A celebration and a revelation

Today is Seth’s 50th birthday, and I enjoyed having dinner with him, Cristina, Bella, and Evan. I made this photo in a dark restaurant at the end of our meal. It was a rare pleasure to celebrate with Seth and his family on his actual birthday. Most years, he has been away on tour when his birthday came around. Fifty is a big turning, but I see Seth accepting it with grace, and I am beaming with mom-pride in him.

The surprise is a DNA report that arrived today. My half-brother Max, blipped here with Seth eleven years ago, has a ten-year-old daughter in China. Max died of a heart attack in 2021, but a friend of his thought he was trying to bring a Chinese woman and her child to the USA when he died. Ironically the mother of Max’s child is a cardiologist. She is rearing their daughter as a single mother in Shanghai, but some members of the family (including the woman who was married to Max when he died) wondered if Max was really the child’s father. Max never had his DNA tested, but today the child’s DNA report arrived, and the child is related to all of us who are related to Max, so I think there is no further doubt.

I cheer for these revelations. The identity of my father (who was Max’s legitimate father) was shrouded in shame and lies throughout my life. Secrecy allows fathers to ignore or deny responsibility for their children, and it leaves mothers to bear the stigma (and the financial hardship) alone. I’m not sure my half-niece will ever know her father’s family, but at least she will know that her mother told her the truth about who he was.