In the Spring 2020 semester, I enrolled in Intermediate Nonfiction. When we went to that first class, we learned we would write memoir essays. I remember looking around the room at my classmates, wondering how a bunch of 18 to 22-year-olds would write memoirs since their lives were beginning.
As for myself, I knew I had an extensive bank of memories to draw from. What I didn't know was whether I would be a compelling storyteller.
Another aspect of the class was that we were graded based on the length of the content. I embraced this because, up until this point, I felt I needed to hit 2000 words before I hit my stride. I was excited to write longer pieces.
As with the fiction pieces, these are posted as they were in the class. I have made no changes to them.
This first memoir, "When God Called My Marker," was written in less than a week since I volunteered to be one of the first three to have a story ready for the class the following week. I think the writing demonstrates that, but it was the catalyst for me to figure out what kind of writer I wanted to be. More on that to come.
God has a way of remembering our proclamations, especially when we are children, and reminding us of them much later in life. In our moments of greatest despair or confusion, when we reach out to Him to declare that if we are ever in the same situation we will do differently, He will take note and give us a marker. In the future, if that moment does arrive, as it did for me, He will remind you instantly and call in the marker to see if you truly meant what you asserted or if you were reacting in the moment but not willing to fulfill the vow you made. At least that is my experience with Him.
I’ll never forget that phone call for as long as I live. I was in my apartment when the phone rang. I had been home from work about half an hour and was reading email while my wife was in the kitchen making dinner. In the middle of reading, my phone started to ring. I ignored it the first time, but it began to ring again. As I flipped the phone open, I saw it was a good friend of mine, someone who I met and had gotten to know when I first moved back to the area when I left the military. Clearly whatever the call was about must be important, so I decided to answer. After completing all the customary greetings, my friend proceeded to tell me “an interesting story.” As I listened, it was indeed quite the interesting tale. It was full of all the typical kinds of relationship drama that many people experience with an ex, post break-up. It was a twisting road, but it eventually got to the point. At the end of the story, the voice of my friend asked me for a favor.
My immediate assumptions were that this favor was going to be along the lines of borrowing money or asking if I knew an attorney. Yes, it was that kind of story. But when the favor was asked of me, God immediately called in that marker. Before I could process anything, I could hear His voice ask, “Do you remember when you made your promise? Well, that time is now. What do you intend to do?”
I said to my friend that I would respond to the favor as soon as I could and hung up. Putting the phone in my pocket, I paused for a moment and looked at my wife. She was still in the kitchen cooking, completely oblivious to the decision I had to make. I remember how beautiful she looked; how innocent her face was in the moment as I realized things would change for us if I honored the marker. We had been married a little over a year and a half at this point and everything was going great. Now I was going to have to have the most difficult conversation in our young lives, but I needed to gather my thoughts. I excused myself, explaining I needed to run to the store to pick up something for work. As I closed the door behind me, I broke down. For the first time in several years, I didn’t know what to do.
***
I was 12 years old when my mother sat me down for an important conversation that we needed to have. At that time, I figured it was another lesson to prepare myself for being an adult. My mother had decided that it was important to prepare me to be able to do for myself when I grew up. I can recall her saying, “There are no guarantees that you will get married or that if you do that you will remain married.” This was driven by the fact that she and my dad had been divorced now for a few years, but it was also to help her out. She was working full-time trying to raise two boys and was struggling. She was teaching me to be independent and to take on more responsibilities.
The first adult life lesson I recall was how to do my laundry on my own. I was taught how to sort laundry properly, how to wash my clothes using the correct temperatures and cycles, and whether to hang dry clothes or use the dryer. I was also taught how to iron my clothes, including knowing which types of pants were creased and which types were not. In time, I was more than capable of doing my laundry without supervision. I was ahead of the game and to be honest, it was a skill that helped me in the military from the first day of basic training.
The next major adult life lesson was learning how to cook for myself and for others. I learned what it meant to plan meals, to make a grocery list and shop at the grocery store, how to prepare meals, and how to save leftovers. These lessons were proving valuable and, to be honest, I enjoyed them for the most part. Being an independent minded person already, it came naturally to me and gave me purpose.
