Hello dear friends! Boy, do I have a whale of a tale for
you. It’s basically the story of my life, and it’s long. Really long. So I will break this up into installments, and
if you stick with me, you may find it as interesting as anything on the Lifetime
or the Hallmark channels. (If you know anyone who works for one of those, pass
this on to them. I think it could make a good movie.)
I had to use the Googler to check, but December 20th
1967 was on a Wednesday. I was born in Midwest City, Oklahoma, and my parents
were Jessie and Geraldine Bartley….. or
were they? I had a fairly normal
childhood. When I was about 4, we moved to Del City, Oklahoma, where I would
live until I graduated high school. I had four siblings- in order of age, they
were brother Randy (aka Bart), twin sisters Sande and Sherry, and Tami. Yes, I
was the baby, and have been reminded of that often by Tami throughout most of
my life. And being the baby brings great responsibility- I was spoiled. I got
pretty much whatever I wanted, many times from my sister Sherry, who lived at
home most of my childhood. Latest Star Wars action figures? Got em. A need to
be driven across town with my first BFF Perry McMahon to get the latest comic
books? Got it. A really cool Mr. Scott Star Trek red shirt? Got it. I had
everything I needed, and a lot of what I wanted.
Even so, my parents
were not wealthy people. Dad was a butcher in a grocery store, and mom was the
manager of a local dry cleaners. We always had plenty of meat, and freshly
cleaned and pressed clothes. Bart and Sande were already out of the house,
because I neglected to mention that they were all WAY older than me. That was
really the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary to me growing up, was
that my parents were much older than most of my friends’ parents. (Mom was 45
when I was born, Dad was 48- elderly, right??) Later, when I would ask, Mom
would just reply with some vague answer about me being unexpected, or something
like that. But I really didn’t think about it that much. Looking back, I had
everything I needed from a family- people who loved me and cared for me, and
brought me up to be the awesome, kind compassionate person that I am today. My
childhood was a generally happy one, and I really have no major complaints.
The first event that really changed my life was the death of
my father when I was 16 years old. For most of my life, he was not in the best
of health. He was a war veteran, a recovering alcoholic, and a chain smoker. He
had stopped drinking when I was a baby. But he smoked like a fiend until the
day he died. When I was in junior high, I recall my father going to the doctor,
and the doc telling him that unless he quit smoking and lost some weight, he
would probably be dead within five years. The doc was correct, and on an early
December Sunday morning in 1984, he dropped dead on our kitchen floor.
Everything about that morning is still pretty vivid to me, as it was the first
time in my young life that tragedy really touched me. Everything seemed surreal
that week- my choir Christmas concert was the next night, and I still participated
in it. We buried him later that week, and being a veteran, he had a military
funeral. (For years any time I saw a film or show with a military funeral in
it, I would start sobbing.) And so, just a few weeks before my birthday and
Christmas, I found myself fatherless. Or…. was I??
Now it was just mom and I around the old homestead. Sherry
had married and moved away, as had Tami. When it came time for me to choose a
college, I picked one fairly close to home, because I didn’t feel right about
being too far away from mom, as she would be living alone. I needn’t have
worried- Geraldine was a fiercely independent woman, more than capable of
taking care of herself. I came home most weekends, and she would supply me with
a few groceries, some spending cash, clean laundry, and send me on my way
again.
However, the university I attended was somewhat pricey, and
she wasn’t able to pay the tuition. I had to take out student loans and join
the Army Reserve to pay for my learnin’. After a few years of college, I had
decided that since I was immensely talented, that I would become an actor.
There was no doubt in my mind that I would succeed. A friend of mine was moving
back to his home state of California, and so I made the decision to quit
school, move to California with him, and attend a prestigious acting school
which I had been accepted to. I left college in December, and decided to live
with mom and work for six months to save money before my cross-country trek. It
was while I was living at home that an enormous bombshell dropped on my head.
One day I was chillin’ in my room and caught snippets of a phone conversation Mom
was having. She didn’t have the softest voice, so if I was anywhere in the
house, I could usually hear everything she said. Phrases like “When he starts
asking questions like that, I don’t know what to tell him”, and other
mysterious sounding statements intrigued me. It slowly dawned on me- was she
talking about me? I started listening more intently, and decided she WAS
talking about me. So I decided to confront her when she got off the phone.
