Sure, I believe in hope. Why wouldn’t I? It’s that little space in your heart that keeps you going, day after day, week after week, against all the odds when it seems that it’s really not going to happen. You go on like that for months, years in my case, and then one ordinary day at work it happened.
I never knew my dad. My mum wouldn’t talk about him and would get mad at me for asking questions. All of my family were the same but I guess they didn’t want to hurt my mother and go against her wishes. All I knew was he had done something bad and I wasn’t to talk about him. One day, when mum was out, I was 11 at the time and was raking about in her bedroom. I know I shouldn’t have been doing anything like that, but I had to search for clues as I was becoming quite obsessed.
My mum had one of those old vanity cases and it wasn’t locked, so I rifled through it and low and behold I found a letter. Not really a letter but more of a note. It was from a man called John who lived in New York and it was to my mother. It read, ‘Dear Jean, here is Elisabeth’s birth certificate. I guess it will be more use to you than to me.’ And it was signed John.
My heart was beating rapidly and I felt my face flushing up. My name is Elisabeth, although I usually get Lizzie and my mum is Jean. So there it was in black and white. A note from my dad, MY DAD, called John who was living in New York. Of course I was not satisfied and I couldn’t leave my dreams there. I had to find him and ask him why he didn’t love me. He couldn’t have loved me or he wouldn’t have left. I had these high hopes that I would meet him one day. I wondered how I could get in touch. Remember I was in Scotland and he was in New York then. Would he still be there?
Eventually I wrote to the editor of the only newspaper I knew in New York – the New York Times and asked the editor to put an ad in the paper to help me find my dad. I know, I know but remember I was only 11 and hadn’t really developed my smarts yet. I never got a reply, of course, but I kept hoping that one day it would happen.
Over the years I built up a picture of him in my mind: a sort of cross between Jesus and John Wayne. I prayed to him at night, especially if I had done something naughty and was in the bad books.
Life went on. I grew up, left school and started working in a travel shop. I still had that hope though of ‘one day.’
Then one morning I was late to work. I am never late but I was that day. By the time I got to work, there was a little line of people waiting for attention. Rushing over to my desk, I hurriedly threw my bag down and asked how I could help the two ladies waiting. It was a run of the mill enquiry. An American lady needed to reconfirm her air tickets back to the States. Nowadays that’s not necessary but then it was and I handled the request. I took a while to get through to the airline reservations department and I made small talk with the women. The American lady was staying with her sister-in-law who lived locally. Seemingly, the sister-in-law had recently lost her husband and the American lady had been for the funeral but was now going home, back to New York. I gave them my condolences and then I saw the surnames on the tickets. My heart stopped. They were the same as mine. That little thing called hope jumped up and bit me and I knew. I just knew this was ‘one day’. Finally, when I had pulled myself together and sorted the tickets out, I plucked up the courage to ask the American lady where hubby was. “He’s in the parking lot, honey”, she smiled at me, while I started stuttering that I thought I might actually be related to her. It turns out I was and to cut a long story short, she knew who I was too and hubby was in the parking lot, waiting to see if I wanted to meet him: my dad, John. Sure! I believe in hope big time!