thinking on the topic might take me 15 more minutes, 30 seconds or a few days.
in the interim, i remembered a piece i put together back in 2008. a story from my past. i have no recollection if it was written well or not, but i thought i'd dig through my old correspondances, find it, and post it here.
if nothing else, it sheds some perspective on my life without a father. which the other topic kind of spawns into.
this is a true story. although, there's several others where this came from. the moral of the story? social media's a funny thing. as are male 'role models.'
jodi
________________________________________________________
I hope I never end up on Maury Povich. For all of the obvious reasons, of course, but also for two very specific and valid reasons as well. A-I hope I never have to endure public humiliation for the sake of a paternity test; and B-find out the man I am about to marry is my brother, cousin, uncle, etc. Let me backtrack for just a moment here, the paternity test in question is not due to my own infidelity or active love life, let me make this very clear. No, the paternity issue at hand here stems to the origin of my very own existence.
What happened those twenty-six odd years ago, I'm pretty sure I DON'T want to know. Although for the majority of my life, up until age eighteen or so, that's ALL I wanted to know. I would ask my mother meekly and desperately, time and time again, the same exact question.
"Mom, when will you tell me about my dad?" Well, maybe not exact question, but same gist. "If you won't tell me his name, will you tell me what he looked like?" "What did he do for a living?" "Where did you meet him?" "Do I look like him?" "Why won't you tell me something—anything?!"
I would receive the same eye crossing, quiet and unenthused response from my suddenly hushed mother, "We'll talk when you're 18."
This never satisfied me. I was taunted by classmates in grade school. Teased, ridiculed, questioned. You would think it's not that big of a deal, being raised in a single parent household, especially in today's day in age. But you have to realize I came from a village of 789, where everyone knew everyone else's business. We knew about the town mayor's extramarital affair with the country club owner's drunk wife; we knew that 89% of the community sans the overly righteous elderly Christian clan were habitual marijuana users (my mother included); we exchanged inside scoops of our first-hand experiences with the "cult" outside of town that was from Chicago; (Apparently, the barn they seasonally lived in had drains in every room for the purpose of draining all the goat blood from the annual sacrifices—however, they reportedly bottled the blood as well, so I'm not sure how they managed to funnel all the animal fluids down through the drains into a functional cannery system, but that's beside the point. They also rode cows and padlocked their front gate. I can't say I blame them. I personally wouldn't be surprised to find out if they were actually just Amish.); etc.
Point being, the town loved to talk and they especially liked to gab at one another's misfortunes or expenses. Grade school children were no exception; teasing and taunting at personal issues such as being a bastardized single child on Welfare with coke bottle eyeglasses was an especially simple target.
That target was me.
But this isn't the Jodi self-pity train Lifetime Original Movie screenplay, yet. This is the daddy dilemma. So Joan wouldn't break. Even when she received a phone call from Mrs. Geirhart, my fifth grade computer science teacher (and math, and homeroom, amongst several other subjects—that's how the Argyle school system rolled—we maybe left to move onto a different classroom twice a day; this typically would have been a sign of short staffing, but with a class of 32 kids, it made sense); my mom didn't even raise an eyebrow.
"So why did you get a detention, Jodi?" my mother had lightly quizzed when I shamefully walked into the living room, tossing my Gitano backpack onto the floor 30 minutes later than usual.
"It doesn't matter," I mumbled, pushing my owl like glasses back up my nose.
"Yes it does, just tell me—I won't be mad. Mrs. Geirhart mentioned that you have to write an apology letter to Matthew Stamm, what happened between you two?"
"I flung applesauce at his head."
"What?" my mom replied, surprised but still doing her best not to laugh, (She knew I was a bit of a nerdy outcast so that required some courage, flinging applesauce at one of the athletic popular kids). "Why would you do that?"
"He said my dad was Tiny Pickett."
My mom hushed, "That little bastard," she bit under her breath.
Tiny Pickett was kind of like the town drunk—but when you live in a town like Argyle, there's no such thing as the town drunk. You're more likely to stand out and be the point of ridicule if you're NOT the town drunk. In Argyle, drinking and praying are all that there is to do, and maybe milk cows. There is something like eight different churches and four different establishments to wet your whistle, which doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind there are under a thousand souls within a 10-mile vicinity.
