Introduction
A few days ago, my sister uttered a couple of sentences that have not left my brain since the moment the words registered in my ears. After thinking about how to title and write this story, I have come to realize that what she told me are two of the biggest surprises of my life.
Background
Throughout the history of this blog, there are many stories that contain bits and pieces of my life together with my older brother Danny (Figure 1). To me, he was legendary. He taught me to love motorcycles, dogs, playing pool and living life (Figure 2). This is one of the reasons I bought this puzzle recently.
Since he was 11 years older than me, I saw him as much more than just a big brother. When he died at 26 years old, a part of me also died, as my world stopped spinning and slowly restarted again.
Figure 1 – In this photo (circa 1963-1964), I’m sitting on Danny’s shoulders. I can tell from this pic that our excellent relationship started very early in my life.
Figure 2 – When you think about your life, all the things that we are taught come together to form a picture. For me, my big brother taught me about pool, dogs, motorcycles, arcade games, and the game of life.
Luckily for me, I got a visit from him after his death, which made accepting his passing much easier for the 15-year-old boy that I was at the time. Prior to what my sister told me on Saturday, that after-death visit was the biggest surprise of my life. That visit was also instrumental in forming my personal religion and beliefs about life after death. It was certainly the most impactful event of my life.
The First Big Surprise From This Week
On Saturday, we were driving through the picturesque countryside of Cade’s Cove, in the Smoky Mountains. We were approaching a historic church when my sister Dorothy and I had this conversation (as best as I can remember because I was shocked):
Dorothy: “Have you found out anything about Danny and Lynette’s baby?”
Me: “What?”
Dorothy: “Have you found out anything about Danny and Lynette’s baby?”
Me: “Who is Danny?”
Dorothy: “Our brother Danny.”
Me: “I have no idea what you are asking me.”
At this point, I had to park the car and focus on the question. My brother died in 1979 and my sister is asking me about his baby! At first, I thought she was going bonkers! After she explained to me that my brother had fathered a child when he was a young adult, I was completely stunned. Although she reiterated that she thought that this was “common knowledge”, her words shocked me because I had never heard a word about this circumstance.
For several days now, I’ve been thinking a lot about this child. What I have been able to find out is that the mother was named Lynette and she and Danny were dating for some time when we still lived in Chicago (pre-1972). After that time, Lynette’s family moved to Cicero and we moved to Berwyn (neighboring communities). Danny knew where Lynette lived in Cicero. Since both Danny and Lynette were young and unable to raise the child, the baby was put up for adoption. According to my brother’s best friend, the baby was a girl. My sister thought it was a boy. Both agreed that the baby was born healthy.
In essence, all that I know is that Danny had a girlfriend named Lynette and they had a baby that was put up for adoption. That isn’t a lot of information to work with.
My natural curiosity coupled with my insatiable appetite for data and discovery will likely lead me down a search path to find this child. My love for my brother was so intense that I would like to share with his child my memories and information about him.
I know that is selfish of me, but seeing his child would be incredible and be like seeing a part of my brother forty years after his passing. We do not get to do that too often, that is for sure. I also have something in common with this child – he/she will never get to meet his/her birth father. I didn’t get a chance to meet my father, and neither will they. However, I have a lot of information that I think they would love to have. I only know that because I had the same curiosity that we all have in life – we want to know something about our birth parents.
The odds are stacked against me. Even with the online tools we have available now, I know it is unlikely that I will ever find Danny’s baby. What I do know, however, is that I was able to find my father’s family in 1990. I didn’t have much information then either, so I have some hope in this case.
I still haven’t written the story about finding my father’s family, but suffice it to say that the effort was worth it to me. I suspect that more effort will be needed now but that it will also be worth the energy it takes to find Danny’s baby. Only time will tell if I am successful in my mission. Stay tuned for more updates.
The Second Big Surprise From This Week
My sister Dorothy dropped another bombshell on me during our visit. This surprise was also about Danny.
Danny was born with some severe heart defects. I’ll avoid the details, but suffice it to say he wasn’t supposed to survive as a baby. He kept overcoming the impossible odds and ended up living 26 years.
Many of my childhood memories are of spending days and evenings in Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital. Danny was a frequent visitor because of his heart issues. When Danny would get sick, his heart rate would increase to 220 beats per minute and he would get dizzy and nauseous. I remember laying my head on his chest listening to the impossibly fast heartbeats as Danny suffered the consequences of his condition.
Each time these episodes occurred, the doctors warned us that his heart was being damaged. It was like Danny kept having a series of heart attacks throughout his life. As he aged, the episodes seemed to grow in intensity and required him to make longer hospital stays.
Throughout my entire life, I thought that Danny’s condition was just some sort of congenital abnormality that sometimes happens to organisms. I thought he had been given an unlucky roll of the genetic dice. I never thought that his condition could have been caused by anything other than bad luck. Apparently, I was wrong.
The second bombshell dropped by my sister went like this. She said that Danny’s congenital defects were not because of an inherited genetic defect. His heart conditions were caused by large doses of medication that my Mother received while she was in the early phases of her pregnancy with Danny.
The year was 1951, and my Mom did not know she was pregnant. Apparently, she developed a serious condition – possibly pneumonia, and the doctors gave her large doses of penicillin and/or some other medication. Since this was before she knew she was pregnant, there were no concerns with giving her the large doses. It is suspected that these medications are what caused my brother’s congenital heart defects.
I had never heard this story before, either. I always thought there was a genetic cause for Danny’s condition. My sister Dorothy said to me: “This is why there were no concerns about you when you were born.” I am glad to know this, but the heartbreak I feel for Danny is intense. He suffered a lot during his life, and I hate it that he was a victim of circumstance while in the womb.
Final Thoughts
In one instance this week, I had two incredibly huge surprises dropped on me by my sister. I am very thankful for this information, although I feel a huge loss of never being given the chance to have met Danny’s child before now. The good news is that I now have a new mission and this one will take all the ingenuity that I can create to reach a successful conclusion. Thanks for reading, and there will be more to come on this topic.
