AT 60, I FOUND OUT I HAD A DAUGHTER THROUGH A DNA TEST
“My mother had some godless years, Mavis, but she’s walking with the Lord now!”
“Amen!” cried Mavis enthusiastically, then she asked, “But how did she not know?”
“But you found your father,” Mavis interrupted before the thin woman started preaching. “How did that come about?”
“Well, my son sent in my DNA and my husband’s as a Christmas present. And I can tell you, Mavis, I was mad… Some mysteries belong to the Lord…”
“Yes, yes,” said Mavis impatiently. “We all know that, but how did you find your daddy?”
“They sent us this report, Mavis, and there it was as bold as brass: Sturgis Lee Kersey. And seven more names of siblings—brothers and sisters, you know? You could have knocked me over with a feather…”
At that moment, Mavis gestured, and I saw a smartly dressed girl usher in eight scrawny people—obviously the thin woman’s long-lost relatives.
“This is where I get off!” I muttered and switched off the TV.
But the blotchy face of the thin woman kept rising in front of my eyes, and those purple cracked lips said, “I wanted to know where I come from, and how come he didn’t love me.”
I got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the lights, and looked in the mirror. I whispered, “I want to know where I come from, and how come she didn’t love me.”
After doing a considerable amount of research, I settled on a company that seemed to be the most reliable. I ordered the DNA test, took the cheek swab, and sent it off.
A month later, I received the results. One part was a bewildering flood of information about my ethnic heritage, but in another section of the report, I saw the words ‘49.96% match’ with the photo of a redhead young woman whom the company identified as Michelle Simpson, 33—my daughter.
“My daughter?” I whispered. “I don’t have a daughter. I don’t have any children whatsoever!” I sent off a blistering email, accusing the company of incompetence and threatening all kinds of legal mayhem.
The company replied to me through the telephone a few days later.
“Mrs. Weaver,” the smooth-voiced man on the other side said. “We’ve consulted our technical team, and faced with your assertion that you have never been pregnant or given birth, they offer the possibility of you having an identical twin.”
“An identical twin?” I gasped, flabbergasted.
“But… Oh my God! I was raised in the foster system… I had no idea…”
I agreed, and two days later I walked into a restaurant toward a table where a slim redhead was sitting. The woman, Michelle, tried to get up but sank back down in her chair, white as a ghost.
“You…” she whispered.
“You look just like mom. Exactly, that hairstyle, the type of clothes… you even walk like her!”
“Michelle?” I asked hesitantly. “Your mom, she was in foster care too?”
Michelle shook her red curls.
“No! Mom was adopted when she was two. She had no memories of her mother, but she had a hard time adapting. So later on, my grandparents didn’t encourage her to find her biological family.”
“Your mother…” I said. “She’s my twin. Have you told her? Does she know?”
Michelle nodded.
“Yes, she knows. She’s scared though. She didn’t want me to do this. She didn’t want to know why her mother had abandoned her.”
“Abandoned us,” I said. “She abandoned us, and she let us be separated.” Michelle lifted her cell phone and took a snap of me. She typed out a quick message and sent it.
“Sit!” said Michelle. “Tell me about yourself!”
“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “And a widow. I have no children, I have no one, which is why I sent in my DNA…” But Michelle was gazing over my shoulder and her face broke into a wide smile.
“Mom,” she cried. “Come and meet Dorothy.”
I got up on trembling legs and turned around to face myself.
“Dorothy?” my other self whispered, “I’m Susan.”
I didn’t even think. I just stretched out my arms and threw them around Susan. I discovered that I was crying—but it was okay, because Susan was crying too, and so was Michelle.
“I always felt there was something wrong with me, a part of me missing,” sobbed Susan.
“Me too!” I said. “As if only half my heart was working…”
“Now we are together!” said Susan. We turned radiant faces toward Michelle and smiled identical smiles. Even our hair was cut the same way, and we were both wearing similar outfits.
Susan—who practiced family law—explained that she had been married to Michelle’s father for over fifteen years before the relationship fell apart. She and the teenaged Michelle had left Florida and decided to start life over in Denver, Colorado—which happened to be where I was living!
Michelle had married and had four children.
“So you are a grandmother!” I cried enviously. “Tom and I kept putting off having children, we thought we had forever… And then it was too late and now I’m alone.”
“No, you are not!” said Susan fiercely. “You have me and Michelle, and her husband and her kids… You will never be alone again!”
So I ended up with a big family and lots of grand-nieces and nephews who looked just like me. As Susan and I got to know each other better, we discovered that we had eerie parallels in our lives and identical tastes.
Since we were both alone, we ended up moving in together, and I spoil Susan’s grandchildren shamelessly.
What can we learn from this story?
- It is never too late to reach out and find our loved ones. I had never imagined I had an identical twin, a person who shared my DNA, and through her, I gained a big family.
- There is always something inside us that calls us to where we are meant to be. Some mystical connection led Susan to move to the city where I was living and led to our finding each other.
This account is inspired by our reader’s story and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only.
