06 January 23:48 -05:00 GMT

My tribe is Bemba by virtue of my marriage with Maggie and my associations in Zambia. My heritage is Irish, by virtue of knowing my biological parents. And my being is a chameleon-like Everyman, that relates to all, in one way or another, by virtue of being adopted, and thus growing up belonging to no one, belonging nowhere, but thus also belonging everywhere equally and to everyone at the same time.

During the immediate 8 weeks-or-so after finding my parents - "The Finding," as I like to call it - I had an extraordinary, prolonged experience of being able to relate to other people, and more importantly to relate to all people. The Finding, in fact, not in fantasy, granted me the superhuman powers of being able to reach into the soul of those around me and sharing their happiness. It sounds like a mania - like a psychiatric disturbance wherein one believe s/he can fly, or win every hand in poker, or...I can't think of another example. When I "found my parents" (i.e. found as a 24 year old adopted, my biological parents), I definitely was clinically manic.

On May 20th, 1994 at 9:20 am PST I received the call that led to an immediate cascade of events that led to answers to innumerable questions, most of which I didn't even know I had. In terms of mania, I literally didn't sleep for three days. My immediate reaction after the first phone call with the adoption agency that handled my case - with the actual social worker that handled my case (she was three months away from retirement), that I shouted as if my team had just won the world championship in a last-second, miraculous effort. My three roommates couldn't help but hear me, and they were instantly enveloped into my sphere of absolute ecstasy. I was so excited that I called my parents, my best friend, my former girlfriend, all my former girlfriends, and told them, "I just found my parents!" I was at a pinnacle happy point that is very, very difficult to describe.

And twenty minutes later, when I heard my mother's voice, in her Boston accent say the words, "Robert this is Marilynn O'Brien," well that's a moment that will be with me forever. Within an hour after that, I was on the phone with my father, who lived in Hawaii. His first words to me were, "So are you Republican or what?" He cut right to the heart of the matter, didn't he.

"I'm pretty conservative," I repllied.

Here are some examples of what I experienced.

In the first day of The Finding, between hurried call backs to both of my biological parents, full of questions, shared joy, and indescribable happiness, I opened up my address book and called the over 200 numbers therein and told my story to every family member, acquaintance or long-lost friend I had listed. If they didn't answer, I told the story to whomever would listen. If I got an answering machine, my excited voice rushed out the story of "I just found my parents," and "They're Irish!" and "I have sisters...and a brother!" and so on. If I didn't get my friend, but a parent, then I told them, and talked until they were transfixed by the story.

I remember calling a former girlfriend and after reminding her who I was on the phone, I started out with "Guess what?!"

"You got into medical school?"

"Nope! Better!!"

A pause followed, then..."You found your parents!"

"Yes!!!"

She understood.

Another girlfriend I was apologetic to, describing in hasty words my misunderstanding of relationships as an adoptee, and how everything seemed whole now, and how I was sorry that we had broken up, but that I hoped she understood that this was such a huge player in how I behaved previously, and that that was behind me now because I had suddenly discovered the root cause of difficulty in maintaining strong bonds with people. She was gracious, and finally excited also. Crazy ecstasy carried me through that potentially difficult conversation.

I was working at the time as a Trauma Technician in the UCI Emergency Department, and despite my mania, I was still obligated to work my 12 hour night shifts. I told everyone that I worked with, bringing hardened nurses to tears with the story, and making doctors eyes shine with shared happiness. One nurse from New York was a seasoned character, having seen much with her brown eyes, and I captured her, making our conversation seem like it was just she and I on a deserted island, and I had just discovered how to make a boat. All around me, joy followed. I walked taller, and had a spring in my step.

I was in a check-out line in a supermarket, and I felt compelled to tell the people waiting in line with me. They became engaged. My happiness spread like a southwestern wildfire.

May 20th happened to be the date for my dad's retirement party from Rockwell International in Anaheim. My dad is and was a star, wherever he goes. He was named engineer of the year by Rockwell earlier in his career. Most of what he did is still classified. It was the first of two or three retirements for him, and he told a compelling story of being there, despite being a Type I, insulin-dependent diabetic for 40 years, mainly because his wife, my mom, had learned how to cook without sugar. And when cardiac trouble had raised it's ugly head, my mom had beaten it down by learning to cook without fat, and without salt for good measure. It was with immense pride and love that I heard the story of my parents - my adoptive parents - and how they worked as a team to have a successful life both in terms of career, but in terms of a couple. My dad also mentioned in his speech that I had had the remarkable event of finding my parents that same day.

