Katy’s Family Forest, part 22

Time for another apology, eh? The truth is, I'm working on another project now, and it has been keeping me quite busy. But I don't want to leave you all hanging! If you've been patiently waiting to hear more, I apologize for taking so long. And if you have given up on me because it has been so long… well, then you're not reading this anyway—but I'm still sorry. Here's the next installment…

Life went on from there, as it tends to do when you are married with two small children and have church commitments and family commitments and… well, you get the picture. The whole situation with Frank and Janet getting back together was weird to me, but didn't really affect my life.

It was several months later that it came… out of the blue, I had an e-mail in my inbox. From Frank. My first reaction was that Janet had probably gotten onto his e-mail account and sent it for him, but it quickly became apparent that the message was truly from him. It was much longer than I expected, and he explained—as Janet had done earlier—that he had just been shocked when I had first contacted him. He had thought that the adoption was closed—which it was, he just didn't know the rest of the story—and hadn't ever expected to hear from me. He wasn't ashamed of me, but of his behavior at the time of my conception/birth. And he knew he hadn't reacted well when I contacted him.

And then he said it. "I don't know how you feel now about us being able to at least meet and talk about things, but it's something I would like to do if you agree."

I don't know what I thought I would feel if/when my biological father said those words, but I hadn't expected what I did feel: nothing. I felt absolutely nothing. How could something that had seemed so important just a few years before be so inconsequential now?

Actually, I knew the answer to that. I wasn't the same girl who had sent him that letter, who had stopped by his house. I was much stronger, emotionally and spiritually. I was a married woman, a mother to two beautiful children. I was serving in my MOPS group and my church and loving it. I was certain of who I was, not only in my parents' eyes, not only in Jon's eyes or my children's eyes, but who I was in God's eyes. This man, even though I was thankful to him in a strange way for giving me life, meant nothing to me. I didn't fear his rejection or desire his approval.

It was odd… I couldn't quite process my own feelings—or lack of feelings, I guess I should say. And even though I knew that I had originally pursued him and basically guilt-tripped him into asking to me… I was no longer sure that I wanted to go through with it.