Anyway, Mr. Pickett's real first name was not, in fact actually Tiny.
Obviously, this is another prime example of small-towner's instinctive wit. Tiny weighed somewhere between the 300 and 400 pound range. And he was a bachelor—a very drunk and sad, lonely one at that. Even at age 11, I knew that. And I felt embarrassed by Matt Stamm, not just personally for not being able to prove that Mr. Pickett was not my father--"Well then who is your father then?" he laughed, with fellow classmates chiming in, "Yeah Jodi, everyone has a father, you can't just not have a dad."
"But I don't have a dad," I would insist as my only line of rebuttal, because that's the most Joan had ever explained to me.
I wasn't just embarrassed for myself, however. I was pretty used to being heckled and teased, that's just part of the childhood experience. It was the shame I felt on behalf of my mother. Without even thinking, I had picked up that spoon and scooped the applesauce from the corner dessert section on my mint green plastic lunch tray.
As the kids laughed and elbowed Matt Stamm, "Hey, good one!" high-fiving, I was furiously flinging that spoonful of sauce in a heat of rage right at pudgy Matt Stamm's flat top white hair.
And then he just looked at me. Kids may be clever, but try flinging some apple sauce at their head and then see what they have to say. The rest of my class turned to look at me, the nerdy girl who got free lunches because her mom couldn't afford the $1.50 lunch tickets that everyone else still had to buy, and dropped their jaws in confusion.
That was when Mrs. Geirhart came back into the room. "What on earth is going on in here? Matthew, what is on your head?"
"Jodi flung applesauce at me!" the little pussbag squealed.
"Jodi, now is this true? Why on earth would you do that?" She demanded, arms crossed and looking down at me in disapproval.
"He said Tiny Pickett was my dad," I quietly mumbled.
Her facial expression quickly softened into one of sympathy in my direction and she turned sharply to face Matt. Even my fifth grade spinster teacher knew who Tiny Pickett was. "Matthew, Jodi, come with me."
And with that, we each trudged out into the hallway. She explained to us that Matt was not to say such things to me and that I was not to fling apple sauce. We were assigned the duty of exchanging letters of apology, Matt for saying mean things to me about not having a father figure, me for flinging applesauce. And we also had to stay after school for 20 minutes. Then Mrs. G strolled into the office and called each of our parents.
Apparently, she had left the discussion of why we had detentions to serve up to us. I guess she was too embarrassed to tell my mother I was being punished for defending my mother's less than conventional lifestyle. Or maybe she told Matt's mom what he said and left it up to me to explain the applesauce bit. Either way, I don't think my mom knew what exactly went down.
"Mom, can you just tell me who he is? It's not really Tiny Pickett, is it?" I asked, almost crying. This was some heavy shit for a 5th grader, I can tell you that. I may not be smarter than a 5th grader by Jeff Foxworthy's standards, but I bet my 5th grade days were much heavier than those nerdy little geeks'.
"Oh Jodi, I'm so sorry," she replied, almost crying a little herself. "Come here, I love you, give me a hug."
And after our mother daughter embrace, that was the end of that conversation.
The "Who's My Daddy?" debate went back and forth, up until I was about to graduate from high school. At this point I had pretty much given up on the whole thing. This topic was obviously taboo and off limits, and Joan Root is one stubborn lady. If she has her mind set on something, she will not budge, not even an inch. Not then, not now, not ever. She wouldn't even lapse the slightest hint or clue, as I'd try to trick her after her daily rounds of Absolut and Tonics.
So you can imagine how surprised I was that day. The day I picked up the mail from the post office and dropped it off to her in the bedroom. I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday because she was home and awake. Joan worked the third shift, 11 pm to 7 am at a chocolate factory, so I only got to see her on the weekends. I handed her the fistful of letters and walked down the hall to my bedroom. Since our bedrooms were separated by a thin wall and connected with the same air vent, it wasn't unusual to communicate to one another by talking through said wall. "Jodi, come here," she said, but something in her tone of voice had dramatically changed in the two and half minutes since I had handed her the mail.
Confused by what she could want, I walked back into her bedroom. "Sit down," she instructed and she looked kind of scared and shaken.
