by Shay Vaughn

Created on: June 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It's every teenagers dream to fit in and I was no different. Being adopted set me apart from most of my peers but what made me exceptional was that I had a famous father, or so I thought.

My adoption, as a toddler was an "open adoption". I was fortunate in that my biological grandmother and adoptive mother were friends, long before they were kin. When I turned 16 my grandmother gave me a gift I thought I would never forget. She told me that my father was the one and only Michael Love, the lead singer for the infamous Beach Boys. Since I really had no information on my birth-father up to that point, I naively believed, and foolishly acted on it. I devised a plan. Conveniently, the Beach Boys were performing near my California town. I couldn't believe my luck! I bought two tickets and invited a girlfriend to go with me. I spent endless hours writing and re-writing "the letter", the letter that I wrote to Michael, the one that divulged the information my grandmother had given me. I was going the concert armed with "the letter" and a dream of being famous. What was I thinking?

The morning of the concert, I got a phone call from the last person on earth I thought I would hear from, my birth-mother.

At the age of five months, I was the youngest of four children found abandoned in an upstairs, southern California apartment. My six year old sister remembers it well. For three days, they survived off of PB&J's, the only thing my sister knew how to make. She saved what was left of the milk for me. A neighbor discovered us and a social worker picked us up. When our grandparents finally came to pick us up we had been in foster care for over a month. They tried to make the best of it, our grandparents, but it wasn't working. Content with taking care of themselves and us, my older sister and brother at the ripe old age of 5 and 6 were already showing signs of oppositional defiance disorder. In short, they were use to being in charge and not accustom to grown ups running the show. It didn't take long for our grandparents to relinquish the two of them back into foster-care. It was at a little white church, on a warm spring day that a conversation took place between a little old lady and young mother. That conversation turned out to be the catalyst to my own adoption. The desperate plea of a worn out grandmother and a young, handicap mother who nearly lost her life with the birth of her one and only son. I was a Christmas present to a four year old boy who wanted nothing more from Santa than a baby sister.

Fourteen years later, I'm hearing her voice on the other end of the phone line. The voice of a mother who disappeared and left behind four innocent children to fend for themselves. I was angry and confused. Who wouldn't be? There was a lot to be said but it was quickly clear to me that she was not interested in discussing the past or making excuses. She had one aim in mind. She simply wanted to tell me that Michael Love was not my father. She told me that my grandmother had made the entire story up and that I would be making a fool out of myself by trying to pursue the dream of being a "Beach Boy's" daughter. She was there and she was gone, in an instant. I gave up that mid summer's dream and I sold the concert tickets. I had a new dream. I wanted to get to know my mother.

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