My parents kept my adoption a secret. At 47, I discovered a whole new family

Growing up, holidays usually meant just dinner for the three of us: my mom, dad and me. I would sit dutifully at the table for the required timeframe before scurrying off to one of my friend’s houses to join in with their merriment.

As an only child, family wasn’t the cornerstone of my life as it was for some of my friends. Don’t get me wrong — I loved my parents and we were close. Our family simply lacked numbers. My mom was an only child and my dad was estranged from his brothers, both fairly older than him.

But after my mother’s death in 2005, my dad and I became best friends. Not a day went by without us talking, though the calls were rarely longer than two minutes — just enough time to check in and find out what he had for dinner. We’d text after every New York Rangers game. He’d join my wife, Jennifer, and me at her family gatherings for holidays.

A month after his passing in 2018, I received a message on X asking if I was related to Joan and Wally. My parents? I thought. Of course. I confirmed I was their son and learned the sender was a cousin from my dad’s side of the family. I’d been surprised by how hard I was taking my dad’s death, so the idea of connecting with someone related to him — to us — felt like a bright spot in the midst of my grief. We arranged a phone call that lasted an awkward 20 minutes, agreeing to keep in touch. Not exactly the long-lost reunion I was hoping for.

The conversation did spark some interest for me, though: Perhaps I had additional family out there I would feel more of a connection to.

On 23AndMe.com, the results were instant. But something immediately looked strange: None of the names were familiar, not even the last names.

My mind raced. My parents had a secretive side to them. We always had an unlisted phone number. When ordering food for pickup, we’d use a different name, usually Matthews, a play on my middle name. I had always chalked it up to their eccentricities, but now I wondered if it hid something deeper.

I decided to message my strongest connection — nearly 25% of our DNA matched, the site told me. I chose my words very carefully in a draft that stayed open a few days. I didn’t want to seem too anxious. The response came within just a few hours. Her name was Anna. Her immediate speculation was that we were connected on her father’s side, a man she never met. My wheels started turning with the possibilities. Did Wally have another son who was Anna’s father? Or, did my father have a secret daughter, and she was Anna’s mom? I was sure I had solved the riddle and that Anna was my niece. Maybe that was the secret I’d always intuited my parents were keeping from me.

Then one day Anna told me a story about how her mother, who had died when Anna was just 11, had given up a baby for adoption years before she was born.

As I started to reply, I stopped and read what she wrote a second time. And a third time. Over and over again as my imagination ran.

What if I was the child her mother gave up for adoption?!?

What if my parents … weren’t my parents?

The secret comes unraveled 

Anna confirmed her mother, Kathi, had a boy, and speculated he was born around January of 1972 (I was born in March of that year). This quickly became our new working theory, that I was indeed Anna’s brother.

I half-heartedly suggested they may have mixed up my results with someone else’s. Or the lab made a mistake somewhere. Anna was already on Ancestry.com so I quickly ordered a kit from there to confirm our results. A few more weeks of messaging back and forth while awaiting the results allowed us to learn even more about each other. This also gave me the chance to go through all the family records I cleaned from Wally’s apartment the year before. Absent were any records of a possible adoption. Also conspicuously missing were any photos of me as a newborn.

I combed through all the social media that I could find from Anna’s family, finding definite resemblances in myself to photos of Kathi and Anna’s cousins. At times the likeness was uncanny.

After three weeks that felt like an eternity, the results came back, and our theories were confirmed: I was Anna’s brother.

This set off a myriad of questions for myself. How could I not have figured out that I was adopted in my 47 years of life? Why was I never told this? How was this secret kept and why? Now that the secret of my mother was revealed, I started to wonder: Who was my real father?

Anna’s family remembered the relationship that led to Kathi’s pregnancy all those years before. While never certain, they theorized that his name was Jack and he was a bartender in 1971 on Long Island, New York.

I reviewed additional connections for further clues. Armed with the limited knowledge I had of Jack, I asked a newfound cousin if she knew of him. What she told me stopped me in my tracks: Not only was Jack alive and still in New York, he had been working as an actor for the past 30+ years. I went to IMDB and couldn’t believe what I saw. Jack was a character actor frequently portraying bartenders, doormen, cab drivers and the like on TV, movies and in commercials. I was floored.

Even though I’d never met him, I’d seen his face hundreds of times through appearances on shows like “The Sopranos,” “The Americans,” “Boardwalk Empire” and “Law and Order.” Or movies like “Men In Black,” “The Yards” and “Requiem for A Dream.” He’d even appeared in a New York Lottery commercial that used to air all the time during the New York Rangers telecasts that I knew Wally was glued to at home in New Jersey.

Eventually, I got Jack’s phone number from his brother, whom I’d also connected with.

I dialed and a warm voice eagerly answered. For the first time I was speaking to my actual father. There was no gushing outpour of emotions, just two grown men speaking to each other as if they were strangers at the bar. I explained my background, where I lived, and he did the same. He had been married twice and had seven other children — making me No. 8. Six weeks before, I was an only child whose parents had both passed away. Now I had eight brothers and sisters and not only was my father still alive, he was a well-known actor.

Within a few minutes he brought up my mother, Kathi, and his history with her. She was young. It was a fling. Her parents convinced her to give me up for adoption, a decision I know couldn’t have come easily for her. I spoke about my adoptive parents, who I quickly realized were the heroes in this story. I’ll never know why they kept my adoption a secret, but I’m grateful for everything they did for me.

Meeting my new family 

A few weeks later, I traveled to Connecticut to meet Anna and my local aunts, uncles and cousins, a visit that brought a flood of emotions for all of us. I felt like this was a place I had been before, with my Aunt Mimi’s house providing a warm feeling like it was my own family home. Afterward, I eagerly called Jack to share details of my trip, and we arranged our own face-to-face meeting to follow within a few weeks, at his house.

My wife and I took the two-hour drive from our house in New Jersey and I watched the GPS tick our ETA down minute by minute. Then I pulled up to the house and saw my father for the first time (outside of TV and the movies). I felt the same warmth and acceptance that I felt with Anna and her family with Jack and his wife, Margaret. The four of us shared a few bottles of wine like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. Not only were we family, we had so much in common with our loves of music, film and metro New York culture.

In the five years since we met, I have kept in touch with all of my new family, and met my siblings. I’ve shared the joys of birth, the sadness of passings and the celebrations of family weddings that I missed out on growing up.

On a few different occasions I’ve been able to seamlessly bring the two sides of my family together, advancing my story. I now have quite the extended family. I have realized that my genetics had just as large of a role in making up my characteristics and personality as my environment did. I recognize this when I hear of stories of my mother’s magnetic personality, or when I identify with my father’s theatrical mannerisms.

I’ve also discovered a newfound respect for my adoptive parents. For reasons unknown, they took this secret to their graves. They stepped in and gave me a wonderful life that I wouldn’t have realized otherwise.

I can’t help to think that maybe if I had known earlier, I could have met my mother. But I am grateful to have my new family — and the loud, boisterous merriment I dreamed of all those years before.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

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