keep in close contact by calling weekly, sharing news and enjoying time spent talking with each other. Several people have told me that given what we’ve gone through as a family over the past seventy years, they find it amazing that we enjoy being together so much. I agree; it is amazing, and I love it.

  How much did it cost to do all of this DNA research?

  The cost of finding the real story of our family is still undetermined. As a group, we’ve paid a total of about $3,500 thus far to learn the information we have now. Additional costs will vary depending on several factors.

  The decision to invest in finding the truth about our family was of the highest importance to me. Because of that, we decided to work with Andergene Labs in Oceanside, California, a well-

  established genetic research company with a top-rated reputation, to determine who was, and was not, genetically related to Mark Anderson. Once we determined that Mark was not our biological father, we went with AncestryDNA to see if we could determine who we might be related to. We chose AncestryDNA because they had the biggest database, thus giving us the greatest possibility of finding a match. Between these two companies, we were able to establish that Mark Anderson had not fathered any of the nine children, and were able to connect all but two of our siblings to their biological family lines.

  Do you plan on doing additional DNA testing to search for more family history information?

  We will probably not do any additional testing. What we’ve done so far has told us what we need to know at this point. This could change if we make contact with any of our half-siblings, or if we choose to start searching for medical information in the genetic lines of our biological fathers. Those two factors could take us in a whole new direction, and would most likely add a significant amount of expense to our search. We really don’t know what kind of advancements will be made in the near future. If the last ten years is any indication of the pace of change, then I can hardly wait to see what the next ten years will bring.

  No scientific test results can tell me why people did what they did, but if DNA testing gets to the point where it can provide me with additional insights and information, then I would definitely be interested in pursuing it. (For example, it would be fascinating to learn whether there was something in my mother’s genes that led her to be so sexually active.)

  After having gone through all of this, what advice would you give your readers?

  There are several pieces of advice I would give to anyone who reads this story. First and foremost, I would say that we all need to be careful about how we judge people, especially in our own family.

  The entire time I was writing this book, I wondered whether readers would think my mother had no morals. When I first discovered that she’d had an affair with another man that led to my birth, I was shocked, and angrier than I’d ever been in my life. Eventually learning that she had conceived all nine of her children with men other than Mark was overwhelming. But after a long time, my emotions cooled down and I began seeing my mom in a relatively rational and not quite so emotional way. It’s easy to make quick judgments about a person when you have only some of the facts.

  I guess the point I’m trying to make is that our home environment and personal experiences shape who we are, often having a much bigger impact on our lives than we realize. My mom didn’t share a lot of stories about her home life, and never shared details about her personal struggles. She was never one to admit faults or talk about what frightened or worried her. Despite the years we lived together in the same house, I never knew what made her cry in her private moments. Until we really know the whole story, we don’t know what burdens a person carries with them from day to day, and what those burdens do to their soul.

  For my own good, I knew that I had to forgive my mom. I think that was the hardest part. It took a few years to reach that point, but it was the most important thing I could do if I wanted to live the rest of my life in peace. I have learned that forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to fully accept the person who hurt you, or that it means that suddenly things are okay between the two of you. Some things are simply too horrific or the damage is too deep to think that you can have a relationship with the offender. In my mind, forgiveness means letting go of what someone has done to you. Let them deal with the consequences of what they did while you focus instead on letting go of it and moving on with your life. If you can’t let go, then long after the offender has forgotten about you, your pain only worsens, affecting your health and the quality of your life. Sometimes this means getting help from a therapist or another professional—a religious leader, perhaps, or just a good friend you can bare your soul to—but you must find a way to let go of the hurt and move on. This is what I had to do, and it helped me in many ways. Each of my brothers and sisters will have to do the same if they hope to find deliverance from what was done to them.

  A second piece of advice I would give is to be mindful of your family stories and make a serious effort to record and preserve them for future generations. These stories have a far greater value than most people realize. Sometimes they may not seem like much, but when you hear them in context with other stories, you begin to see a bigger story taking shape. These stories are our legacy for posterity; for better or worse, they will always be a part of us.

  As I mentioned earlier in this book, stories are usually created to either share an event or to hide something. This could be an event in one’s personal life or one that took place in the context of the larger family. If it’s a story to share an event, then the purpose is self-evident. If the story is hiding something, then the challenge is to find out what parts of the story are true and what parts have been created to hide a secret. When you find out what has been made up, you then must decide possible reasons why someone felt the need to make this up, and what were they hiding?

  Let me share an example of what I mean. While I was researching some of my own family lines, I was given a photograph that caught my attention. Taken around 1929, this picture included a man in his mid-forties, a woman in her early thirties, and two beautiful young girls, aged around six and four. The smiles on the little girls’ faces would normally give the impression that this was a very happy time for them. Yet there was something about it that didn’t feel right. There was a look of intense sadness in the eyes of the mother, despite her smile. It immediately made me feel there was a story behind this photograph, and I wanted to know what it was.

  I knew the six-year-old girl in the photograph. She was in her late sixties when I first met her. I even had her phone number, since I had been working with her to find all the descendants of this woman’s extended family. Her name was Jean. I contacted her and asked if she remembered the photograph. I could hear a slight pause and then a faint sense of pain in her voice as she told me that she did remember the picture. In fact, Jean remembered the photograph very well; it once belonged to her. She had given it to me years ago because it brought her too much pain to see it. She was in her early seventies by the time I asked her about the picture. I tried to be mindful of her pain as I asked her questions. When I shared how I felt about it, she started to cry. I felt bad that I’d caused her tears, but knew I had hit on something. I did my best to console her and said I’d stop asking questions if it was too painful for her to talk about the photograph.

  After regaining her composure, she confirmed that there was much more to the picture than one would guess. She said the smiles were not real; they’d only smile
d because their mother had asked them to. They knew that their mother was not happy. Their father was an alcoholic and caused great pain to their mother, who wanted so much to have a stable home for her daughters.

  Jean told me that her mother had died shortly after this picture was taken. Jean’s aunts told her and her little sister that their mother had been doing laundry in the nearby river and slipped on some wet stones. She’d fallen and hit her head on one of the rocks, knocking her unconscious. She fell into the river and drowned, and it took three days for the men in the town to find her body.

  I expressed how sorry I was to learn about her loss. I told her that it must have been so hard for her and her sister to grow up without their mother. Jean was silent for a few minutes. In fact, she was quiet for so long that I was tempted to tell her it was okay to stop telling her story if she wanted to. I could tell she was thinking about something more than just her mother falling on the rocks. I knew I had to be quiet and wait until she could sort through her feelings and was ready to talk again.

  After a long, awkward pause, Jean told me that the story she’d just recounted wasn’t true. It was what the family had shared with everyone in town and with the local newspaper, but it wasn’t what actually happened. She then told me the real story of how her mom died.