I Met My Father for the First Time at 42. I Finally Feel Whole.

This weekend, I met my father for the first time in Dallas, Texas, and it truly marked a new chapter of unification with someone I should have known from the beginning.

Everyone has asked me how it felt to meet him and there is only one answer: Whole.

Since discovering that the man who I thought was my father wasn’t, after an Ancestry test, I’ve been through a range of emotions in a very short amount of time.

I remember staring at my phone for probably 20 minutes trying to make sense of what I was seeing, only to finally accept that my father is someone else.

For a few days after this, I went from being shocked to confused about my identity. The man who I thought was my father was a Trinidadian immigrant and even though he wasn’t active in my life, I thought I was half Trinidadian.

I spent years finally accepting who I was and my circumstance, all for it to be untangled in a matter of minutes. I was an abandoned child but I wasn’t even sure who abandoned me. Who in fact was responsible for my creation?

I want to emphasize that my outcome is, by the grace of God, the best possible outcome that could have happened. You hear the stories about families wanting nothing to do with the child who is looking for answers and a connection.

I approached it with the lowest possible expectation and received the opposite. I was accepted immediately by my family. My cousins weren’t just cousins by blood but by action. My uncle quickly turned into a mentoring male figure who is always available.

And then of course my father has done everything that I wanted as a father in the short time of knowing him. He calls and texts me at least once a day. He’s answered all of my questions with honesty and has shown me nothing but love.

As a 42-year-old man, I require a different type of father than what I would have needed as a child. And if I’m honest, I’m still figuring out what it means to be an adult son with a caring father.

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This entire experience has made me realize that I grew up tolerating a half-state of existence instead of a whole one. In terms of family, I only knew my mother’s side and I just got used to this reality.

Now having a large family embrace me on my father’s side, I realized that I lived my entire life not being made whole. I always talked about the impact of not having my father active in my life but I didn’t realize what I was missing by not having my father’s family too.

However, I’m not angry at anyone or resentful. I was able to withstand this experience and stand strong enough to talk about something that most people run away from.

God has given me the strength to overcome my circumstance and not turn into a negative statistic. Instead, I’ve used my story to help and critique culture in hopes of preventing another childhood circumstance like mine.

I am thankful that I learned of his existence while he’s still alive to embrace me. He’s 76 and I have no idea when it will be his final day on this earth. If I’m honest, I feel like I have so little time to make up for the 42 years I’ve lost.

I’m going at a comfortable pace and I am grateful for the opportunity to have him in my life.

It sounds weird to say after all of these years of being neglected by a father figure: I have a father who actually cares about me.

I wouldn’t change anything about my past and there is no point in crying about this. But there is a future I can forge with him, as I am planning to see him again before the end of the year.

No regrets or animosity. I am whole now. All Glory to God.