DNA Vicissitudes

(Part Five) Down Down Down The DNA Strand or Just Ask Your Mother

This is part five of a story about unexpected surprises when the DNA kit went on sale Cyber Monday. Want to catch up?

• Part One: COMING OUT OF THE DESERT

• Part Two: DNA (DO NOT ASSUME)

• Part Three: DNA HACKER

• Part Four: DNA: (DO NOT ADMIT)

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DNA VICISSITUDES

My mother and I catch up on Zoom. Chit, chat, this ‘n’ that. For reference, it is now going on three weeks since the first contact was made (the “hacker” – who has been upgraded to quotes) over this DNA mini-drama. But I’m not thinking on it…too much. I bring it up haphazardly to my mother.

“By the way…”

That’s how the recent happenings entered the conversation. “By the way…” A funny little phrase. It means… along my journey… while on my way to a destination… this was along the path. On the side of the road.

So I related that, along the road as I was traveling, this DNA test “happened”. (This is not a great headline to her. She had also, long ago, and it was a mutual interest of ours over time… our genealogy…sans my papa of course. I have lived so long with my focus on the maternal side that the paternal focus is, at this point, moot. Mere trivia. A non-starter.) Then I related that a random man emailed me. I’m telling her this with all the obvious disbelief and ridiculousness necessary for this obvious case of ridiculously mistaken identity.

“By the way, I took a DNA test, and this guy emailed me. He said he was my father!” <eye roll, shrug, right eyebrow raised> I caught her up on all the digital hoops I had to jump, how all this can’t be, etc. The absolute fact that he was a spammer or the DNA people made a mistake.

Looking back, it was all so casual. Too casual. Gullible. I’m a primed, willing, standing victim to the invisible two-by-four aimed for a blow across my entire face.

My mother simply asked, “What’s his name?”

Stupid, (that’s me), answers.

She, I guess, didn’t hear me clearly enough and repeated herself. “What’s his name?”

I enunciate clearly. Slowly.

She paused, focused, processing. Before I could catch up, the floating two-by-four SLAMMED INTO MY FACE.

Then without warning my mother abruptly gasped the gasp to end all gasps. Her inhalation sucked all the oxygen out of my room four and a half hours due north of her computer through the screen. I held my breath and time stopped.

The two-by-four leisurely reeled back, resetting for another hit. Ready. Aim…

Then my mother did the thing to end all tomfoolery.

She let out a long, low, otherworldly groan.

SLAM!

I have a black eye now. My skull bleeds.

Aaaaand KAPOW!

The earth jolted and shifted its axis with the vibrations of that groan. It was a groan of sharp uninvited remembrance. The groan of shocking unsought realization. The groan of fifty-four years of getting it wrong. All wrong. So wrong that it must be the groan of God fed up with what has been in the darkness too long. The groan of a great Tree of Life breaking the surface of the earth having been fully formed underground all these years. The groan of restoration, of truth, of long-suffering seeking the Light of Heaven. The groan of a sharp, long, unattended, birth pang.

The groan at the foot of the cross.

“What the hell!?” I barked.  (I confess. That’s not what I said. I used a more pointed expletive.) In that moment all empathy evaporated.

Then came what I can only describe as the intellectual equivalent of roaches scrambling for the hiding place when the flashlight is shone in the basement; a rambling off of interrogative questions. Names, schools, years, dates…. THE TARGET: MAKE SURE THIS IS ABSOLUTELY A MISTAKE.

This man. This mistake seemed to be easily searched online…if it’s the person I think it is. This person who lives in the same state and city where I attended college. This person who has a bio that tells all the answers we need to know. Dates, years. Where he was – when.

Aftershocks begin. Or is it still the original quake? Can’t tell. Everything is just shaking. My voice, my heart, my hands, my nerves. Is it hot in here? It feels mighty hot in here.

His name was easily recognizable; just unusual enough to zero in quickly. The years were… let’s just say math never lies. Today math came in like a two-edged knife in the form of my conception year.

I think I’m gonna be sick.

Everything added up. Every little thing.

You might think this was the moment where I started asking questions. I’m not good at that in the moment when it comes to the mystery of my birth. It takes time. And I guess that’s a good thing because for the next twenty minutes we just stared at each other, over Zoom, attempting to speak but the words simply choked up at the soft pallets. It’s hard to talk when the oxygen has left the building. So you save the air.

So for the sake of self-preservation, we quietly ended the call.

What did I do next? I lifted my jaw from my lap. I stood up. It was time for my husband and I to take our late afternoon dog walk before evening Mass. Clear skies. Hot, stifling climate.

I tell him everything, of course. I mean I think was able to chirp the general facts.

But it only took half a block for me to enter sur-reality; the world where this buried news began shooting to the surface of my mind like sepia 70’s-something snapshots. The result of those two-by-four hits was a sharp instantaneous migraine. KABLAM. I doubled over holding my head and stomach at the same time. Explosive horizontal tears began their eruption, darting forward. My body taking authority over the moment. This – whatever has just happened – will not be withheld, stuffed-down, or hidden. The depths of this chasm which will not be ignored. Attention will be paid. Whether I’m in or out.

We quickly walked back home and I laid down, hands still steadying my head and stomach. I downed a prescription amount of Ibuprofen. My husband offers that perhaps I stay home from Mass and rest to catch up with the shock and recover from the migraine.

I consider this easy decision. That makes sense. But no. If there’s one thing I need right now, it’s Jesus. This is the moment. I need the Mass. But I wait to see if the migraine subsides. It does. We go.

I have some questions for my God. Many. And among the sorting and sifting and the hangover, I’m feeling entitled to a hefty “WHY”…?

And what will I do now?

…to be continued

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Luke 8:17