"Yeah mom, what is it? What's up, you look kinda freaked out."
She handed me a letter. "It's about your father."
My heart stopped. My throat clenched. She said the forbidden word. The one word I knew absolutely nothing of, not even just personally as in WHO my father was, but WHAT a father was. What a fatherly figure did, what they were for, the relationship between a daughter and her father—I knew nothing of this other than how I watched my friends interact with their dads when I would hang out at their houses.
"What?"
What. That was the only word I could get out. She took back the letter.
"Your father, he knows about you."
Of course. Of course all this was happening now. In less than three weeks I was graduating from high school and moving to Wisconsin Dells for the summer. Finally escaping Argyle, my mother, my life as I knew it. The next phase was finally about to begin and I was never any more ready to get away. I was scared, to leave home and work a new job where I knew not a single soul, and then to move directly to college approximately 400 miles away in practically a different state.
Everything was happening, changing, so fast, but still not fast enough.
"Mom, what are you talking about?"
And then I stopped talking altogether and just looked at her trying to hold back the sobs and offer up an explanation. She was still in bed wearing that hideous, old white cotton lint ball infested bathrobe my brother and I both so detested and tried to replace with new ones for birthdays and Christmas. (Side note, said brother is actually biological half-brother, but I don't consider our relationship half anything, so I never use that term. His dad decided to go to Vietnam instead of sticking around with his 16-year-old pregnant girlfriend. Jamie's dad stood him up on his 18th birthday for their first introduction; to this date my brother has never met his biological father either.)
"I met Kevin through Cousin Linda; Linda's still friends with his sister. Linda had one of your senior pictures in her wallet and her friend asked who the pretty young girl was. Linda said she couldn't lie or hide it anymore, and well, she told her that you were her niece."
My eyes bugged out of my head. I never considered having any other relatives. Suddenly questions raced through my head at a million miles per hour—did I have other siblings? Cousins? Aunts, uncles—grandparents?!
"Anyway, Kevin found out and he wants to meet you. He wants answers. He never knew anything because I never told him. You know that Upper Level Lounge quarter sleeve shirt you found in my closet and are constantly wearing? (I did, it was one of my favorite "vintage" shirts I had raided from her closet the previous year.) Well that shirt is from his bar, he owned that place. Maybe now you can see why I reacted so strangely to you taking it before."
Suddenly, I realized this was oddly symbolic, bizarre, and creepy and this was no longer to be my favorite shirt.
"Jodi, I hope you realize I had my own reasons for not telling him about you. We weren't together; he wasn't in a good place back then."
"But he owned a bar; he had to have some cash right? He could have at least paid up child support."
"I didn't want him taking you away from me. Jodi, this was a onetime deal—I used to go to the Lounge and he and I hit it off one night, and then . . ." she trailed off.
"It was drugs, wasn't it?" I asked while knowing it was exactly what she wasn't telling me.
"Yes."
"Pretty bad?"
"He was a notorious coke fiend."
"I get it, mom. This is why you kept it from me, right? One night stand with a cokehead?"
And this was when Joan Root broke down into tears.
"Mom, no. I'm not trying to be spiteful or mean . . . I get it, it sucks and it's an odd fucking situation, but I can see why you chose to do what you did. And why you never told me."
"But do you?" she sobbed, "Honey, I'm so sorry," she shook with tears and I scooted closer to her on the bed and we embraced.
"I love you mom. It's okay. But this is all just so weird, you know? Never hearing ANYTHING about this and now, you know, getting hit with all this just weeks before I graduate, turn 18 and move out."
"I know. But I told you I'd tell you when you were 18."
Even though my dialogue sounded cool and collected—I was anything but. I just knew I had to be the rock; the steady one of us two or we'd both be a mess. I've always been the parent in the relationship, taking on responsibilities typical kids probably wouldn't, raising myself on up from age 12 due to my mother's job schedule and joy of drinking. But still, it wasn't fair, and I knew I was getting the shit end of the stick.
"Anyway . . ." I started, transitioning back to the bombshell that just landed. "Kevin, you said that's his name right? He wants to meet me? Did he say when? Where does he live? Did he mention if I, umm, you know, have any brothers or sisters?"
