I was four when my dad married the love of his life. My stepmum was sweet, soft-spoken, patient, always trying to make me feel comfortable. She never forced anything, just showed up and stayed. But even as a child, it wasn’t enough for me. I remember always feeling a deep emptiness. I wanted my mother. The mother I spent my whole life believing I killed because she died giving birth to me. I felt very guilty.
I grew up in Texas with my dad and his aunt who helped raise me while he pursued his career and studies. My dad never spoke about my mother. All I was told was her name and that she died giving birth to me. No pictures. No stories about her or their life together. Just silence and a tension I learned not to question after his aunt told me he was too heartbroken to talk about my mother.
Still, I had a happy childhood. I had the best grades, went to college, and became an accountant. I had just turned 29 and was planning my wedding when I found a message on Facebook that changed everything.
I hadn’t used Facebook in years. I only logged in because my workplace wanted to tag me in some photos. That’s when I saw it. A message from someone I didn’t know. No mutual friends. Just the words:
“I think you’re my daughter.”
I almost ignored it. Scammers, I thought. But something stopped me. I looked at the sender’s profile–the woman looked oddly familiar. I knew those eyes, those cheekbones. It felt like I was staring at an older version of me. Could it be…? I can’t explain the heat that overwhelmed my body at that moment.
I scrolled through her profile and the more I looked, the more unsettled I felt. There was a softness in her smile that made my chest ache. I called my fiancé and asked him if he thought I looked like her. He said I did very much. I showed him the message and he told me to reply immediately.
—
The first time we spoke on the phone, she broke down before I could say hello.
“Is your father named Benson?” she asked between sobs. “Did he live in Muthaiga? Is your grandmother’s name Wangui? ”
I said yes to all of it.
She didn’t stop wailing.
“I found you. I found my daughter. I found you.”
—
It was too much to believe. I arranged a DNA test through a lab that partners with facilities in Kenya. It took weeks. But when the results came, the probability of maternity was greater than 99.99%. The woman I thought had died giving birth to me was alive! My father kidnapped me and brought me to the US.
And she had never stopped looking for me.
I cried my eyes out after the result came in and booked the next flight to Kenya telling noone but my fiance. This was my first time in Kenya, by the way, because Kenya was too “heartbreaking for my dad to visit”.
My mother’s name was Joyce not Grace. She was now 48 years old. When I sank into her arms at the airport, that deep emptiness and heavy guilt I had carried for 29 years disappeared. I cried so much. We cried so much and stayed up all night catching up.
She told me everything.
She and my dad were young, 19 and 21, in love but from different worlds. She grew up a poor orphan girl and my dad came from a strict, well-known wealthy family. When she got pregnant, she refused to terminate and my dad supported her. They moved into a small one-room apartment and tried to build a life.
When I was seven months old, she fell ill and went to the hospital. She left me at home with my dad and by the time she returned later that day, both of us were gone.
She panicked, ran to my dad’s family home and banged on the gate. They claimed they had no idea where we were. She went to the police. Nothing came of it. No one helped her.
She lost her mind.
Literally.
She was admitted into a psychiatric facility where her church members took her to after they found her roaming the streets. She stayed there for four years.
When she got out, she kept searching. She never married. Never had another child. Just kept looking. When the internet came, she searched online. She found some of my dad’s relatives on Facebook, but nothing led her to me. Until one day, she came across a young man with our surname. She sent him a friend request and while scrolling through his pictures, she saw me and her heart immediately told her. She clicked the tag, found my name and messaged me. That young man was my half brother.
—
I stayed with her in Kenya for three days and when I travelled back, we started talking on the phone every day. Long, emotional calls that stretched into the night. My fiance joined in the conversations too. We loved her so much. She was full of such knowledge, she loved to read, played different musical instruments and loved to paint too. I saw so many of her paintings when I visited. She was cooler than I ever imagined.
—
My fiance and I decided to surprise everyone at our wedding.
Our wedding ceremony was absolutely beautiful. A dream. Especially because my mother was right there in the crowd celebrating us. But we were the only ones who knew that.
At the reception, my husband and I stood up to announce that we had someone very special to introduce to everyone, then we ushered her forward. No one recognised her.
When we gave her the mic, she looked straight at my father.
“My name is Joyce, the woman you left behind, taking her child away with you. I have found my daughter.”
Silence.
I can’t describe the look on my father’s face. Shock. Guilt. Shame.
My grandparents hissed and tried to say my wedding was not the time or place. I told them they could leave if they didn’t like it.
My stepmother looked broken. She couldn’t believe her ears. She had no idea. She ran to me and hugged me, crying and apologising. My siblings came to me too, crying. I cried. My husband cried. Everyone cried except the people who knew of the wickedness done to my mother and to me.
I turned to my dad and told him how disappointed I was, but he stormed out of the hall before I could finish talking. His family followed him. I didn’t care.
—
That night, I danced harder than I’ve ever danced in my life with my husband and my mother by my side.
I found out later that my grandfather had threatened to disown my dad and give away his inheritance. He would lose his inheritance as the first son if he stayed with my mother. So his family arranged for him to leave for the USA with me and stay with an aunt. My father chose safety. He chose his inheritance. He chose himself.
But I will never forgive him for taking a woman’s child away from her and lying to the child for years.
My mum now lives just down the street from my husband and me and we just opened her art studio. My father and his parents are still not talking to me, but it’s not my problem.
