I was born "white" ...

It took 35 years to learn the truth.

We all have our own stories of why we’re here.

If you’re anything like me, a lot of things growing up never made sense. Other kids had grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles that lived close by. Other kids didn’t get asked, “what are you mixed with?”

Growing up, no one could ever tell me what that meant.

Other kids weren’t constantly being forced to be something other than what they were. My mother insisted on my hair being dyed blonde, my mouth entirely rearranged (no protruding teeth with a gap in the middle), my academics, perfect.

Even as a child, I saw that something was off.

Then, as a preteen, I learned my mother’s parents had died.

I never knew I had grandparents. I’d assumed they’d died long before.

I found out I had relatives. Who were these people, this family I never knew?

My mother never would answer anything truthfully. She reacted violently to questions she didn't like. My father rarely spoke at all.

I knew I wasn’t going to get anything useful from them, so I began researching my ancestry.

As I went to college, began a career, I began to seek these people out. I learned that they weren’t that far off. Just that we’d been intentionally kept from meeting them.

I remember visiting my mother’s sister. I was thirty-five, with a husband and children, back East for a medical conference. I looked at her mantle and saw a plaque my cousin got that used the words, “African American.”

I said, “What’s this?”

She said, in sort of an amused way, “Oh, just something Mark got.”

(My first cousin Mark is about the same color I am.)

I began to wake up.

My birth family was beyond dysfunctional, which was one motivation for doing my genealogy. I didn't understand what was going on, and I wanted to.

How did things get to this point? Where was I from?

Why were people hiding things from me?

I was no longer afraid of what I might find. The more I've learned - the good, the bad, even the ugly - the more I've gained.

If you can relate to any of this, your family hid truth to survive a time that’s passed. You don’t have to hide any longer, not if you don’t want to.

The truth, as the saying goes, will set you free.