I have learned the identity of my biological father: Steven “Steve” Tobias. I know this because a couple of people in the Seattle area got me as a first cousin match on 23andme and dropped me a line.
First cousins! So one of my parents and one of their parents were siblings. I didn’t know it at the time, but the discovery of my existence caused quite a family discussion over Thanksgiving dinner in Seattle. Anyway, we messaged back and forth, me and one of my new cousins. She wanted to talk on the phone. I procrastinated. As much as I wanted this connection, and any clues that might come with it, it’s still a lot to take in.
Finally I did arrange a call with her. I said something about how I hoped she could give me some kind of clue as to who my bio parents were. After I was done talking she said that she had already figured out who my bio dad was: her uncle, her mother’s brother, Steve Tobias. And she told me that he had passed away four years ago at the age of 65.
I was stunned. I had had no idea she was going to tell me anything at all, let alone just solve one of the greatest mysteries of my life in thirty seconds. She hadn’t mentioned knowing any of this in our previous messages. Turns out, the family felt it was important that I hear it directly from them and not in an email. In this, and in other ways, they have all been very kind to me. But in retrospect, I should have known. Of course she knew her own aunts and uncles. Of course they figured it out right away.
Steve Tobias had been 17 in the early days of 1968. And he visited California just before shipping out as a merchant marine. Exactly as my bio dad is described in the letter from the adoption agency. That’s when I knew–this shit is for real. It’s not just some beeps and boops in someone’s DNA computer. It’s really him.
So what was he like? He is consistently described by both my cousin and my aunt as exceptionally intelligent. It’s literally the first thing each of them, separately, said when describing him to me. He was really good with computers and had worked at Microsoft and for the city of Seattle. He played guitar pretty seriously, at one point even earning a living doing it in San Francisco. He also had a made a hobby of photography and was quite good at it.
The parallels between us are pretty striking. Like, if you were writing this story as a piece of fiction your editor would tell you to back off a bit. “They can’t have everything in common. It’s just not believable.”
Ok, so…gone at 65? How did he die? Did he marry? Did I have half-siblings somewhere? The answers to these questions and many others will come in subsequent posts.