I seek out, and find, my biological father

Day before yesterday I left off with getting the job at Fred Meyer.  It is 1998, I am living in Tacoma, and, had decided that I was going to turn the Fred Meyer gig into a full time career path. While I never thought, in those early days of recovery in 1996, that a guy with my history would be able to do much more than maybe stay off drugs and alcohol and maybe get some kind of job, fate would hold a different story.   

I should talk a bit about what took place between leaving Prosperity House in May of '96 and the place in time above.  My desire, and it was very much just like my mom's throughout her life, was to find a woman, get married, and settle down.  Now, just like mom, it didn't always work out that way.  I tried and tried though. As I have been writing it is clear that Mom had for sure passed this desire on to me and I was doing my best to make it happen in my own life.

I say I don't talk about my second marriage much, and, I don't.  It was the shortest serious relationship and marriage in my history. I will say Sue did help me in some ways in my early days of changing my life.  She taught me how to create and run from a budget.  She did give me love and emotional support at a time when I needed it the most. Yet, the negative stuff overpowered the good in the end. We were together for a total of two years, almost to the day.  I made the decision to leave after knowing my son was being treated poorly in my absence. When we started dating Anthony was six years old.  She had a son, Josh, who was a year or two older.  Josh lived with her full time, and, I would get Anthony every other weekend or more. 

Our dating turned serious fast. No surprise for me as I have never been one to just date for to long. I have always been one to want to be in a committed relationship.  I learned, through educating myself that I am what is described as a serial monogamist. Don't worry, that's not as scary as it sounds, many people are just that. I want to be with one person. Dating and having a long term single life isn't my desire.  At any rate Sue and I got serious pretty fast and moved in together within a few months or so of dating. She was also in recovery, having about five years when we met.  

At first, like many new relationships, it was good.  We were in love and I was rebooting my life as a whole. It felt good to have someone who I believed was with me for me only and not just for something they could get from me. We had some really good times in those early days. As the relationship continued we committed to each other enough that we moved from where she was staying into our own apt in Sumner. She was going to school at the time and worked for the county as a data analyst.

I had started working myself, first at the Subway and than as a cook at KC's Caboose in Sumner.  I was also in school full-time at Pierce College.   I remember we would either ride in the same car or I would take the bus to school at Pierce.  I can tell you it felt really good to be truly moving forward in life during this time. I was in recovery, working full-time, and going to school. Sue and I were in our relationship and my relationship with my son was at a place I was good with. I was well out of the dark period and back to being the dad I always strived to be. 

To support my recovery during this time Sue and I went to a recovery type meeting at Life Center Church in Tacoma. I had to go AA meetings at least a couple times a week due to being on probation and I was still in outpatient treatment during this time period, but, during this time my main support group was the meeting at the church.  I also had started exercising regularly.  I remember running in Sumner and going up and down the bleachers at the Sumner High School bleachers at the football field. I was also in counseling during this time. I had started the necessary work to address the many underlying issues from my childhood and adulthood that had previously been medicated with drugs and alcohol. Beginning the years long process of fixing my teeth also started here. And when I say years long process, it is the truth, I have had thousands of dollars worth of work, and, countless dental visits over the years to fix my teeth.  It wasn't until just about five years ago, that I was in a place financially to be able to get my first implants to fill the holes where I lost teeth. 

I will never forget getting my first psych eval about six months into recovery.  Many will say, and I agree for the most part, that someone should stop using drugs and alcohol for about six months before getting diagnosed for any mental health conditions to see if some things clear up on their own.  I am not sure I agree with waiting six months, but, that's what I did.  I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, bereavement disorder, and, PTSD.  I will never forget getting the diagnosis. It freaked me out a bit.  Not having a lot of knowledge I wondered if I was crazy.  Now looking back I know I was not, and, never have been.  I have had significant mental health disorders that were resolved with treatment. As I have discussed in previous blogs, and I know this is all to common, the second I didn't have drugs and alcohol in my system, the underlying mental health conditions came to the surface.  Certainly, getting busy with exercise, paying attention to nutrition, and having positive people and activities helps some, but, with mental health conditions it isn't always enough. It certainly wasn't for me.

