A Gift of Three Lives

Everyone gets the gift of life, but I feel like I have been given more than one.

Let me explain.

My name is Dave: but it used to be Anthony, as you’ll learn. I was born in Oakland, California. My biological mother gave my first gift – the gift of life – but she couldn’t raise me, and decided to put me up for adoption.

When I was seven weeks old a wonderful couple adopted me. This was my second gift: a chance to be cared for by a family that truly wanted me. I settled into life with my new family.

Army career

My childhood was a happy one, overall. Then, when I turned 19, I left home to join the Army. Boot camp was followed by technical training, and I learned to be an audio engineer, using microphones, turntables, and tape recorders.

My first army duty assignment took me to Georgia, where I helped craft soundtracks for training programs. I became the ‘voice talent’ for many tapes we made, and on the weekends, I worked as a disc jockey at a local country and western radio station.

Then about a year later, I received orders to go to a military base in Thailand. What the heck? Where I really wanted to go was England or Germany. But you can’t fight city hall, so I went. Turns out it was a plum job. I was a soldier, but my assignment was to work with the Air Force in a radio and television operation, where I anchored the news and did shifts as a deejay at the base radio station. It was fun, and I was helping to provide information to the military personnel who were far, far away from home.

Curiosity about the past

I had always known that my adoptive mother had strong feelings about not wanting me to investigate my past, and while she was alive, I respected her wishes. But deep down inside, I was always curious. What had become of my biological parents? And if they were still alive, wouldn’t they want to know about me?

Fast forward to about five years ago. By that time, I had moved to Colorado, met my future wife, got married, had two kids of my own – even two grandkids. Then in 2018, a story on the news caught my eye: there had been a huge and devastating fire in my birth state of California. The fire wiped out almost the entire town of Paradise. One of the news stories was about a 9-1-1 dispatcher in San Francisco, who had formed an alliance with several other people interested in genealogy. This small group was helping locate family members who had been displaced by the fire. Intrigued, I reached out to the dispatcher with my story.

Without any prompting or requests from me, this family tree detective began looking into my birth details. After she worked her magic, she messaged me and asked me to give her a call. Boy, did she have some news! She had found my mother and discovered that my birth name was Anthony. I don’t feel like an Anthony – having lived nearly all my life as David – but I’ll take it.

Discovering my roots

My biological mom passed away before I could reach out to her, and the only info I was given about my father was his name (he was also an Anthony). And even though I never got to meet my birth parents, this was my third gift – knowing about my roots, where I came from, and how I got here. I also found out that I had a half-brother (now deceased) and a stepsister, with whom I have been ‘talking’ to, via text messages, for the past four years or so. She has been filling me in with lots of details, from her recollection.

The story continues. A woman working on her own family tree found a distant connection to me. Using DNA details from the Ancestry genealogy site, and some of the family info that my stepsister provided, we were able to determine that I have a half-sister. I ‘met’ her just recently and am looking forward to getting to know her.

So, from thinking I am an only child – to discovering an extended family – I am grateful for the gifts of life I have been given. A cat may have nine lives, but I am very happy to have three!