It Is You!

After my dad said "Is it you," there was silence.  I don't think it was probably more than a couple of seconds, but it felt like days.  And then I heard something amazing.  "Oh my God, Terry, how the hell are ya?"  Guess what?  Terry had been in contact with everyone?  For twenty years!  I spoke with Terry that night, which, by the way, was a feeling I can't put into words.  He told me he heard dad say "My name is Jerry," and he didn't hear anything else.  He knew it was his brother.  By the end of the night, dad also talked to Freda and "the baby," whose name is Jeff.  Terry had some limited contact with Wilbur and Ernie in the past, who after running away from the orphanage had returned to Eagle Grove.  He had seen the mother and I believe some of the half-siblings.  We learned that in the 1980's, Terry had placed an ad in a large newspaper stating he was searching for his birth family.  EVERYONE responded except dad and Karen.  Funny thing about it is my grandmother read that paper, cover to cover, every single day.  I'm not passing judgement.  It's just unfortunate that for whatever reason, she was not willing or able to tell my dad and aunt about it.

And so we thought our journey was over.  The only thing left was to bring the far-flung siblings together (Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa), and that's just what we did.  It would be a few years before the genealogy bug bit and we would have our next tango with adoption law.