This was the first time in my life, and this was at 30 years old, that I ever talked to a doctor about anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety medications. It just wasn't anything remotely familiar to me to that point in my life. I rarely went to the doctor or dentist, let alone doing anything so invasive as to have these type of conversations with a doctor. My family growing up never went to the doctor or dentist regularly let alone going to a counselor or psychiatrist. It just didn't happen. At the time, and I can attribute this to Sue's support and encouragement I was going to a counselor regularly, I was seeing a doctor regularly, and, I had started going to a dentist, even if the dental visits were just for emergent issues in those early days. 

I had started dealing with the emotional weight of having been sexually abused. I carried massive shame and guilt for years about this entire scenario.  I started to learn about how abusers use grooming to gain the trust of their victims.  I started to learn that Lyn Gilmore was very good at what he did, really, a master of sexually abusing boys. He used emotional manipulation in a way that would make me feel guilty for not wanting to participated. He used his money and resources to reel boys in to think he was some kind of hero to them.  He would flaunt his influence as a way to try to show that what he did was ok.  I began to learn that I was a victim of his behavior in so many ways. It was during this time that I also really started to feel real feelings.  It wasn't all easy either.  It was hard work. It would take some time for me to truly heal from the damage he inflicted on me. I had to grieve the loss of a man, who as crazy as this sounds, was like a father figure to me, who also sexually abused me. It's just how it was. 

I also started learning about my own family and family system.  This happened through counseling and through classes I was taking at Pierce College. I was taking classes that helped me to learn the "why" of why mom and all of us behaved the way we did in my youth.  It was during this time, through counseling and education that I was able to see my mom's behavior through a different lens.  It didn't take long for me to write that fateful letter to my mom and letting go of my anger toward her for all I had been through.  My mom, during this same time period was still doing the same behavior she had always done with men and relationships, and, I was able to see it for what it was.  A long time pattern for her that continued for the nearly the rest of her life.  The good thing was, I no longer had to let it effect me. 

During this same time period and through counseling I decided that I wanted to find this man, Danny Joe Douglas, who's name I now carried as my legal last name. The man who I had never heard much about outside of the story of my mom running from him after he pointed a gun to her head yet again.  When I had signed up to go in the military in 1984, and really being forced to carry his last name from that point forward because it was on my birth certificate, well, I wanted to try to find him. You might remember me saying that my entire childhood I was told that Gerry Emmerson was my biological father.  Emmerson is the name I used in school. I used Jonny Revell's last name during the time he was alive but went back to Emmerson when he passed. I was always told that Gerry was my father. 

This was 1997-98, the internet was becoming a thing in homes everywhere. I had an almost natural attraction to technology for years and had a computer in our place and we had good ol' dial up!  So, I did a search.  It took one session of searching and I found a Danny Douglas living in Gorst, WA.  Gorst is a tiny city that sits on the edge of Bremerton, WA.  Literally, it was 50 miles from where I was in Sumner when I did the search.  I had a phone number and a name. I called it. A man answered and I asked are you Danny Douglas? He said yes.  I said do you have a son, David Douglas?  There was a pause and than another yes. I get chills right now as I am writing about this memory.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing at first.  I am pretty sure we talked for a bit on that call and he confirmed enough details about my family that I knew I had found the right Danny Douglas.

Now, and I have never, and will never, completely let this go.  And please know that I have moved on, healed from it, and he and I while he was alive had an ok relationship for the most part.  Being a father, for me, has always been my most important role in life and I remember asking him in that initial phone call why....Why did you leave me all those years?  How could a father not be in his son's life?  Irregardless of what may or may not have happened how could you NOT want to be in your son's life in some way.  And, you might have already said the same thing, knowing he was less than an hour away from me.  Here's the kicker to that one.  He had been working at the shipyards and living in the same place for over 20 years!  To give him some credit, and this is very true, he said he had tried finding us (my sister Cheri and I are both his kids), but he would find one address and go to it and we would have moved. Ok, so we did move a lot, so I might give him that much. 

