Anniversary weekend two weeks ago turned out to be full. Friday night we went to a Beloved Community gathering. Saturday we met a friend we haven’t seen for some time for brunch and got caught up.

Sunday we attended a joint practice at Chua Bo De Temple in Eagan. Chua Bo De is a Vietnamese temple that practices in the Plum Village tradition that James and I practice in. Several members of our English speaking sangha have built a relationship with the abbot and members of Chua Bo De, and once a month they invite our sangha to come practice with them. Their practice is conducted in Vietnamese, but on our joint practice day, there is someone who translates for us. After meditation and a dharma talk, everyone shares a vegan Vietnamese meal prepared by the temple monastics and members of the temple community. James and I attended a retreat there in August when monastics from Magnolia Grove Monastery in Mississippi were in town, but we have never attended a joint practice day. It was lovely even though it filled much more of our day than we expected. We both look forward to going again, perhaps in November, weather and time permitting.

I also got to practice a little of the Vietnamese I am learning. Have I mentioned I am learning Vietnamese? I know there are issues with Duolingo, but that is where I am learning. The lessons are short and the gamification keeps me coming back each day. I briefly tried a program called Transparent Language, or something like that, through the public library, but it was so much like school I dropped it after a few days. My vocabulary is still limited, my pronunciation is dreadful, and all the diacritical marks, let’s just say I am not even trying to get those at the moment. I borrowed some Vietnamese picture books from the public library a couple days ago, including a bilingual edition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I am pleased to be able to recognize some of the words! Learning a new language at my age is hard, but fun. The best thing, however, is actually having native speakers of the language to practice with.

October 26th James and I both took the day off from work as part of our 35th wedding anniversary celebration, and to have a day of not doing much after such a full weekend. We went out to lunch at our favorite plant-based cafe. The day poured rain, which was only appropriate since it poured rain the day we were married too, though that was in southern California, not Minnesota.

And then, that night, the biggest, most cliche plot twist dropped on my life.

The probate attorney asked if we had a copy of the deed to my mom’s house. My sister was still staying at the house so I asked her to look for it. I recalled seeing an envelope that I put in a security box. She found the envelope that said “house deed.” Along with house stuff, there was a surprise document.

She asked when I was going through papers had I found anything surprising. Uh, no. Nothing that was out of the ordinary? she asked. What are you getting at? I don’t want to play this guessing game, I said getting frustrated. Well, she said, if I tell you, you will never be able to un-know it, it’s life changing. Just tell me, I said. So she did. And it is life changing.

The surprise is adoption papers with my name on it.

I have joked with friends that sometimes I feel like such an oddball in my family that I was probably adopted. I was never actually serious, but then I always felt like there was something off without being able to say what. My sister said she felt the same.

My mom is my birth mother, but it turns out my dad (he died 5 years ago) is not my biological father. He adopted me when I was three. My sister was one at the time. My parents, who always said they got married a year before I was born, got married while my mom was pregnant with my sister nearly two years after I was born. When my dad adopted me, my parents changed my birth certificate and the original was sealed by the state of California.

There is no one still living who has any details of the story.

My sister and I, piecing together things our mom said over the years, think she was engaged to her high school sweetheart who was then drafted and went to Vietnam where he died. Whether my mom knew she was pregnant when he left for the war, and if he ever knew about me, I will never know. She never told his family, that is certain. And whether this speculative story is true, I may never know.

I am petitioning the Superior Court of California, San Diego, to unseal my original birth certificate to see if my biological father’s name is on it. I don’t want to try and contact anyone in his family, I only want his name so I can piece together the story. We are also trying to find a copy of my mom’s high school yearbook. We think her sweetheart’s name was Chip. Of course, with all the yearbooks online, the one we want is not. When next my sister is at the house, she is going to verify the name of the high school and year of graduation and I will proceed in my research from there.

In the meantime, I was in shock all that week. The shock began wearing off last weekend. Even though both of my parents kept the secret, I find I love my dad even more because he chose to make me his daughter. My feelings are swirling all around my mom. Given the mess of her estate, this is one more thing, and I am both sad and angry that she never found a way to tell me and I had to find out the way I did. My relationship with my mom has never been very close, probably, I know now, because there was this giant secret between us.

I will be working through this for some time to come, I’m sure. If I ever figure out more of my “origin story,” I will be sure to share. It’s too weird not to.

Samhain

Our Samhain celebration stretched across a couple of days. We like to have a memory meal that reminds us of someone who has died. This year we had two mothers to remember. James’s mom’s favorite food was pizza. My mom is from Oklahoma, though she moved around a lot and got rid of her accent, she was still “proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.” For real, she was born in Muskogee. In her memory we planned on biscuits and gravy. But that doesn’t pair with pizza. So we had pizza for one meal and biscuits and gravy for another. Both were delicious and had leftovers to be eaten and enjoyed later.

On Thursday leading up to Samhain, the dharma talk was about ancestors and we performed a touching the earth ceremony honoring ancestors. I very much enjoy Earth Touchings and the practice of prostration and I am happy to be able to wrap this into our Samhain tradition.

For Halloween this year we handed out candy for the first time in twenty years! We gave up when we only ever got 5-8 kids at our door several years running. But when our nextdoor neighbors were putting big skeletons and grave markers all over their front yard we asked how many kids they got last year and they said 30. We were astonished.

Not wanting to end up with extra candy in case there weren’t many kids, James bought a bag of vegan fruit gummies (can I say gummies or has the THC industry taken it over so now everyone thinks that I was handing out pot infused gummies to kids?). We ran out before 7 pm! Well, we actually had four little bags left, but the kids were coming in groups and we were worried the next group would have five kids, so we turned off the light. Next year we will get two bags of candy.

One little one who was about four-years-old and having their first trick-or-treat, walked right into the house when James opened the door. Their older sibling grabbed them and pulled them back out, and mom apologized, but we had a good laugh.

The weather was unusually warm, and fun was had by all.

Garden and chicken chat coming soon.