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I spent my days getting our house organized, taking our daughter to and from school, paying the bills, working out, and working part time at the catering company. I was enjoying my new family and home, something I never had before. For the first time in my life, I could actually say I was happy.
On our way to adopt a puppy for our daughter, we stopped in my office to check voicemail messages. To my surprise, there was one from a woman named Samantha who claimed to be my long lost half sister.
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Having grown up in group homes, I had never known, met, or knew where to search for, any biological relatives. I called her back, and the conversation was quite enlightening. She told me that we were off-springs of drug-addicted bikers, that my father had actually been my mother's pimp, and that my mother, like her, had been placed against her will in mental institutions for most of her life.
Through a three-way phone call with my sister, I talked to my biological mother - the first time in 33 years. She apologized over and over again for not raising me herself. I thanked her for giving me life and assured her that in spite of everything, I was doing well. I also got in touch and talked a great deal with her mental health counselor, who told me that my mother was a paranoid schizophrenic, and in the early 70's, endured shock therapy, partial lobotomy, over-medication, and inhumane treatment by a psychiatric community that didn't know how to treat her condition, a common, unfortunate problem of that time. . She also told me that at 54, my mother had already had a mastectomy and a full hysterectomy, as a result of cancer, and that she is currently undergoing chemotherapy for a third form of cancer making its way through her body. Her counselor said that she is lucky to still be alive. My mother continued to call me during the next couple of weeks, usually after she'd taken her morning "meds", as she'd tell me. She informed ...»»
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