He asked if he could come and see me. I figured it would at least be worth a visit to see if I could tell by looking at him if he was my dad or not.  I had a yearning to try to find out with some certainty who my real father was so I agreed. I was working at that Subway at the time and we set up a time for him to come to town.  I will never forget seeing him walk in the door and knowing. I knew, the second I saw him, he was my real father. Just like Tyler and I look a lot alike, just like Tyler and Anthony look a lot alike, he and I looked a lot alike.  That meeting would begin a years long relationship until he passed about 7 years ago now.  I will say he tried and I tried our best to have some type of father son relationship.  The reality is, not having in my life for 29 of my initial years had it's own effect on any relationship from that point forward.  I am glad I found him, I am glad we gave it a go and we had some sort of relationship for the most part, but, and this is to any dad's out there, don't leave your kids on their own.  Figure out a way to work through your shit so you can be in their lives. Please.

It wasn't long after I found him that my brother told me he had been sexually abused by him.  It was also during this same time period, that both of my sisters told our family that Gerry Emmerson had sexually abused them. I have to be honest and say I wondered why I was just hearing this now from my brother.  Why wait until after I found him to tell me this. I also wondered if he was having his own inner struggles with learning that his biological father had abused his sisters. It was a lot to hear and I am glad I was in a place where I was in recovery, in counseling, and was gaining an education during this time period.  Without it all I might very well have checked out for good. After some time I understood why he didn't tell me, and, why he was always wanting me to believe Gerry was my biological father. 

Prior to my sisters revealing what Gerry had done to them, and even with all the shit he put our mother through, at minimum Gerry was at least around us during our childhood.  I think, not just my brother, but my whole family, the reason for wanting me to believe Gerry was my real father was because of what Danny had done to my mother.  Danny wasn't talked about when I was kid and even into my adult years up until I found him, Gerry was around most of our childhood and into our adult years.  Even after mom had divorced him he was still in our lives in some way. Danny simply wasn't. He was living less than an hour away and completely absent from our lives.

When our sisters revealed what Gerry had done to them he was exited from their lives. That was it. His last years on this earth were ones where he was completely alone. The only people that communicated with him were his mother, Grandma Turco, and his brother Uncle/Dad Tom.  He was found dead in that dark and lonely studio apartment one day many years ago. 

For me, after hearing what my brother said Danny had done to him, it was hard. I had JUST found my biological father and was navigating my own new life in recovery. I remember asking Danny about it, and he denied it ever happened.  I asked him about his treatment of my mother and he owned some of it.  He said he used to drink heavily and had terrible behavior in his younger days.  He said he had quit drinking all together. I decided to maintain a relationship with him.  It wasn't a great relationship by any means.  But, I felt I wanted to at least get to know who my father was and I wanted to give him a chance.  He did try from that point forward.  I never saw him drink and his behavior toward me was positive. Now, I would never leave him alone with my son, let's just say that.  But, I also believe my brother.  I believe that Danny Douglas sexually abused him. When I came to that belief my relationship with Danny was truly off and on.  

The "off" periods where two fold.  One, because he abused my brother and he denied it, and, the knowing that he wasn't involved in my life during my entire childhood.  He would try to maintain contact with me until the day he died. The last few years he was alive it's just how it was.  I would try to have a relationship with him and than just couldn't.  I will never, as a father and grandfather myself, understand how a man could leave his son alone in the world. I will also never understand how a man can violate a child in the way he did to my brother.

I will close this blog with a closing paragraph about healing. I have healed. I am fortunate in this regard. I have been fortunate enough to have access to counselors along the way that helped me to reach back and learn the "why's" of all that I have been through as a child and an adult. I have been able to learn coping skills to keep depression and anxiety at bay.  I no longer struggle with PTSD in most all scenarios. I have grieved the loss of Jonny and let him go in peace.  I have grieved the loss of a relationship I always craved with my mother. In her last decade plus on this earth we became close and I am forever grateful for that time with her. Yesterday I celebrated 14 years without drugs or alcohol. I no longer need drugs or alcohol to cope with life stressors. I have the skills to walk through life with my head held high even with my past being what it is. 

I want this for others.  My hope for others who may have a story similar it find this same healing. However that looks for you, my hope for you is healing. With healing comes hope. With hope comes a desire to grow and change.  

The picture below is of my family today. My son has never known, except for about a year period during my dark days in the mid 90's, a life without his father.