Dark Secrets ~ Hidden Lies and the mother that stood between

by Julie Ohlson
(Sartell Minnesota USA)

Hello I am Julie 53 years old married w/ 3 Beautiful daughters and 2 amazing grandchildren. Once again I am awakened with tears streaming down my cheeks at 3:25 am. Why you ask ? Because my I have been searching for my Biological father for 14 years. Yes, I was raised by my mother and abusive Father not really my biological father but was never straight out told by anyone that I was not his daughter only by him as he neglected me my entire upbringing. He was a hard worker but also a chronic alcoholic and when he would come home from the bar he would wake us kids up on school nights and fight with my mom. He really had it in for me. Me a little innocent girl with big brown eyes and a little round face and I was always so scared of that man that I thought was my dad. While on his drunken rages he would say to me " you are no daughter of mine" having 5 other siblings and older brother 2 older twin sisters then me and 2 younger brothers. I was the middle child You the black sheep of the family. We were very, very poor we lived in a two bedroom shack. Mom and ya I guess dad shared a bedroom my sister's and I had bunk beds in the other room. But that was there room and we had a pull out bed in our tiny living room.where the 3 of them would sleep. Oh the pain I endured in that little lime Green house in a small town in Willernie. See dad has burned down Mom's house ( there house) back in 1960 in white bear lake another little shack. Dads was drunk and fell asleep with a cigarette and the house was a total loss. Then Momma with her oldest boy and twin baby girls had to move to Maplewood Mn. With her mother and Alcoholic abusive father what a heartache mom had to go through. Then dad left momma shackled up with his girlfriend Bernice and left us kids and momma to live off our poor grandmother that had 12 kids of her own. And a drunken husband. Here is where I come into this world. This is the Mystery I have lived my entire life until my dad ( Roland) whom I thought was my dad even though he let me know through actions and words I was "no daughter of his" Well somehow mom got pregnant with me. Who? How and where what is this mystery, this lie this secret she never told anyone. Not even her identical twin. Why did I have to through all my years growing up have to be thrown out in the cold in the darkness and the cold bitter nights because Dad was coming home from the bar and mom did not want nor did I too have to go through another night of picking on her and I. Here I am just a little girl early teenage years and I always had to live in this FEAR. I started getting to that age where I always wondered who I was ? Why was I so different, my identity is what? Am I really not Roland's daughter? How could this be. Momma why? What's wrong with me? My tear drops as I type this are getting larger and streaming down my face tricking through my fingers. Mom would never tell me anything never the truth when ever I would ask her. Momma is Roland my Daddy she just always never answered me. Christmas would come and go and Dad would by all my siblings gifts and they would all be gathered in the living room with the fireplace going. That's how we heated our house we had to fire places ( wood stoves) momma would always put up a little tree and try and make it homey for us kids. But no not me dad singled me out. Me and mom were not allowed to be in the same room as dad and the rest of the siblings we had to stay in the kitchen or wherever just away from them. You see we were being punished because after all I was no daughters of his. Mom used to say every Christmas "it's ok it's just you and I and we are together " I could never understand that gut wrenching feeling that as I write this my stomach is turning it's that same feeling I felt . But you know still too this day Christmas is my Favorite and I sure do the best I can do for my family. And I see their happy faces and that means the World to me. It makes up for the years I lost from such a viscous cold heart of a father. My mother oh how I love her. But why did she watch the years of him burning my clothes! My clothes we were poor I did not even own a bed never had a bedroom NEVER not once growing up. So the little bit of clothes I did have dad decided in his words " while drunk.... got a good fire going. You know those fire places we had well he decided to burn all my clothes. All
My little ribbons I earned at school a little shoe box that I kept them in and some other litglevpictures I had. Those were my things . He burned them. Why.... Why what did I do. That's right I was " no daughter of his" Well as I got older now and met a nice man whom I am still married too for 30 years to date. I shared a lot with him. Some things I have not shared to anyone as I want to write a book and put them in my book. Which I have started but need help in writing and figuring out just how to go about it. So 13 years have passed away. Dad ( Roland) died of Lung cancer he also had chirosis of the liver. Not a surprise he died of those two things. When us kids would wake up
for School in the morning he would be passed out under the kitchen table with piss pants and the fork sometimes still in his hand and mom would just leave him there on the flood. And we would be eating our cereal with Dad underneath the table passed out. Not me I stayed clear away from him and sometimes was to afraid he would wake up so I would just go outside early rain, sleet or snow just felt more protected out in the elements rather than my own home. So getting back to Dad he become terminally ill and I hear about it. My husband and I go see him at the local Hospital. LakeView in Stillwater Mn. I just wanted to go see him and tell him " I Forgive You Daddy" I Love You and I am sorry we never got along. So we walk in into his room and there he lay with his oxygen mask on. I go sit next to him at the side of his bed. My husband standing at the foot of the bed with tears . Tom my husband knows how hard this is for me. So I say to daddy hi I am hear and I love you and I forgive you. Roland ( dad) looks at me and it was that look.. that look I remember and he pulls his oxygen mask off and scoots away further from me. And says" You No Daughter of Mine" I will have to finish this later..... sorry more to how I found my Biological father through Ancestry July2017 and he does not know about me. Like I said this story is only half done.