Joan wiped her red, watery glazed eyes with a tissue and blew her nose, sounding like a trumpet. "Kevin, yes. Kevin Guhl (pronounced like the ghostly creature, I counted my blessings I was not named Jodi Ghoul, imagining the taunting that would have preceded me back in the Mrs. Geirhart days). He lives in Iowa, plays in a blues band and works for some computer company. He has no children, but mentions here in the letter that he has always wanted to be a dad . . . With your permission; he'd like to drive up and meet you. He included his phone number."
I got numb. This is really happening. Fucking weird.
"Should I call him? I will, for you."
"Mom, look at the timing. This is all too much—I'm leaving!"
"I know. But should I call him?"
"I guess . . . yeah. I need to know."
"Ok honey, I love you," she sniffled and we hugged one last time before I left the room to grab the phone.
That night I went to bed at my usual time, but I didn't sleep a wink. I was so confused, but still so excited. I don't know what the hell was going on. I was happy—I think. I also secretly changed into my Upper Level Lounge shirt when I went to bed to sleep; I wasn't ready for Joan to see this though.
Not a week later, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table next to my nervous and rigid mother and some roly-poly balding man named Kevin. Apparently, this red faced, self-proclaimed "blues man" was my father. Weird. I didn't look a thing like him.
After an awkward exchange of "Hellos," and a weird handshake thing, my mom opted to kick things off with baby pictures. She left the room to dig out some obscure photo album and left me alone with Kevin.
"So Jodi, your mom tells me you're off to college in the fall. Where are you going? What are you studying?"
Weird, weird, weird, weird, think Jodi, say something. Without looking him directly in the eye I replied, "I'm going to UW-River Falls, it's up by the Twin Cities, I'm going to study broadcast journalism and theater."
"Wow, so you'll be on TV? A big actress?" he mused, pretending to be super surprised and mutually impressed.
"Umm, no. I want to be on the radio and act in plays—I did forensics and a lot of plays in school now, so, I just thought it sounded nice. And write, I like writing."
"Oooh, big superstar. That's great, it really is. When is graduation?"
"In two weeks."
"Isn't your birthday coming up too?"
"Yup, same day as graduation."
"Then what?"
"I'm moving out, going to Wisconsin Dells. I got a summer job there and figured it's something better than Argyle and Pizza Hut, so I'll be leaving the day after my grad party."
"Wow, good for you!"
And then my mother rejoined us, thank god. "I wasn't able to find the one I was looking for, but here are some pics for starters." My mom fake smiled.
After the baby pic fake small talk episode Joan encouraged us to go on a lunch date to "get to know one another"—gross, he was supposed to be my dad, not a blind date. Although that's certainly what it felt like, a blind date to meet my father. We drove the 12 miles west to Monroe to grab Chinese at Chopstick's on the square. (Argyle only had the Norseman Supper Club, which was closed before 5 PM and Irma's Kitchen, a small town diner based out of, you guessed it, Irma's kitchen. A lot of townies ate there. I wasn't quite ready for my daddy daughter reunion to be the talk of the town so we headed to Monroe.)
It was the weirdest lunch of my life. And to be honest, I don't remember too much about it. It was full of small talk and lame jokes. I do remember he tipped really shitty, but paid for the lunch. Being a waitress the past 2 1⁄2 years, I threw an additional fiver on the table after he turned to leave. Cheap ass. After a few more minutes of small talk, Kevin dropped me off and headed back to Iowa.
He called two days later and wanted a blood test. Just to, you know, make sure.
Joan and I got our blood tested. I don't know the logistics and specifics of the types, but apparently our blood types were compatible, A and B or AB positive, I don't know. But it was enough at the time.
Another three days after we got the results back, Kevin wanted an actual full out paternity test. I was graduating in a week and a half. I had finals; I was about to leave all my friends to make new ones,
start my life, I was pretty confused. And pissed, I thought our blood types were compatible? He still needed more proof? Joan was equally baffled, but we agreed to do the test anyway.
It was a swab test. You put an oversized q-tip looking swab in your cheek and throw the stick in a Ziploc like bag, ship to the lab and badda bing badda boom, bingo! You have a daddy!
We mailed the results to Kevin per his request, even though the instructions specifically instructed to ship overnight to the testing lab or freeze until you can ship it. Kevin insisted it was no big deal to send to Iowa, so that we did.
