Prologue: The Forces which Affect Us
Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions; it’s walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.
– Aldous Huxley
Life’s events can seem completely unrelated, random, and disconnected. Moments, words, glances, and events—all appear scattered. Some actions, no matter how random, insignificant, or inane, can cascade into disaster. Just like pulling at a loose thread on your sweater only to watch the whole thing unravel. Or carefully selecting an item from a shelf only to have the adjacent items fall, beginning a chain reaction of uncontrollable chaos.
Yet, Fate acts as an unseen force drawing these particles of life closer to one another. Gradually, their relevance grows, and they begin to coalesce. They continue until they collide, compressing themselves into a dense and significant collection. When this happens, the once hidden image of your life becomes clear, and everything changes in that one instant.
My innocent, almost frivolous efforts to locate my Native American heritage would unwittingly lead me down a path into my past, my family’s collective past, and change my history, or at least our history as it had been told to us. It would bring to light events that would not only change what we understood about who we were, but it would alter our perception of the most foundational members of our family, specifically, our parents. For me, personally, it would not only change our family, but it would also change me. It would change me at my core. In the end, it would trigger an epiphany within me that would force me to evaluate how the word ‘family’ is ultimately defined. This is the story of a DNA Orphan. Such is my life. Such is Fate.