I tried to mute my joy at that function - I didn't want to steal my dad's thunder. But on the way home, eager to continue to share my joy with my friends, I was bopping in the car. Not bopping, I was rocking. Head moving, singing my heart out, volume up, careless of traffic. I remember looking to my left on the freeway, and a Black dude and a White girl were passing me. They were looking at me, and he gave me the thumb's up. Both were laughing. I gave it back. My soul was free, and even on an anonymous freeway, everybody saw it.

On the same night of May 20th I went to a club to celebrate something involving friends from college (Monica Shah - now Sampat, et al.) It was in an exclusive part of Newport Beach, and there was a queue of about a hundred young people. I walked straight to the bouncer and said, "Hey Man, you gotta let me in. I'm the happiest man in the world." I said it, and I meant it, and I believe I  was the happiest man on the planet at that time.

Bounce looked at me half a moment and without a word, unlinked the crushed velvet barrier, and stepped aside, looking out at the stars, as if to say "I didn't see anybody go in." I passed through. No cover, no questions, no problem. Joy and the confidence of knowing who I was gave me rock star privileges.

It was an extremely self-centered time for me. I remember on one of the first sleepless nights walking into a park across the street from my apartment, and listening to the radio on my Walkman. (This was pre-iPod era, youngsters.) A song came on by Collective Soul whose chorus includes the words, Heaven let your light shine down on me (I'm listening to it now as I write.), and I remember feeling like that was the case for me. The song was meant for me, and this was my moment. Heaven was shining it's light directly down in a perfect white beam, directly on me and I was ready to share. My egocentric view of these circumstances was so powerful that it exuded out my pores, and positively affected everyone around me. And if there was a situation where my powers of joy might be dubious, I made a focused concerted effort to win over the naysayers.

That week I went to a dinner party at my long-time, best buddy's house. John LaGourgue is my best friend with whom I grew up, since fifth grade. I was at his parent's place, and they had about 12 people over. One of the relatives, an uncle, was crusty, contrary, and struck me as unhappy. I made it my mission in life during the dinner conversation to make him feel the joy I felt, and I absolutely succeeded. We laughed - the table laughed - John's Dad remarked that he had never seen me like this. I had never been like this. I was absolutely on fire.

Back at work in the ER, I remember seeing a particularly sick man, with cardiac failure who was going to be admitted to the ICU, and huge concern crossed his brow. His wife was there with him, and in careless abandon, I started telling him the story. I told him about being adopted, and about never feeling like I fit in, and about always wondering, but never really realizing that I was wondering, and wishing I knew people that looked like me, and trying to describe the utter joy in suddenly having this thunderbolt of understanding and peace and humility and completeness envelope me in entirety. The man visibly felt better. His countenance changed. His heart rate improved. His wife was less worried. And they thanked me for sharing the story.

The Finding was an awesome experience for me, and more poignantly to me, it was so powerfully infectious that those around me were enveloped by my joy.

Now I'm feeling compelled to insert the lyrics from the Collective Soul song I that spoke to me in the nighttime walk in the park. I think you will understand, given the above context, why that music captured me at that time. Then after the intermission, there's more to this story below.

Give me a word, give me a sign
Show me where to look
But tell me, "What will I find? What will I find?"

Lay me on the ground, fly me in the sky
Show me where to go
But tell me, "What will I find? What will I find?"

Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down

Love is in the water, love is in the air
Show me where to go
But tell me, "Will love be there? Will love be there?"

Teach me how to speak, teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
But tell me, "Will love be there? Will love be there?"

Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down

Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to go
But tell me, "What will I find? What will I find?"

Lay me on the ground, fly me in the sky
Show me where to go
But tell me, "What will I find? What will I find?"

Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down
Oh! Heaven let your light shine down

Above I said that The Finding was an awesome experience for me, and more poignantly to me, it was so powerfully infectious that those around me were enveloped by my joy.

Within an hour of meeting my biological parents, in Laguna Beach, California, after a tearful and smiling reunion, we strolled down the boardwalk to the Greeter's Corner restaurant, a place that has a back patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean over the south tip of Main Beach. We sat outside, ordered food, looked each other in the face, wept at times, laughed at times, conversated about the circumstances of the adoption, about Life, about my siblings, about my lineage, and about everything and anything. I remember when the waiter came to take the order, while I was in a reinduced state of mania I asked him whether he thought there was a resemblance between myself and the people seated with me. He looked back and forth at our faces, considered, and said yes, to my utmost satisfaction. I'd never had that before - a family resemblance. I told him these were my parents, and that this was the first meal we were ever sharing together, that I was adopted, and that this was our reunion.