Though I wasn’t sure exactly what the topic would be this time, I knew it was going to be something along the lines to further educate me in the ways of an adult. However, this was a very different message. Instead of learning a new skill to get me through adulthood, it was a life lesson about knowing the truth of who I really was. On this fateful day, I learned that my father wasn’t really my father at all. Instead, I learned that he had adopted me when I was two years old after he married my mother. I also learned that I had a biological father, a man that I never met. As my mother explained everything to me, I proceeded to unravel. My parents had split at a time where I was most vulnerable to the corruption from the disease of divorce that was inflicted on so many children of my generation. I had been trying my best to endure the trauma of this while attending middle school but was failing miserably. My life felt like it was on fire and this revelation set me over the edge. I ran from my mother’s room and shut myself in my room, crying uncontrollably. I felt betrayed, that my life was a lie.
After a while, I gathered myself together and I sat in silence in my room. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to calm my mind and control my body from shaking and crying. When I was composed, I spoke to God.
I prayed, “God, I don’t know why this happened, but I promise you this: When I grow up, if I find out I have a child, I will be there for them. I won’t abandon them.”
God heard my prayer and marked it.
***
As I was driving around in a panic, I pulled the phone from my pocket and I dialed my mother. When she answered, I found a place to pull over and I unburdened myself. I told her that I received a phone call from a friend, a friend that said I may be the father of her child. That child was nearly three years old, meaning not only was I potentially an instant parent but I also would have missed three important years. Together, we sat in shocked silence, the quiet passing between our two phones like ships in the night. After a short bit of time, it was my mother who broke the silence, reminding me that the most important thing I needed to do was talk to my wife about the situation. It struck me as odd that this was her initial response but in reflecting, I figured it was due to the fog that was affecting my consciousness at the moment. I knew she was right that I needed to speak to my wife about this, but I was perplexed why she hadn’t asked me what I planned to do about the news I had received. It was later that I realized that my mother knew exactly what I was going to do even before I did. I had made a promise 18 years earlier, one that she was quite aware of thanks to our further conversations regarding my biological father. I was going to honor the marker because she had witnessed the effect of being abandoned had on me and that I was the kind of person who would never do that to a child of mine.
I thanked my mother for enduring my panic and I promised that I would let her know how everything went. There would need to be a DNA test to be conclusive. If the DNA test came back that this child was mine, then there would need to be the obtaining of an attorney to set up the legality of adoption and custody arrangements. After all of this would there be the integration of a new child, of my child, into the family.
But before any of this could happen, I had to speak to my wife. What I hadn’t considered initially after the call, or especially when I was 12 years old, would be the additional costs of honoring this marker. I had assumed that if this scenario played out, it would be when I was a single man, free to decide for myself. This wasn’t the case now. I had another person to consider and the impact it would have on her and the family she came from. As I walked up the stairs back to my apartment, I had to consider the very real possibility that by gaining something from honoring the marker that I may lose something as well. That potential loss would be my marriage. The thought of this terrified me in a way that I have never been scared before.
***
When I was 19 years old, I met my biological father for the first time, at least from my memory. He was a nice, personable man. He owned a few local businesses and had a family of his own. We had the opportunity to visit a few times after that initial meeting until I went to basic training a couple of years later. It was nice to learn some of who I was, considering that I had always felt out of place, especially after learning about him. However, as my military career began, I didn’t hear from him despite him telling my mother he wanted to write to me and continue to get to know me. This went on throughout my service; questions about where I was stationed and what was my address to be followed up with nothing. It became our thing.
Years later, I finally reconnected with him. As I had done myself, we did an official DNA test to confirm paternity. The result was what I expected. He was indeed my biological father. Afterwards, we met a few times, discussing what to do going forward. I wasn’t seeking a major place in his life nor was I seeking anything to do with his now expanded businesses. What I truly wanted was to meet his family, his two sons especially. I have two half-brothers I never met, and they had no idea I even existed. In order to do this, all my biological father had to do was tell his wife about me and when she was comfortable, introduce us. We decided together this was the right thing to do before meeting my two half-brothers. We shook hands on it. I remember being very excited, that the hole in my life would be filled.
