Commentary: I Wanted to Learn About My Father, I Learned About His Facebook Instead

On February 21, 2002, I met my father. He had been briefly married to my mother, disappeared when I was an infant, and while we had spoken briefly when he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, at my mother’s funeral on that day, we do not know each other.  Twenty years later, at age 56, I wanted to change that. I tracked down my father’s phone number and, lacking the courage to call, sent him a carefully constructed text message that read as follows: Hi ______. This is Teri Lynn, the daughter you had with Judy. I hope this message finds you happy and healthy! I will be in [our small, southeast Missouri town, pop. 15,500] for a few days and was wondering if you would be interested in meeting for a short time?  He wrote back: Monday Wednesday or Thursday between 9 and 1. Please let me know.  When I sent a screenshot of our texts to my adult kids, one of them replied: You sound like a cheerleader and he sounds like he’s making a dental appointment! Two days later, I was in my father’s house. As I sat with him at his kitchen table, excited, nervous, a little…
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