I found my father after 23 years.

The last memory I had of my father is a blurr. We were celebrating someones birthday. There was food, drinks and some cake. While I was hypnotized by the cake I was also being cuddle by my father. He had his arm around my neck and while he didnt notice because he was drunk, he was squeezing my neck too hard. I didnt care because although I was a child, I knew he was going to leave and I didnt know when he was going to come back or if he was going to come back at all. For most of my life I grew up thinking he had abandoned my mother, my brother and myself, Until recently.

Where to begin a story of 30 years?

We used to live in an apartment complex. Like every latino family, there was 10 people living in the same apartment. My mother has always been a hard working woman with big aspirations in life. She opened a beauty salon only to figure out that she was enslaved to her own debt from opening the salon, until she found a nutrtion opportunity, less investment more profit and she was making good money. Enough money to buy her own home and move from the apartment where she wasnt free to be with us.

When we moved to our new house, we lost all contact with my father. With no knowledge of where we can reach out to him, we just let it be. We all just gave up, or better said, we didnt try. Through out my life I always felt something missing. I looked for the fatherly love in boyfriends. I would make friends and lose them. I felt rejected 99% of the time. I didnt love myself. The one thing that made me feel utterly happy and complete was when I sang and played guitar. I started singing in 4th grade and found my passion. I learned to play guitar on my own, then I continued with some lessons. Since, music is what makes my soul soar. Its my favorite thing in the world! I always wondered why music was such a big part of my life.

At times, I would ask my mom about my dad, but her memories were blurry. She would remember that he used to work for sony, and luna records. He would bring Latino celebrities to her beauty salon for her to do their hair. If youre latinx you know who Marco Antonio Solis is, my mom was the one who used to his perm. Cool huh?

Anyway, fast foward to today during the Quarantine, I entered a 9 day process of 2 hours of wisdom. I actually did about 20 Processes. In this process they cover self-love, forgiveness, gratitude, attachments, emotion control, fatherhood, motherhood, values & morals, and much more. During this quarantine, I took the time to improve myself. To discover who I really am and who I strive to be. I improved my self love, I let go of anger and resentement by forgiving, I express my gratitude every breathing moment. I've detached myself of many things, possesions and continue working on it.

I stopped juding my mother for her life choices. Sometimes children can be too harsh in judging and criticizing our parents without knowing both sides of their story. We are ignorant to what happened in their childhood or adolescence that made them how they are now. The values and morals that we are raised with, make your character and the person you currently are. Im continously working on all these topics, because constant betterment is for life. Were only a finished product of perfection when we die. The one topic I still had an itch for was Fatherhood.

During these process of 9 days I discovered why I didnt respect authority figures, why I always manipulated the boyfriends I had, why I couldnt have a good relationship with my present boyfriend. Im grateful with him because he has been so patient with me. Not knowing about my father made me angry. I didnt hate him, but I did have resentment towards him. I always wondered why he didnt want us, why he abandoned us, why he never looked for us. Asking WHY just led me to so much anger and ire. Until the process on the fatherhood topic...

The Mentors leading the process encouraged me to write letters to my father until these letters became letters of gratitude. The first couple letters were of anger, judgement, and critisism. Then they were of saddness, then of understanding, then of gratitude. Thats when I realized I had 100% forgiven my father. No judgement, only love and understanding. While I still believed that I was never going to know him, I decided to stay with the only happy memory of him.

The memory where I knew he cared and loved me. As the days passed, my heart impulsed me to look for him and find him. I called my mom to gather as much information as possible. I also called my aunts who remembered him. The search started. I went into this journey without expecations & I knew I was ready for what was to come. It took about a week to search. I tried facebook, because come on, who doesnt have a facebook? I searched on Instagram, I searched on google. Nothing. Then a friend of mine offered to help. He sent me a website where I could input the information I had. There was only one match.

