How an adult orphan found her longlost dad

I have a confession to make. I’m not an adult orphan... not anymore. It turns out my dad, who I didn’t know for 39.9 years of my life, is alive and kicking and suddenly at the ripe age of 40... I have a dad.  

It’s probably only just now that I’m putting this properly into written words that I understand the magnitude of what’s happened; especially when you consider the context of losing Mum and finding myself without any close family. Let alone dedicating the past ten years to writing about being an adult orphan!  

Firstly spending my life without a dad, then over the years since Mum died finding myself a step-dad figure in her ex-partner, and now, what, I have a blood-Dad?! I’ve gone from having a mum, to having no-one, to having a step-dad, and now also a dad, plus his wife! Bit greedy if you ask me... I feel very grateful. 

So how did this all come about? As always with me, it’s quite the story. I’m not sure I actually have it in me to do things ‘normally’! ‘Skid sideways into the grave’, that’s the mantra I had from young and I guess I’m still living that truth. 

Dad in the early days of his business

I had scant information about my dad – 1) a first name, 2) that he used to own an aquatic fish shop in a nearby town, and 3) that at times I reminded Mum of him. Their history is their history and I’m leaving that with them, I wasn’t there. But after ten years of Mum’s passing, I decided to go looking for him. Enough time had passed to be respectful to her wishes, and curiosity was killing that cat. I didn’t get very far. Various obstacles cut the search short and I gave up for a couple of years. 

Then something in me woke up one day and told me to try again, so I ordered a DNA test. On hitting ‘Pay’ I thought I might as well Google him, as you never know: ‘Stranger things happen at sea’, as Mum used to say. I only went and found him, didn’t I, via a review comment on his old business. He was alive! There he was! My Dad! I couldn’t find a way to contact him... But I had a lead. A couple of kind friends did some digging around and traced him to Scotland via an ancestry site and more Googling. 

My close friends held their heads in their hands as I threatened to jump in my car and drive nine hours to try find him at an old address or one of these places he’d reviewed online. I was starting to feel like a bit of a stalker, but I didn’t care – I'd been an adult orphan for too long and I deserved to know who the other half of my DNA belonged to. What did he look like? What had he been up to for the past 40 years? Did I have any siblings? Do I owe any of my traits, skills and hobbies to him? 

So just before leaving for a holiday I rang a roofing company in Dundee and laid my heart on the line to the sweet guy who answered. “This guy left a review on your company,” I said. “Do you know him? I think I’m his daughter.” And they did! A couple of phonecalls back and forth like some murky but excitable three-way negotiation, and before you know it I’m standing in my bikini, with Norovirus, in Spain, with my Dad in my ear. 

Life is funny. 

He was funny. We both laughed, and a few donkeys lost their hindlegs, and it hasn’t been any different since really. We’re very alike – for our sins – and feel like we’ve been given a second chance to have a blood family that we’ve both been missing out on through loss and life. There are many memories we were never able to make, but so many more we can squeeze in now. Christmas for instance; this will be our first together.

I also only realise now a curious coincidence. I found out my mum was dead on a phonecall on holiday. I found out my dad was alive on a phonecall on holiday. I lost a mum in this way, and gained a dad in the same. I think I need to process that... 

When I went looking for him – and the reason I took so long to do it – was worrying about what she would think. Would she be jealous that he was in my life now and she wasn’t? Would I be a traitor to her? Did I deserve to find happiness and belonging? Would it tarnish this wall of adult orphanhood that I’d built up around me to protect me from further suffering, something I had found identity in. I realised I had to let these things go and find gratitude in this second chance, to live with the living while still honouring the dead. 

The takeaway? Life is short. You keep thinking about doing something and there’s no real reason not to? Do it. My dad is in his mid-eighties, I’m 40, and life is both short and never short of surprises. I’m immensely grateful we have this time together. 

And no, I’m not changing the name of my blog and book. This is my journey and I’ve paid my dues for this exciting milestone along the way. 

Dad and I visting his old shop (and where I began life as an embryo!)