When the results came back negative, (the day before my high school graduation), I wasn't surprised. It would have been too simple, too good to be true to finally know. I was pissed though. Joan played the shock card. "Jodi, I don't know! He is your father! He could be lying, remember the instructions said to ship directly to the lab—the results are wrong!"
Kevin at least had the tact to call my mom and tell her over the phone that he was upset by the turnout and that he had hoped for a happy ending. He would retake the test, if we wanted, but this was 99% effective.
Joan swore up and down, Kevin was it. He was now the bad guy and was obviously lying about the results (we did not receive the results directly from the lab, just word of mouth). So now I had a father
figure, and he was already a deadbeat loser.
I thought this closed the story. Gave me my closure, the knowledge I had relentlessly sought for the past 18 years. I was 75% German, (he was 100%), 12.5% Irish and 12.4% English. I knew what I needed to. I focused on my graduation and only cried a little bit when I was alone in my bedroom before I fell asleep. But I had gone through way too much in my life and was not about to let some loser stranger drag me down. I would be out of Argyle in days, off to venture bigger and better things.
Fast-forward six years. I'm living in Chicago and I wake up with a slight hangover. It's a Sunday in June of 2007 and I've just woken up. I'm sitting on the couch in my apartment living room, sitting criss-crossed with my hair a rat nest from sleeping on it on top of my head. The taste of PBRs still lingers in the back of my mouth and my head is throbbing like a mother fucker. Like the internet socialite I am, I grab my boyfriend's Mac laptop and open up my email, Facebook and then MySpace.
Once I open up to the MySpace page I see I have "New Messages!" and I eagerly click the link to see who messaged me. I see the profile pic of a chubby and hairy looking old dude with sunglasses, playing the bass guitar. Oh god, another old perv trying to pick up young chicks on the web. Good. Maybe it will at least be amusing, but still—gross, what the hell would this guy have to say.
The message was titled "Are You?". Weird. My profile was named "Jodifer the Great," and my profile was set to private, so it's not like people could go Jodi Robin Root hunting. But that's exactly what this man had done.
The first and only sentence was, "Is this Jodi Robin Root from Argyle?" He had found me.
"FUCK!" I slammed the laptop down and screamed. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK," etc.
My boyfriend had been in the shower. I heard him slide the shower curtain aside and turn off the water, "Jodi? What the hell is the matter with you?"
I probably freaked him out a bit. I got quiet and walked into the bedroom and looked at the calendar. Of course—it was Father's Day. Boy, wasn't this the icing on the cake.
Mike walked into the bedroom, looking concerned and waiting for me to fill him in on my outburst.
"I'm kind of freaking out right now," I started, voice shaking but stern and noticeably pissed off. "Kevin emailed me, on fucking MySpace. On fucking Father's Day."
Mike looked puzzled, "Kevin?"
Right, Kevin was before his time. "My alleged father. He fucking sent me a fucking message on fucking MySpace!!"
Mike shook his head, "Girl you've got some messed up shit in your life."
"I know, it's a fucking soap opera."
"What did he say? What does he want?"
"I have no idea. He just asked if I was Jodi Robin Root from Argyle—what a fucking creep!"
"Well what did you say back?"
"I just told him it was but that I was in Chicago now. I played dumb."
"How weird."
Exactly. It was weird. The communications continued, however. I ended up getting emotionally involved again, as much as I tried to fight it off. I still had a shot at my happy ending—and as much as I had been hurt before, this stranger sought me out to try and make that a possibility.
I still have the messages in my inbox.
Date: Jun 17, 2007 12:35 PM
Flag as Spam or Report Abuse [?]
Subject: are you?
Body: jodi robin root from argyle?
From: Jodifer The Great
Date: Jun 17, 2007 12:59 PM
That's me! Now Jodi Robin Root in Chicago. . .
Date: Jun 17, 2007 8:58 PM
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Subject: RE: RE: are you?
Body: we met once....about six years, one month ago. i just came across some stuff i kept about you. i wonder if you ever solved the mystery?
