Dear Ricky,
My name is Olivia and I am your daughter. I am sure that you recognize my name, you gave it to me, but the fact is that you haven't seen me in the almost 36 years since I was born. I am not writing you to tell you about my life, but rather to ask you for help. Believe me, this is the last thing that I want to do, but it is life or death. My son is 5 and a half years old and he needs a bone marrow transplant so I am making sure that I look down every path. You might not realize this, but children are the greatest gift you can ever have. I ask you now as his biological grandfather, for help. I am a match for him, but right now I am four and a half months along with our second child. My husband James isn't a match, and neither is my mom. There is a good chance that you could be, and while he is in the database, finding a match in you would mean quicker results. I have never asked you for anything, but now I am demanding this. I am sure that you probably have your own family and possibly other children, but I want you to remember that I am also your child and as my biological father, you should stand up finally and do the right thing. Please email me back as soon as you can, James, Evan and I would really appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Olivia Mitchels
I carefully reread the email and hit enter. I couldn't struggle with the words anymore and I couldn't fight whether or not to send it. I knew deep down that he was a match and that fate was somehow leading us back together.
Ricky and I hadn't seen each other since I was four months old. Actually, that would be wrong. He hasn't seen me in that long. I looked him up one day about seven years ago. It was before James and I were getting married and I just wanted to see what he looked like, maybe even introduce myself and show him how amazing I turned out. I wanted him to see how much he had missed in my life. I tracked him down, he lived just 45 minutes away, and went down to the address I'd found. He had done quite well for himself, even becoming a psychologist himself. I had known that he had had a rough childhood and in someway it felt good to know that he was out there doing good. Even if he wasn't in my life, he was changing other people's and that gave me some insight into a man who I always thought would be angry and mean. He had, after all, walked away from me and my mother when I was still so young. He had never heard my voice or seen me take my first steps. When I parked my car in front of his building, I watched, waiting for a man to come out who looked like the young father I'd seen pictures of. Finally I saw a boy about 11 years old who looked exactly like him. It was almost uncanny how similar they looked. Following the boy out was a man, probably around 50 who I figured was my father. With him was a woman who appeared to be in her early 40's and three more kids. She carried a little girl who was no more than 4 and two other boys ran out past them, probably only 7 and 8 years old. It seemed as though he had another family and was a loving man. It seemed to me that he had changed and I didn't want to ruin anything. I drove away that day and went home.
I got married six months later and then two years after that Evan William Mitchels was born. It had only been six weeks since they discovered his leukemia, but it seemed like forever. I knew that now those children would find out that they had an older sister and about their father when he was young, as I assumed he hadn't told them.
In a way I felt bad for imposing into his life. I hadn't really had a tough childhood by any measure. Yes, my mother had been very young, but she had so much support from family and the man who became my surrogate father, Ben. My mother and Ben had married when I was four and they were 19. I was their flower girl and we officially became a family. Ben tried to adopt me, but because Ricky couldn't be found, it never happened. The legality didn't matter though, I had always called him dad. For many years, I was an only child. Both my parents went to college and then my mom even went to medical school. She became and emergency room doctor and Ben had become a college professor. Because of the amount of schooling they did, it was just the three of us for a long time. It wasn't until I was almost 13 that my sister was born. I remember how everyone became so focused on baby Molly. I loved and despised her at the same time. Then, when I was 15 and the same age my mom was when she had me, they had my other sister Emily. It was with baby Emily that I really began to see what my mother had experienced when she was pregnant with and raising me at such a young age. Because I was so much older than Molly and Emily, we weren't especially close. I used to watch them after school and we played all the time, but I still felt like an only child in many ways. Of course, wanting a son my parents had another baby just a year after Emily. Jake was born just as I started sophomore year of high school. Life was interesting for me with college just a few yeas away and siblings in diapers.
I was careful through school not to get into any situations that could derail me like my mom. I took her lessons to heart and studied all the time. I had really great friends and together, we all went to college. It was amazing when I had my first boyfriend Kevin and my second Grant. Both my parents were supportive when I chose to go into business and they were ecstatic when I brought James home the Christmas of my senior year. He is 2 years older than me and we'd met in class before he graduated. It seemed as though my life would be picture perfect, that was, until we got Evan's diagnosis.
"What are you doing hun?" I heard James' voice say as he entered the study
"I emailed him. I sucked it up and I emailed Ricky. Who knows if he'll answer though. I hope that he's a match and that he will donate and then we can move on with our lives."
"You don't want a relationship?"
"Not really, he didn't want to know me and you see how my dad, I mean Ben, treats me. It's like I'm his and I never felt like I wasn't."
"What if he is a match and he wants to meet Evan?"
"I don't know, you think that could happen?"
"If I had a kid out there who needed help, I would want to be in their lives and help out any way I could."
"Yeah, but he walked away Jay. He knew that my mom would probably struggle, and he walked away anyway."
"Liv, he was 16. You told me that when Emily and even Jake were born everything in your house changed. Now imagine you are a foster kid who's been abused and you feel alone. Honestly, I would've probably freaked out too."
"You've never put it like that before. You normally just agree with me. What do you know that I don't?" I said with a suspicious look on my face.
"Nothing, but when I put Evan to sleep I was thinking about how hard it muse have been for him to walk away the first time knowing that you would probably hate him."
"Well, if he answers me we'll find out what he wants now won't we?" I said turning to turn off the computer screen. "Wait, Jay look." I said clicking on the new email in my inbox. "That was quick"