He never told his wife and I have not seen or spoken to my biological father in 8 years.
***
I entered the apartment to find my wife sitting on the couch watching tv. She was excited to see me enter but her face drew immediate concern when she saw my red, puffy eyes. She asked me what was wrong to which I responded that we needed to speak.
I told my wife about the phone call. That my friend had found out that the father of her son was not really the father at all. How the guy had secretly taken her son for a DNA test and when the results came back, he was not the father. I told my wife that the guy practically abandoned this child on the spot. I told my wife how my friend had a court-ordered DNA test done to verify that this wasn’t some ploy to get out of his obligations. I shared what I had been told that the results from the court-ordered test were the same as the initial test. I explained to my wife that my friend’s favor was asking me to have a DNA test to know for sure, that if I wasn’t the father then this child would never have a father because the only alternative would have been an irresponsible blackout episode. I told my wife that after the test my friend said I didn’t have to be involved. All she really wanted was just to know.
I then had to explain to my wife that my relationship with my friend was more intimate than I ever spoke of, that the reason I never told her of this was because I had put that part behind me when I met my wife. I had to explain that when I met my wife, everything before her became irrelevant to me. Perhaps I could have told her, but I never imagined my marker would be called.
But God was with me when calling in the marker. I told my wife my story, about what I had learned when I was 12 years old and my promise that I had made to God at that moment. I explained to her the impact it had on my life up to this point, how I felt empty because my biological father abandoned me as a child and had told me he wanted to have a relationship only to not follow through. I explained why I needed to do this for this child so that he would not carry my sins as a father. It was to me the honorable thing to do. As I told her, I remember the calm that came over the room.
But I also said I understood my wife had a decision to make. That she married me believing I didn’t have children. Now here I was, an instant father to a three-year-old. I explained that whatever she decided, I would support. I said all this expecting that a marriage of less than two years would end that night.
But what I didn’t know is the marker had a component of Faith included in it. My wife, while clearly upset by the news, said only one thing to me that night.
“We will take things as they come.”
And that is what happened. The DNA test came back that this child was indeed my son. Together, my wife and I went through the process of me legally adopting him. We endured being the non-custodial parents of this boy when his mother met someone and got married. We persevered when they would try to power-play and limit my time with my son because it interrupted their harmonious “family.” We sacrificed our time for years because his mother would sign him up for activities that cut into our weekends because we didn’t want to punish this innocent child. We endured me taking three hours on a Friday to leave work, drive down to pick him up and come back to our home because traffic was always awful.
But the child noticed. He was appreciative of our sacrifices as he grew up and realized what we were doing. He came to think of my wife as his own mother, choosing to call her “Momma” on his own accord. He grew to appreciate and maximize the time he had with us. He grew up being treated no differently than the sons my wife and I had. He was never thought of as different or less than, even by my wife’s family. He was always as much a grandson and nephew as were his two half-brothers from my wife and me. The reason: I spoke to my wife and my wife answered.
When his mother divorced from her husband, my son leaned on us more because he felt loved and protected by his father and by his stepmother, his “Momma”. When he was starting 10th grade, he moved in with us and graduated from the high school where my children with my wife attend currently and will attend when they reach that age. This child, our son, is a blessing in our life.
None of this would have happened had I not made that promise all those years ago and if I had not honored that marker. None of this would have happened had I not spoken to my wife. But more than that, none of this would have happened had God not put Faith in the lives of my wife and me. He added her to the marker, unbeknownst to me at the time, because she is what I needed to stay true to my pledge.
No matter what a person believes, we all have an inherent sense of wanting to do the right thing for ourselves and for others. We also know that doing the right thing can easily be cast aside, especially when it could forever change the path you are on, even potentially adding incredible hardships. So, the question becomes this: What is the right thing to do?
I have a hole in my life that will never be filled because the man who fathered me has chosen not to include me in his life. But another, larger hole in my life was never created because I chose to honor a promise I made as a 12-year-old. Given the choice, I would rather be the abandoned than the abandoner. I can at least sleep at night with the knowledge that I made a difference in a life other than my own.
God called my marker and I answered. It was one of the best things I have ever done in my life and I have no regret.
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