Immediately, she seemed to get flushed, and started stammering nonsensical
responses. I could tell she was not being truthful, and I called her on it. I
guess at that moment she finally decided to come clean, and drop a big
truth-bomb on me. With teary eyes and a wavering voice, she explained to me
that she and dad were not actually my biological parents. My heart started
pounding as I struggled to process what she was telling me. That wasn’t even
the most shocking news- that came next when she told me my actual birth mother
was none other than my “sister”, Sherry. I don’t remember too clearly the rest
of our conversation, because I was in a bit of shock. In the span of a few
minutes, my life was altered once again. I do remember staying fairly calm.
There were no histrionics, no dramatic displays of emotion on my part. I think
I was too flabbergasted to really respond. So I just listened. I had a
multitude of questions, but most of them I kept to myself, figuring I would
wait until I could talk to Sherry face to face. I think the thing that
astounded me the most was- how did these women in my family, who loved to talk,
keep this secret from me for 21 years? Well played, ladies, well played.
Not too long after this stunning revelation, Sherry and I met
face to face. She was visibly upset- so I tried to ease her mind by telling her
I wasn’t angry. And that was the truth. I was confused, perplexed, and
inquisitive, but never outraged. She explained to me why the deception took
place. She was a single 21- year-old woman who got pregnant in the late 1960’s
in the buckle of the Bible Belt. Our family had strong religious beliefs, so
they felt it would be best if Mom and Dad (my grandparents) took me and raised
me as their own. Sherry said they had always meant to tell me sooner, but I
think fear of my reaction kept them from doing so. She claimed my biological father
was a GI in the Air Force who was stationed at Tinker AFB for a brief period of
time, soon to be shipped out to Viet Nam. She said that this man did not know
that Sherry was pregnant, and therefore, she never heard from him again. Over
the years, Sherry and I only spoke of him a few times, and she gave me few
details, other than his name: Byron (last name withheld). I could tell she was
always uncomfortable talking about the situation, so I never pressed her for
more information. I accepted the fact that I would never know my biological
father, and that more than likely, he didn’t even survive his time in Viet Nam.
So life went on. I did move to sunny southern California,
and spent a few years languishing away as a “starving actor”. I went to school
for a bit, dropped out, did a few plays, was an extra in the Oliver Stone film The Doors (yes, if you know where, you
can see me for a few seconds), and waited tables. But I came to the realization
that I could toil away for years and never get anywhere in the business, so I
loaded up the U-Haul again and headed back to Oklahoma. During this time Sherry
and her family left the state, so when I got back, she was gone. Why is this
significant? Although the family secret was finally out of the bag, I really
didn’t have to alter my dynamics with Sherry because we weren’t around each
other for several years. Everything else was business as usual. I still thought
of Geraldine as “Mom”, and my brother and sisters were just that. And I still
thought of Sherry’s young daughter, Lynn, as my niece, when I knew she was my
only real “blood” sibling. I would deal with my feelings about Sherry later,
when I was forced to. In the meantime I finished college, met my blushing bride
and pitched woo (for that story look at my previous blog posts), got married,
got a teaching job, and settled down. Sherry and Lynn eventually made their way
back to Oklahoma as Sherry’s marriage dissolved. Now I had to decide what
Sherry was to me. I couldn’t really call her “sister” anymore, but there was no
way I was calling her “mom”- I only had one mom, and that was the tough old
girl who had raised me and loved me as her own.
Things went on pretty much in this way until something else
altered our lives- I was going to be a daddy! As Cindy and I were about to
welcome our first little bundle of joy into the world we were thrilled, but it
also brought more questions into play. It forced me to think again about
bio-dad, as family medical history questions were asked. I had to tell the
nurses that I didn’t know- and I think, for the first time, that bothered me.
This was probably the first time that I actually considered trying to locate
him, to see if he was still alive, and to possibly contact him. But the idea
seemed so far-fetched that I shoved it back down into the crevices of my mind,
to be dealt with later. We also had to make a decision about Sherry’s role with
our child- who would she be? Cindy and I decided that we wanted to be honest
with our children. We decided that Sherry would indeed be a grandma to our
kids, but so would Mom. I talked to Mom about this idea, and she seemed fine
with it (at least to my face- I don’t know if she felt differently privately).
And of course Sherry was ecstatic about the idea. So it was settled- our
children would have a “Grandma Sherry” and a “Meemaw”- two grannies for the
price of one! However, this was all a bit much for me, and so I did something I
had never done before- I went to see a counselor. I needed some expert help on
how to sort through all of these family issues and relationships. I went for a
few months, and after several sessions, my counselor remarked on how
well-adjusted I seemed to be about the whole thing. And I was. For several
years, at least……
