Jake’s Life

Yesterday I got that yearly wild hair up my ass to start the father search again. This usually hits me annually for some reason, and I always pick up the file folder I have set aside with everything I’ve done in the last year or two in it: Credit checks, criminal checks, Social Security number searches. I have the file organized by previous addresses, employers, phone numbers, next of kin, neighbors, etc., based on paid background searches I’ve run on him. You know, I wish that people updated their information more often when they move as the California Department of Motor Vehicles has an old address listed for him. At one time, about two years ago, I called every Purnell in California and found a few distant relatives (second cousins, etc.). The most humorous reply I got was a voicemail from a black woman saying that my voicemail message didn’t sound like I was black, so her daddy probably ain’t my daddy.

The only direct relative I have been able to contact is his brother, my uncle, whose name is Adam. Last year when we spoke he stated that they had not seen nor spoken in over a year and he didn’t know where my father was. I left my number but it may have gotten lost in the shuffle of a year’s worth of life. My father worked for an ice company for a long time, and I spoke with his old supervisor and a long time friend/co-worker who had not seen him either. Oddly enough, this co-worker told me that I looked exactly like him before I left California for Washington. I didn’t remember meeting him until he jogged my memory by what my mother drove, where we lived, and what he drove. I can’t picture his face, but I remember meeting him in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Lancaster, California.

Today I did some more basic things like looking into phone listings. Online phone listings have come a long way to include age ranges, last known employers and job fields, etc. I found a few with his same first, middle, and last name and even his age, which look like a hodge podge of his old addresses, but may have a current one mixed in. So far I know that he has worked for North Hollywood Ice Company, worked in sanitation in Orange County, California (unknown whether for the county itself or for a sanitation contractor), lived or still lives in central California (likely Orange County, especially near the water).

I plan to call my uncle Adam in the next few days and check in with him, and also start tracking down his other children who are around my age (which means that out of the litter there has to be MySpace/Facebook/LinkedIn/other social networking profiles for). It’s amazing, I do look like my father, almost a splitting image besides the nose which is from my mom (and modified by me through a few injuries). I need to dig out some photos to post for comparison.

A while back I didn’t know if I was ready to contact him if I did find him. Yes, he deserves to know that my mother passed four years ago, and he deserves a chance at knowing me and vice versa, but was I ready for that? I had gone 22 years without him, and would his introduction into my life benefit us or detract from what we have built without each other? Don’t misunderstand, he was not the “deadbeat dad” that America is known for being inhabited by. From what I understand from family (both sides) is that he loved my mother and he loved me, but something happened between the two of them that made my mother leave when I was less than a year old. To her death bed she kept his contact information a closely guarded secret, and from what I hear from my grandmother she kept it all in memory instead of writing it down. She knew she was sick and that I would eventually find it if she did write it down. No wonder I’m so damn stubborn! I did manage to find out from my mom (unethically maybe, as she was very medicated at the time on Morphine) that she was in contact with him up until she was entered into a hospice toward the end, that he lived in Central California with his new family, that he knew I was gay, living in Seattle, and really wanted to be in contact with me.

I know that if I put myself into this 100% I can find him. With a hectic life, all of the overtime, changes going on at work, Sandro, Gammy, nothing can get 100%. It’s sad, especially with something that I find this important, but it will happen in time. Working in the field that I do I can always have him found fairly quickly (at least his most current information) with minimal red tape. I know a few detectives that would give me a hard time about using their resources for personal business, but it would eventually be done given the circumstances. That would take my hard work, effort, energy, and fun out of it though!

Have any of you gone through anything like this before? I’m open to your experiences and possible input.

Well, those last two days didn’t go by very quickly. It still hurts, there’s still a lot of redness on my side and back, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it did during the last 48 hours. No head splitting migraine this morning either.