You probably wont belive me BUT I somehow knew this was him. I completely ignored that feeling. I ignored it because I promised myself I wouldnt have any expectations, I promised myself no matter what, I wouldnt let myself get hurt. That I would just go with the flow. To accept and adapt.

At this point im living in New york while my mom and brother are in California. Im originally from Califronia but thats a story for another time. I call up my brother, I tell him I found one match. He was a little skeptical about this because he was the most affected. He remembers dad the most. He was 12 years old when Dad left.

My plan was to fly to California to make amends with my brother too, because I wasnt the best sister. Another story for another time. Calling up the one match we found was our job. So, I landed in california and definetly had an amazing time. During that time I kept insiting to call the numbers on the file. My brother didnt want to, and I dont blame him, so I dialed. I was nervous, but ready. There was like 8 different numbers and only one worked. A woman answered. I asked for Peter. Thats my fathers name. With suspicion she didnt deny nor confirm he was there. She hung up the phone upset. I was scared to call back, so I let it go. Two days before I travel to New York, I told one of the most loving aunts I have that I called and it was his wife who answered. I told her I wanted to call again but I was too nervous to do it. My aunts husband offered to call. My brother, my sister in law, my cousins, we were all there. Saturday morning, my aunts husband calls. The same woman answers. My aunts husband starts talking, telling this woman why he is calling, and on whos behave.

While my brother listens, he asks my aunts husband to pass the phone over and he explains Who he is and who were looking for. Cristian, my brother, mentions a sister we knew we have and the woman stays suspiciously quiet. neither denying or confirming. She asked for our names. She lets Cristian know that she will get back to him. They hang up the phone.

As we are leaving my aunts house, Cristian recieves a phone call from the same area code as the woman who answered the phone. It was him. It was our father. The man we have been waiting for all this time. Cristian immediately recognizes his voice. Peter asked who was calling his wife, and what we wanted from him. He sounded defensive, not denying or accepting it was him. his reason? he thought we were imposters trying to steal money or put his family in danger. I get it. its an unexpected call from 2 kids who had lost all contact. He was also in shock. Cristian asked if he wanted to facetime so he could see us and Peter no, like 8 times. Cristian asked, if he wanted to speak to my aunt who he knows and my aunt remembers. Again, he said no like 8 times. Peter asked if our mom knew we were calling him, and if she was ok with this. Cristian told him her name and he stayed quiet. Cristian brought up all these memories for him to realize it was his 2 long lost kids, yet he said, dont call me, wait until I call you and dont bother my wife, delete her number. We were shook. There were so many found emotions.

Im not gonna lie I did tear up a bit and my brother was upset. But as far as we knew, we had our answer. He didnt want to know about us, or so we thought. We ended up driving home. I was praying that somehow his wife would convince him to speak to us to find out more details. 5 minutes prior to arriving home to my brothers, Peters wife calls. She starts asking Cristian questions, like when is his birthday, coincidently it was that week of October, what does he look like, what he remembers. Cristian mentions he has pictures of Peter. She asked to send them, so we did. As soon as she recieves them she welcomed Cristian into the family. She sends a picture of Peter to my brother to confirm that in fact that is our father, older of course but it was him. I found him! I FINALLY FOUND HIM!

It was a bitter sweet moment because his wife was so sweet and welcoming while he, from the previous phone call, was kinda of a dick. While Cristian and peters wife were texting each other, Peter calls again. With a very stern, demanding, almost upset tone of voice he said, " You said you're with your aunt right? Send me a picture of you and your aunt, then well talk!" at that point, Cristian clarified we werent with her anymore, but he would send the picture he was asking for. Then Cristian asked peter, " but youre not mad right?!" in a very stern, demanding, almost upset tone of voice.

Peter states thats his way of speaking. His wife said it herself too, that he can be a dick but hes real nice. My brother found a picture of us that was taken right before he left the first time, around 1996. He also sent him recent pictures. After getting these pictures, Peter calls Cristian again and they start talking about the past. Peter explain part of his side of the story. He said he went back to where we used to live to look for us, but we were gone. He went to some close friends house to ask for us. People that knew where we lived. They lied to him about us moving to mexico. He didnt know how to find us either. Which is why we all gave up on each other.