"These are my parents," I said. "I just met them, and this is the first time we've ever been able to talk in our whole lives!" Then I waited, watching for his response, seeing whether the joy would hit.

He became infected, asking questions about how we found each other, learning about the distance from Massachusetts to here, about my searching for records at the adoption agency in Somerville, Mass, about my mother following the command of her dying sister, to "find that kid," about my father writing a letter every year since I turned 18, about how all I wanted was a picture, and now look! I'm sitting at the same table with them! I got so much more.

Nearby tables overheard. Our server told his workmates. Within minutes the entire outside of the restaurant was abuzz with this glorious story of reunion, of joy, of wholeness. We were rock stars, without the pretense. People came to us on their way out and wanted to shake our hands and share in our happiness. It was beautiful.

The airline that flew my mother out gave her complimentary tickets. The Westin Hotel where my parents stayed wouldn't let them pay their bill. Wayne Boddington was the manager.

In my zeal to share, I met many, many folks who were either adopted and searching, or were mothers or fathers that had secreted away an adopted child, and their deepest wonderings were awakened. Where is my child?

What if?

There I was, in flesh and blood and an ecstatic state, to tell them what was possible.

I was Everyman at that time. There was no one I couldn't touch with my story. I could relate to the rational father whose heart had been buried. I was the hand-to-mouth woman that had given her child away and was missing a piece of her soul. I was the ostracized  man who couldn't find his place in our society. I was the Black, the White, the older sibling, the youngest, the twin, the joy before innocence is betrayed. There was no one that was not overturned by my enthusiasm. I often said at that time that I was the luckiest man alive. I was, and in many respects, I am.

Some people tried to bring me down. After the third day of enthusiasm, which in hindsight may have been excruciating for anyone around me by this time, namely my co-workers in the ER, someone told me that I would at some point have to come down from this high.

"I know," I replied, perfectly content to be uninterested in the thought of losing the feeling..

The Finding raised my baseline in life. That is, so many questions that could begin with the words What if... were answered. Suddenly those gravitous weights were lifted, and my capabilities expanded. I came up with a saying at this time - You never know the weight you're carrying until it's lifted from your shoulders. After that time I found that I was able to shift my focus from inward to outside myself. Suddenly, with my inner questions answered, a new world opened up and I felt like I was lifted up into the realm where my intrinsic potential laid, but was never previously reachable. Evidently that view was correct.

Since that time my focus has shifted, to programs that are meaningfully contributive to societal ills. My view has shifted such that I am able to look outside myself, though you may not be convinced by that from this particular blog. Moreover, this experience helped me interact in a more understanding manner with so many different kinds of people. I am as comfortable in a room filled with people who share my background as I am with people from an entirely different background than my own. In fact, I am probably more comfortable in foreign environments. I understand what it is to be different, and that is my comfort zone. I am a chameleon, able to shift colors to fit the place. But thanks to The Finding, I have my inner glowing core.

Nevertheless, a strong aspect of my personality is shyness, and unless a particular stimulus draws me out, I often revert to that. On the other hand The Finding gave me experience with a new personality aspect - of being wholly carefree, unabashed, incapable-of-embarrassment. This being still emerges easily in me at times.

At the time of the Finding, I was absolutely carefree. I could not be embarrassed. Any inhibitory impulses were overshadowed by sheer joy. Joy was the dominant, overwhelming exudate that carried every one of my actions to fruition. I still have that. As a direct result of The Finding, I know what's important. The fundamental bond that was broken, in an act of Love, was reformed, in a happenstance of Grace. So in addition to a raised baseline of how I perceive the world, who I am, where I come from, and my freed ability to think outside myself, I have been blessed with the adoptive gift of a fearless, don't-give-a-shit-what-people-think, aspect to who I am. There's got to be a less crass way to express that, but in this moment, that's what I've got. What can I say? The Finding didn't make me perfect.

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Epiblogue

12 years removed from the experience of The Finding, I still get giddy at recollecting it all. If I ever have a bad day, I have only to remember any one of hundreds of details surrounding this monumental event in my life, and suddenly the important things in life bubble to life, clearly, illuminating the priorities, and tossing away the chaff. I have been blessed by being adopted, and I know it, and I appreciate it, and I live my life in such a way that I try to honor the fact that I have had the privilege to feel such born-again joy.

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Post Script