"What's this?" I wondered, clicking to open an e-mail from a 'Brenda Cook'.
"Holy Sh-t!", I gasped, reading through it. "Holy sh-t."
"What?" Michael asked, dumping his paint and brushes into my top dresser drawer. "What is it?"
"I didn't have to find him", I murmured. "He...found me!"
"Who?" my lover pressed, glancing over my shoulder. Michael's jaw dropped as he read. He, my birth father;She, my older sister, searching for me. "Holy sh-t!"
I grew up being told I was born to a musical celebrity but I no more believed it than I would have believed I was actually heir to a foreign throne. I thought it merely a pretty little fantasy-a little white lie-intended to cover, or soften a likely ugly truth. However unlikely I thought his actual existence I did search for my birth father, based upon the limited information I had to go on. I succeeded in uncovering more than 5,000 James Cooks nation wide. Few had ever worked in music professionally and of those I contacted, including the one formerly of the Bob Hope TV show-none ever confirmed having lost a biological daughter through adoption in New York, in 1971. Tired, discouraged, and busied with other things-like my son, I gave up. This afternoon the unknown was both unearthed and no more. He lived. He breathed. He was indeed a musician, famous in his day.
According to this woman claiming to be one of several long lost siblings, my birth father was none other than the late great country music entertainer Jimmy "J.D." Cook-best known for his work with Roy Acuff and Hank Williams (among others) and founding a Texas radio station.
“You might be surprised to hear he was one of the original founders of the Grand Old Opry”, Brenda proudly informed me. By his 1991 death the Georgia-born half Seminole Indian had fathered 16 children! Of these 16-of which 12 survive-I am the very youngest. “You’re the baby of the family.” Apparently I am the only one born to a woman other than his wife Wanda and if I am to believe what I’m told, I am the long lost daughter about which he sang on that sad old recording bearing my name. “He always hoped one day you would hear the song and know you were his child, that you were loved. He never intended on giving you up for adoption.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I too had recorded a song titled “Legacy”, with the same purpose in mind. That I would find him, listening to a radio somewhere…. The family has been searching for me for years, longer even than I had looked for them. Brenda admits they began to wonder whether I-like my birth father-would prove a legend all but lost through the passage of time.
"I can't believe it was true", I dazed. "I'm Jimmy (J.D) Cook's biological daughter?" I said it over and over, in disbelief.
“Wow, Mel”, Michael smiled. “Finally you know. How do you feel?” At first I didn’t know quite how to respond. There was a brain-swelling flood of information coming in. I hesitantly wrote Brenda back, that I believed I may very well be the sister they seek but I needed a bit more confirmation. A second and third email almost immediately arrived. According to an anxious and excited Brenda, I was the result of a relationship he had with a teenage girl he'd met during his time in New York. She was 19 year old Dottie Bramer, a junkie, a prostitute, a fan who never missed a show while he was there performing. In real life “Pretty Woman” fashion, the three decade older Jimmy fell madly in love with the tall, slender blonde and moved her into his Manhattan apartment.
“He bought her a car”, Brenda explained. “He got her into rehab. I believe he proposed but my mother wouldn’t give him a divorce, even after she learned Dottie was pregnant.” They lived together for over a year but Dottie couldn’t stay clean, and the couple eventually split up. She returned to the street and he returned to Nashville-until I was born. My mother had abandoned me in the hospital, following a difficult delivery. I was 4 lbs 11 oz at birth, my development delayed, my frail frame undergoing the ravages of withdrawal to Methadone and whatever else she was on. Brenda confirmed what the adoption agency had told me. They had informed me my mother had bragged to anyone willing to listen as to my paternity when she came in, which most dismissed as the fantasy of a street urchin until six weeks later when he swaggered into the infant ICU to claim me. "There was quite a to-do as you can imagine", Brenda explained. "He lifted you into his arms, sang you a little lullaby and said to the nurse, ‘I believe I’ll call her Melody! That’s a right fine name for a future singing star I think!’ He hoped you would be the one to follow in his footsteps."
“That can’t be true!”, I laughed.
“Why not?” Michael shrugged, crouched beside me as I read on. “Stranger things have happened. Look at us!” It is indeed a year for miracles.
It seemed that my birth father was more than ready to leave with me that day, but they wouldn’t allow it. First, I was still too sickly. Second, when police finally located Dottie, the state pressured her into signing relinquishment papers. Upon my release from the hospital I went first into a “shelter boarding home” for homeless infants and then to a foster home for a time, before coming to my parents. Jimmy was still legally married to Brenda’s mother Wanda and in those pre-DNA-testing days had absolutely no way to prove he was my biological father. Brenda says he later fought the adoption in court but was denied custody.
“So, that explains the delay in my adoption!”, I exclaimed. I was two before it finally went through. Everything was coming into clear, crisp focus.
Brenda also described her father exactly as the adoption agency had described mine-approx 5'10" tall, a dark skinned man of medium build with light brown hair, and green eyes... She confirmed other details but what really sold me, what convinced me she knew what she was talking about and it wasn't an elaborate hoax-or desperate wishful thinking on my part-was the phone number she said she found scribbled in an old address book found after his death-it was my birth mother's number when she lived in Queens with her parents. I'd discovered it myself when searching through old city records several years ago. That very important detail never made it into any of the newspaper articles about me and my search. It was for me strong evidence.
"JD always spoke with great pride about his many children", Brenda went on to say. "He always included you. Losing you was the heartache of his life.” I felt at once affection, compassion for this father I never knew and great guilt about it. I felt like I was betraying the Dad who raised me, who devoted his life and resources to caring for me. The piggy-back ride giving, song-singing, prayer-teaching Daddy I would just as lovingly give my right arm for. How could I be so happy to hear so much about the other, the first, the loser in the baby battle? “He spoke about you right up until he died, wishing he’d been able to find you, see you even once more. It’s a shame we didn’t find you while he was still alive. We promised him we would keep trying.”
“You found me for sure”, I typed in return, my hands trembling. “I must be the right Melody!” There was no doubt left in my mind.
I just sat there and wept-a life time of questions, a lifetime of answers... overwhelming me at once. For all the love and care my adoptive parents gave me growing up they couldn't completely heal the hurt and fill the void in my heart. No matter how much an adoptee may be wanted and loved by his or her parents, she often feels abandoned or discarded by her family of origin. And in my case, I feared that-so plagued with illnesses-I soon became a burden to my adoptive parents, an embarrassment, a continued disappointment... However incorrect this perception of myself and my parent's feelings might have been, I felt like a misplaced puzzle piece. Try as I did, I couldn't quite fit in. It wasn’t a lack of love or a desire to “replace” them that motivated me in my search. Words alone could never convey the full extent of my gratitude for a lifetime of care and guidance. My search for their natural counterparts was about finding and completing myself. I was the greatest mystery that eluded me...
And now the truth came and it was all so unbelievable.
"Will you call me?", Brenda closed. "We have so much we want to share with you!"
