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Like any true-crime sleuth, I began my own online investigation into what had happened to my father and whether he was still alive. But being a man with big secrets, he’d left no footprint behind, not even a White Pages entry.
My half-brother, though, was a different story. So, using an alias and an associated email address, plus a white lie regarding a man my father once went to school with, I reached out. Within days, I received a reply. It was the first contact I’d had in nearly 15 years with my father – a man my mum had presumed was dead.
What followed was a series of about 20 emails between my father and me. It began with him expressing his “shock” at hearing from me. He asked for time to “get his head around it”, along with a request not to share my existence with his wife or son.
When I requested that we meet, or talk over the phone, I was told no – it could risk his wife and son finding out.
SHONA HENDLEY
After asking questions raised by his medical history, something I’d requested for both my own and my children’s benefit, he responded with what he deemed relevant information. Then, following some pleasantries about our lives, the tone changed. He turned cold and evasive, saying that my presence, even if only via his computer, made his “blood pressure rise”.
When I requested that we meet, or talk over the phone, I was told no – it could risk his wife and son finding out. That, he said, was a reality he couldn’t fathom, something he would never be forgiven for. Finally, I was warned that if I exposed his lie, his betrayal, his secret, it would be the end of any relationship we would ever have.
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Those are the last words I ever heard from him. Seven years on, and with the fake email account now deleted, in many ways I have come full circle, but with the added heartbreak of absolute rejection.
For my dad, keeping me a secret might be necessary to hide his betrayal. But I no longer wish to be a secret. Because I never chose to be a secret in the first place. I have hated being a secret. It has adversely impacted my relationship with others, fuelled my insecurities and generated questions about everything that I am. I have been left in the dark about many aspects of my identity and feeling undeserving of anything positive in my life. This feeling of not being loved, not being good enough, has flourished.
Being born from an extramarital affair is a uniquely isolating and lonely experience, one that generates flippant, even harsh criticism and judgment from others. Often it’s my mum who receives the worst comments – something I find ironic and disgustingly unfair.
Hearing these judgments isn’t easy. But for some reason, when you’re in this position, one that you’d never willingly sign up for, you are fair game for everyone’s two cents’ worth on the topic. There is no consideration of how being born a secret, growing up one and remaining one could affect a person. How it might cause distrust and feelings of inadequacy, of being unsure of who you are.
Instead, your role, your identity, is somehow viewed as just an inevitable part of the process, something you must accept. How can that possibly be fair? How can it be okay?
Next year, I turn 40. With that age comes a lot of knowledge, experience and learning, much of which has been the result of hard work, healing and accepting the things I can’t change or control. While there is still a long way to go, I have arrived at a critical point: the point of realisation that while my father might always want me to be a secret, the truth is that I am not.
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