From: Jodifer The Great
Date: Jun 17, 2007 7:12 PM
i remember you.
sort of caught me off guard.
my mom swears (to me at least) that she's sticking to her story. so i don't know. i guess if your test was 100% accurate, i'll neverknow. she says you're it. i don't know. the whole situation is a little overwhelming to me. i wish i knew.
Date: Jun 18, 2007 5:17 AM
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Subject: RE: THE subject
Body: i've wondered..........the reaction(by Joan) at the time was sorta bizarre. did you see your mom swab her cheek? that's really the only way it couldn't be accurate. i've always wondered..............sorry if i bum you out after all this time
From: Jodifer The Great
Date: Jun 18, 2007 4:41 AM
tell you the truth--i don't remember.
the whole "father" subject with my mom has always been taboo. I get the fact that she didn't conceive me in the typical "family way." I know I wasn't planned, whatever. I think she's sort of ashamed or embarrassed. Whenever I would ask, she would mumble, "when you're 18".
well, as i turned 18, you magically appeared. and i think with my graduation, moving out, turning 18, she was overwhelmed to say the least. so i don't know. why would she have had to have been tested anyway?
pretty obvious she's my mom. but oh well. i don't know how she'd react to find out you messaged me.
please don't be angry or take this the wrong way--but you have to understand i'm a little weirded out by this--why did you look me up on myspace and message me on father's day 6 years later? b/c as much as I would love a happy ending here, i don't know if emotionally i can deal with a message, just to see if i "solved the mystery."
i mean, i am sort of glad you found me. i would love for it all to work out. but if it's just opening another old wound, i've got lots of stuff going on and it may be hard to deal with again. so was it just plain out curiousity? or doubt? b/c if you think here's a chance, i'm down to this whole "reunion" mystery thing. if it was just, did you find a dad yet? then i'm not interested.
i have to go to work now.
Date: Jun 18, 2007 7:11 AM
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Subject: RE: RE: RE: THE subject
Body: Certainly not to be cruel !! I'm the king of tact sometimes...........obviously.
the truth.....somewhere in the back of my mind or in my gut it never seemed right. then last weekend we had a 50th birthday celebration for a friend here in Miami and i spent some time with my old college roomate who was in town from Houston. We were talking about his kids and he brought up the subject. That brought to the fore my wondering and i just kinda did it.
so, so sorry to cause you pain and distress. i had hoped you found out something. absolutely no intention of being an a**hole.
From: Jodifer The Great
Date: Jun 18, 2007 7:51 AM
so is this it then? do we do anything from here on out?
or has your question now been answered?
Subject: questions
Body: no, i still have questions. maybe always will. don't know what they are right now. i don't know what to do. there's no instruction book available.
i know i'm sorry i upset you. don't know what i was thinkin' except i was wonderin' about you. does that make any sense?
Subject:RE: one more thing
Body: i'm still here. gonna try to think a little more about what i write next. i saw your profile...cool, artistic, like i knew it would be. do you have another email? off myspace?
And that is where our MySpace friendship concluded. We next transitioned to Gmail.
fromKevin L Guhl kevguhl@juno.com
tojodi.root@gmail.com
dateSun, Jun 24, 2007 at 1:04 PM
subjecthi
after a few days to reflect i still don't have anything "figured out" i've re-read our email exchange a few times. last time you wrote "i'm a little burnt out" from us corresponding? or just in general?? i was ready to write you a couple pages...but i want so see how you respond to this one.
tell me to fuck off if that's what you feel. i'll hafta be OK with that. i didn't message you out of just plain curiosity, so you know (that's part of my couple pages.....another time, maybe)
Kg
fromJodi Root
toKevin L Guhl kevguhl@juno.com
dateSun, Jun 24, 2007 at 1:50 PM
subjectRe: hi
I'm cool. Write away--I won't tell you to fuck off. But you have to think about how this came out of nowhere--how am I supposed to respond? My friends I've talked to think I should tell you to fuck off--but I just want to know what it is you want. What do you want? I'm not trying to be rude, I just was really not expecting this.
I'm tired right now, my car just broke down and I'm stuck in Madison. So right now I'm just burnt out on life.
