My Dad’s Voice

My mother was a teenager when I was born in the early 1970s. She was so young that my existence was illegal. Maybe I was a mistake. Maybe I was the product of rape. I don’t know. Either way, that sits heavy. I like to think that she was doing her best in impossible circumstances. 

My mother surrendered me. Other than my face, the only thing I carry from her is a silver neck chain. I’ve worn it every day. I still do. It’s my most precious possession.

I’ve gathered what information I could about my dad. He appeared on no documents that I’ve found. I know that the story I’ve been given about him is likely untrue, but I cling to it. It’s all I have. It’s my most precious story, and the core of my identity.

As a small child, I passed through a string of foster homes before landing with a former football player and his wife. They adopted me.

The football player had always wanted a son. Someone like him. He had only agreed to adopt after his wife had a hysterectomy. So, they adopted me and took me to a new country to join their life.

But his wife didn’t take the side effects of her hysterectomy, or my presence, well. Not long after I arrived, she became an alcoholic. Then she started to take drugs. Finally, to get more drugs, she started to sleep around. He couldn’t stand the shame, and the sense of failure. 

When they separated, I stayed with him. That had its own issues. He was angry, bitter, and lonely. The price of his many concussions, and his unfortunate situation. And I was not the son that he had wanted.

We had nothing in common. He looked southern Italian; I look distinctly Nordic. Our worlds never aligned. Our personalities are as different as our looks. And being a single dad, to a kid you looked nothing like, back then? Not a common thing. 

Despite all that, he did teach me about things that have shaped some parts of my life. But my time with him wasn’t easy. And I always wished that my mother had kept me.

The day I left his house, something changed. I was still a young teenage boy. He’d taught me to stand up for myself, but standing up to him was unimaginable.

He was chasing me around the house. Again. Screaming and heavy punches raining down on me. The fists always felt like sledgehammers. 

It was in that moment that I heard a voice in my heart. I know that it wasn’t a real voice. But my heart heard it. The voice of my Dad looking down on me. Watching over me from wherever he was.

“Get up, son.”

I swallowed my fear and forced myself up. To stand under the weight of the angry man’s fists.

“Now swing. I’m with you. We can do this.”

I swung back. So hard that when my fists connected, they even jarred me. Decades later, I still have a scar on my hand from it. 

With the help of that voice, a teenage boy swallowed fear, stood up, and knocked down a professional athlete. 

“Now run.” 

I fled with nothing. Wearing only a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. No bag. No shoes. Nothing. I slept on a train that night. Then I slept on the streets. 

By the time I found shelter, my feet were so filthy and torn that I can still remember feeling the blisters bursting as I trudged along. The fluid hit my legs around the knees. But I promised myself I wouldn’t go back. 

That’s how my life began.

I cut his surname off my name and took back my birth name. But the revolting first name he gave me has been hard to completely shake. 

Back then, where I was, you could build identity just by using it. Eventually you’d qualify for a passport. But that meant cutting the last legal thread to who I once was. No birth certificate. No proof of origin. 

It’s been over thirty years since I fled. I’ve had no contact with the man or his family. I left that country and started over, carrying nothing but the scars. And I’ve never heard the fatherly voice that saved me again.

For decades, my relationships failed. I rarely felt any real connection to people. I never felt a connection to places. I was rootless and didn’t belong. 

But I worked hard. I put myself through university and built a career. I now hold a senior role in an organization that protects vulnerable children. I have a large home and a beautiful wife. 

By every external measure, I’m successful. But inside, sometimes I’m still the boy that knocked the man down and fled his house. 

Two years ago, my son was born. The day I saw his eyes, everything changed. It was like looking into a mirror. He fit. And for the first time, I knew what it felt like to belong. Nothing in this world compares. And I’ll love and defend him with my life.

But that love is both overwhelming and devastating. It forces the question I’ve spent my life avoiding:

How could anyone give him away?

I could never give him away. 

So… what was wrong with me? What made me disposable? Unworthy of being kept?

Adoption is a system that severs children from their identity. It forces them to live under false names and fake documents. Sometimes with people that don’t deserve children. 

I am anti-adoption in every form. But I am pro-foster care. We can care for children without erasing their identity. We can love them without pretending they’re ours. No child should ever have to lose their name to find a home.