The Search Began — Story Time

The phone rang one evening in March last year. It was my daughter. I could tell from her voice this was not the usual daily catch up chat and so I waited. She explained that her partner had bought her an Ancestry DNA test as a Christmas present, which she had done and had just received details of the results. Mum, I am a quarter Iranian, she said. My dark haired, dark eyed, beautiful exotic daughter who had always been asked in response to a question about her ethnicity..yes, but where do you really come from? The same question I had been asked most of my life to which my reply had always been..I was born in Iran but my mother is English from the West Midlands and my father is half English/half Scottish. Well now I had questions for my mother, as I too did a DNA test which showed that I was half Iranian.

When I next visited my mother I explained about the DNA testing and the results it had given. I then asked her to tell me who my father was. She did not appear concerned and insisted repeatedly that it was her husband, the man I always believed to be my father and who had died when I was 11 years old. Despite my repeated questioning and insistence to her that the science could not be wrong she remained firm in her assurances. I asked her to give the matter great thought and that we would talk about it on my next visit a week later.

I spent that week wondering who my father could have been. I trawled through old photo albums that belonged to my parents and showed photos of them living a glamorous expat life in various parts of Iran where my father had worked for a British oil company. I searched the faces of Iranian friends of theirs looking for my resemblance. My mother was a stunning green eyed, flirtatious beauty who had clearly caught the attention of many men which caused some tensions in her marriage. I had a couple of ideas as to who it might have been and nervously waited for the next conversation with my mother.

Forty minutes into our chat and she had yet to mention the only topic I really wanted to talk about. Finally I could wait no longer and asked her if she had given any thought to our previous conversation. She said she had but that now was not the time to talk about it. I reminded her that at the age of 95 and in frail health there might not be the luxury of time to postpone such an important discussion. So she began to talk and as I listened I felt the ground beneath me shift as my perspective on who I was and what my genetic roots were altered forever. She said she had never wanted to tell me because I had idolised my father and even more so after his death and she had never wanted to take that away from me. She said she was sorry and asked for my forgiveness and I replied that I was not angry and that there was nothing to forgive. We only had this conversation once and never again returned to it and six months later my beautiful mother died.

In grief, I thought also of two lost fathers. The one who raised me, who I loved and had missed so much since his death and the one I had never known, who had been married with two sons at the time of my conception and who never knew that I was his daughter. I grieved for the language I had once spoken so fluently yet after I left Iran at 7 years old I never spoke again. I grieved for a culture I had known and lost. I felt adrift and lost. All I had was a surname and some distant matches provided to me on the Ancestry DNA site. And so the search began. I have not found him or my half brothers. I have made internet contact with distant cousins in the USA but so far the trail has ended there. Closer cousins who I have messaged have not replied and without their help I am no closer. But I am hopeful - hopeful that one day I will find a message in my inbox that will lead to my half brothers and someone can tell me more about the father I never knew and maybe show me a photograph. Maybe that will be all I need to find my peace.