In June 2018, Jessie Parsons
met her biological father.CO
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each other. I discovered I had two
more siblings: John, a building
manager, and Sonny, who works in
construction. Cheryl was thrilled
to have a sister, but she worried I’d
had a bad life. I told her she had
nothing to fear.
In February of last year, I invited
Cheryl and John to my house for
dinner. When I opened the door, I
started crying. I was overwhelmed
with emotion. They cried, too. They
kept telling me how I looked more
like Clobie than the three of them
combined. I found out that Clobie
had raised them as a single dad in
Toronto’s Flemingdon Park. He
owned two electronics-repair shops,
and he was a wonderful dad—sweet,
attentive, kind. That was a relief. My
biggest fear was finding out my dad
had been a jerk.
Connecting with my father’s side of
the family has opened up my life. Clo-
bie was one of 20 children. I have
more than 300 cousins living in all
parts of the world, and I’ve met about
100 of them so far. I used to hate that
none of my relatives looked like me, but
now the resemblance is everywhere. It
blows my mind.Jessie Parsons, 35
Found her biological fatherM
y parents adopted me from
the Children’s Aid Society in
London, Ont., when I was sixweeks old. I never gave much thought
to my adoption until I was 10, when a
kid at school asked me about my “real”
mom. I burst into tears.
When I turned 18, CAS gave me all
the non-identifying information they
had about my birth parents. My birth
mother was a white woman who worked
at a First Nations reserve. My biological
father was an Indigenous police officer.
When my birth mom found out she
was pregnant, she moved to London.
It wasn’t until I was 30 and had my
own kids that I considered seeking out
my birth parents. I wanted my children
to know about their roots. In 2016, my
adoptive mom told me she’d tracked
down my birth mother and emailed
her. She took four months to respond.
I was at the grocery store when I
finally got an email from her. “Happyrd.ca 63