So yeah, write me back if that's what you want but I want to know what your intentions are if you're going to keep messaging me.
fromKevin L Guhl kevguhl@juno.com
tojodi.root@gmail.com
dateSun, Jun 24, 2007 at 6:53 PM
subjectRe: hi
sucks to have your car break down on a Sunday. i hope you can find a place to get it fixed. how are you connected when you're on the road? wi-fi? dedicted cyber-girl.
well.......i'm looking for the answer. the test was the test. why does it still not set right with me? why do i still question after all this time? you love and trust your mother obviously. i'm not sure how to get the answer without dragging you through more trauma? I don't want that.how do you think about me? that i am your biological father and i'm just a schmuck that didn't want to be in your life? was the staus quo ok before you heard from me last Sun?
sometimes i kick myself for messaging you. why did i contact you, sure to drag up old hurts. more than a little inconsiderate of your feelings, and i appologize for that. "out of nowhere" ........that's how i felt six years ago
it wasn't the first time i'd thought about you for sure, i bonded a little bit that day in april six years ago. i looked you up on google a couple years back and found you at the radio station in Oshkosh. Then recently the bright idea of doing the myspace searching you out thing. you wrote "i am sort of glad you found me" -- me too.
well i've written a bunch of stuff but still "figuring" how or what to do from here. will i sort it out through a series of mini-blogs? i dunno
kg
fromJodi Root
toKevin L Guhl kevguhl@juno.com
dateMon, Jun 25, 2007 at 9:48 AM
subjectRe: hi
Let me know what you decide. I don't think I can handle all of this going back and forth whateverness.
I'm a 24 year old independent adult. I'm college educated, have a great job and am self-established living in a great city with a great boyfriend. I've taken care of myself for the past 6 years, and some before that. My mom is my mom. She said you're my dad. The test didn't. I just took her word for it. After the results were negative, I took that. Obviously, the two stories clash and do not coincide. But I was fine the 18 years before that without a father figure and am still just fine the past 6 years. The whole situation was just very bizarre to me. My friends sometimes ask me if it's weird not having both parents. The answer is no. It's not. Because living with a single mother is all I've ever known. Sometimes I envy my boyfriend's relationship with his father, but not really because I now have a relationship with his father as well.
I didn't think you were a "schmuck." In all honesty, after that situation went down I just thought to myself, "Well that was weird. Oh well." I asked Joan after the fact and she stuck to her story. Is she lying? Maybe. But I don't think so and I haven't thought that much about it. But you obviously have.
And yeah, this whole message exchange thing is getting a little annoying. What do you want? An answer. Ok, gotchya. Are you looking for another paterntity test? Is that it? If that's all you want, research it and tell me what to do. If that's not what you want then I don't know how to help you. I'm sorry if I'm sounding bitchy and rude, but I'm not going to put myself in the same vulnerable emotional state I was in 6 years ago. I'm not going to get all sappy when I've already been down that road.
Like I said, I've taken care of myself up until now and I've done pretty damn good for myself. But if you're that set on an answer, give me the swab and I'll play your game. I don't think it's fair to drag my mother into it, however. That's just awkward for her and it's not fair.
Didn't we do some sort of blood comparison type test too? Wasn't that a match?
Whatever. I'm super exhausted after my weekend trip went foul and I'm busy getting caught up at work right now.
I hope that answered your "questions." Sorry I'm such a crab.
As it turned out, Kevin opted to have another paternity test. I took the El to the shadiest neighborhood I had yet visited in my year long residence in Chicago somewhere on the south side. I had another swab test, this time administered by a registered nurse. I'm pretty sure the whole testing debacle cost him somewhere around $600 to a grand.
I never heard back from Kevin or the DNA lab. I eventually followed up with the lab inquiring the results, although deep down I already knew what they would be. I received a letter in the mail the following week explaining there was a 0% chance of paternity.
I called Joan up and she played dumb, calling Kevin "a creep." I agreed.
I still wanted to know but I knew she would never tell me the truth.
One night when she was in one of her typical drunken states I pressed hard enough, only to find out it could have been "the short, blonde guy" whose name she never bothered to write down.
The weird thing is, I'm taller than my mother, brother, aunts, grandparents, and I'm not blonde. So I guess I will never really know the answer to the question of my conception.
But something's telling me I probably don't really want to know the answer either. I guess some things in life are just better left unknown.
(good ending, right?? gosh jodi wasn't emo at all. . . )
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