For some time my daughter/ literary rep , Stephanie has been chomping at the bit to gather a selection of my NPE poems together to send off to a publisher. Her rationale for this was witnessing first hand the emotional and consequent physical devastation of both myself and those in the NPE community who have learned that they are not biologically related to the person they called parent.

Not only is the betrayal considered a powerful enough trauma which can and has caused PTSD in our community but many are also thrust away from the mother family who hid the secret.. only to have new found biological family members slam the door in their faces as well.

Add to that the knowledge that they have never truly known their medical history, that they are not truly related to their grandparents or family lore, that all this time they were in danger of starting a romantic relationship with a close relative ( without ever knowing it) and in some cases have been misidentifying their race and are ignorant as to their own ethnic culture due to no fault of their own.. but rather due to lies told them. And if like myself, they find out late in life, that means they have unwittingly passed these lies on to their own children as well. So many lost years of sharing cultural heritage…

Many discover that they were conceived as a one night stand, affair, incestuous relationship or invitro fertilization.. quite in contrast to the nice story of how mommy and daddy met that they had heard their whole lives. Others find out only to learn that their biological father is now dead… and there are no photographs of their grandparents.

Upon witnessing the severity of pain that this discovery causes, the unkindness which many encounter, and the way that a NPE discovery is often treated in books and movies , primarily as traumatic to the biological father’s family.. not to the NPE, Stephanie decided that part of the reason NPE’s were being treated so badly, was due to a lack of awareness presented to the public as a whole, on this topic.

When she suggested that someone should write about it I wholeheartedly agreed that it would be awesome if SHE would write an article about it. At which point she just stared blankly at me.

On and off throughout the years she has been steadily collecting the poems I wrote to try and write myself out of the impossible ditch I had been thrown into.

Much to my consternation she never did write that article but kept trying to steer us towards submitting a collection of my NPE poetry to a publisher. She says that these poems tend to be her favorite ( head shake) … of all things… her favorite.. The last time I looked at them they made me feel a little ill.. memories of tough times.. such very very tough times.

Nonetheless, it has been impressed upon my heart during prayer that it would be beneficial to stand with the NPE community and attempt to bring awareness … even if it’s just through my poetry.

So today I texted her “ yes”. And I share all this with you my dear friends .. as a type of drawing a line in the sand.. of establishing a commitment to this much procrastinated project.

Thank you so much for all your past love and support.. on this day I commit to going forward..