We found out we have three older siblings and two younger siblings. Seven siblings in total. The first conversation my brother had with my dad settled in alot of concerns. Peter said this was a lot to take in. To give him time to be ready to one day, see us. Cristian and I thought, well isnt 23 years enough? how much more time does he need? We just let it be. My brother and I hugged. It was a hug of accomplishement, gratitude, and support. It was a long time since we hugged with so much love.

The next day, my last day in California, my aunt added my father on facebook. That same night she spoke to him. She was our mediator. He mentioned that he wanted to call me but was scared to call me because of how he remembers me. I guess I was a hand full when I was a child. So my aunt told him I wanted to talk to him. That I was waiting for the longest time for his call, to have him in my life. She wasnt wrong and he didnt call me. I was at the airport ready to board when my aunt texts me and tells me to call him. He's a truck driver so hes constantly driving. That would explain why he couldnt really call. I called him, no answer.

He calls back and I tell who I am. He was happy to hear me. He yelled of joy. We spoke for about an hour. I explained to him how I found him. I told him I have no negative feelings towards him. That hes my dad, all I have is gratitude for what he did and didnt do. He spoke very highly of my mom, he expressed that hopefully one day he could express gratitude with her for doing such a wonderful job with my brother and I.

I landed in New york that very night. The next morning I recieve a text message from my father. He sends me a picture of himself telling me to use it to scare the rats away. I laughed! Then he gave me the first compliment ever. A compliment I can remember to keep in my heart. He said that he knows he cant ask anything from us but hopes that in time we can create an atmosphere of trust, love, comprehension. To give me what he couldnt when I was a child. He expressed gratitude for not holding resentment or anger towards him. That I can count on him for anything.

A couple days passed by. Peter and my brother made plans to finally see eachother. My brother, his wife and my nephew went to their house. I recieved the video of their encounter and cried tears of joy. At 3am they call me up drunk! My brother saying hes a great guy! that he is awesome and that he was happy he was there. I also saw my younger siblings. I havent seen Peter yet but we speak on the phone almost everyday. My father truly is pretty awesome. I now know why music is my passion. My dads parents sing. My father used to work for most famous Mexican/latinx singers. He produced their music. He worked with Joan Sebastian, Vicente Fernarndez, Perdro Fernandez, Juan grabriel, Marco antonio Solis, Miguel bose and many more. He wrote a song for his mom that later on became known as one of Joan Sebastians songs named Celia. Those lyrics are my fathers lyrics. My father used to be a producer! How awesome is that?

I also found out that my father didnt know I was born until 3 months later. His job kept him away for that long. I know that my brother and I were made out of love. A father represents a lot in ones identity. So many things have become clearer. I also know he broke my mothers heart. She loved him and wanted us to be a family, but he was a womanizer and a drunk. Thats why I say dont judge your parents too harshly. We dont know their life story.

Fast foward to now, Im in my living room sharing this with you. If you grew up with an absent father or mother and you think they're still out there, alive? Look for them.

But before you do, prepare yourself. Heal, let go, forgive. Dont do it for your parents, they did the best they could with what they had, do it for you. For your piece of mind and your freedom. I know this saying is worn out, a cliche if you will, but everything happens for a reason. Everything happens when its supposed to happen. Go into the search with no expectations, let it flow. There will be less risk of being hurt.

Now, as I continue my life, I have my father to be able to enjoy as much as I can. He comes to east coast frequently so soon we will be able to meet for the first time after 23 year. Hes already making amends. Hes buying my flight so I can spend christmas and new years with him, and my siblings. Im so grateful with life for allowing me to find him. We were meant to find eachother when we were ready. If you want to find your father, or mother I encourage you to do a 9 day process of 2 hours of wisdom. Become ready before you begin the search. Whatever the outcome, Remember this, You will do better for your kids.