A Reflection on Heritage, Family, and Identity
My daughter’s happiness shines as bright as her white wedding dress in the photo highlighting three generations. My mother links arms with Dominique, unsteady on her feet, a walker pulled out of the picture. Dominique’s the crutch, bracing the frail, older woman, keeping her secure. I’m on the other side, arms interlocked. I perch, ecstatic in front of the photographer. On the day my daughter marries a wonderful man, I’m equally as happy my 86-year-old mother is well enough to attend.
Not everyone could. My mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few months before the wedding. Her gift, which sat waiting on the floor of her kitchen, had to be delivered by my husband and me. During my wedding toast, I memorialized her. “I leave you with what Nellie would have said. Live every day to the fullest and love unconditionally.” Days after the wedding, when finding a moment for reflection and thinking about the toast celebrating Nellie and the true gifts she shared, I considered the meaning of family and, of all things, the role genetics played.
It might sound odd, but since the age of 18, when my world changed with a few words, they’ve been questions I’ve grappled with, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Dominique and Kevin, the newlyweds, have talked about starting a family. They’d expressed the desire to take time as a couple first, but then what? And, as a woman who had no idea who her biological father was, what was I passing on by way of genetics to them?
The questions began when the man I’d called Dad my entire life faded into mental illness. What had started as bouts of anger, aggression, and paranoia worsened over time until they consumed him, and he was unable to hold a job. My mother sat us down on the edge of the bed in her room one Christmas break when my sister and I had both returned from college for the holiday. Voice shaking, she said words that changed my life. “He’s not your biological father.”
The juxtaposition of overwhelming emotion and distance from the situation collided. I felt like a character in a novel; the maid destined to become the princess, or the insignificant, quiet teen bound to be a hero. While I looked too much like my mother to believe I was adopted, I’d always felt out of place in the loud conservative Italian Polish Catholic home. Now I understood why.
For many years, I did nothing with the information other than to write on forms that I didn’t know about my father’s medical history. But as I aged, curiosity grew. In 2017, I took a DNA test and found out I was of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. I took a second test with a different company and discovered I had a half-brother. Not only did I speak with him but learned his family’s story, which was surprisingly similar to my mother’s. My sister also did a DNA test, and we learned we were half-sisters. I’d been raised with her and considered her family while my half-brother was a stranger, and yet the genomic relationship was the same.
With an onslaught of new information and chaotic emotions, my search for understanding began. It took a two-fold turn. First, I wanted to know more about what my mother went through to have children and, on a personal level, to explore my Jewish heritage.
My mother’s story had to be explored first. Family still central in my mind after spending the wedding day catching up with relatives and family, I asked my ultra-conservative, Catholic mother about her journey to having a child. Julia had my sister in 1967, and I was born a year later. After the wedding, she told me how they learned Rocco, her husband, was sterile but her desire for a baby consumed her. She went to her local doctor, Dr. S to discuss options. There weren’t many, at least not any that were sanctioned.
According to a National Library of Medicine article written by Wo Sung, et al. (2021), it wasn’t until 1978 that the first in vitro fertilization (IVF) baby, Louis Brown, was born in the United Kingdom. A few years later, an IVF baby was born in the United States.
With that time gap in question, I asked how she did it.
“It was against the law,” Julia said, words matter of fact.
“What about your faith?”
“I craved having children, more than eating or sleeping. I would have been happy with ten kids, and thought I was in heaven being pregnant.”
Unfortunately, the procedure was expensive. Julia was able to go through it twice, each time not knowing the donor, putting aside religious beliefs for the chance to be a mother.
“It seemed the rational thing to do at the time,” she said. Medicine had offered Julia a way to be a mother, but according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB, 1998), in vitro fertilization is immoral.
The Gift of Life by USCCB from 1987, long after my mother had gone through a procedure, denounces the use of IVF. My mother could not have known with certainty this would be the Church’s view. But she must have understood that based on other reproductive decrees, the Catholic church would respond conservatively. Did her need to be a mother and nurture new life outweigh any doubts of going against her faith?
The USCCB makes their stance clear. New life not created through an act of love between husband and wife is but a laboratory procedure and partners merely sources for the egg and sperm. More insidious, according to USCCB, is when donor eggs or sperm used present genetic material from someone from outside the marriage.
Julia, in the actions taken toward motherhood, had defied her conservative Catholic upbringing and had become an unbeknownst warrior for women’s rights, leading the way to more options and better care for those wanting to conceive.
On the other hand, The Gift of Life (1998) points to the problem I now face. “A sperm or egg donor complicates the issue and can create a confusing situation for the child when they learn that one parent is not a biological one.” The Catholic church also defends its stance by explaining that the identity of the donor may never be known, “depriving the child of an awareness of his or her own lineage” (USCCB, 1998).
When I found out that Rocco was not my genetic parent, I had questions and still do today. There’s relief with the knowledge that mental illness will not be something I inherit, but also sadness. Rocco was the man who raised me, sat behind me on the sled as we angled down a steep, snowy hill, ran across a green field as a kite flew and twisted in the wind, and drove in a station wagon lacking air conditioning all the way to Disney World. He’d always be the person I call Dad.
Now, Rocco is deceased, Julia’s health is in decline, and my daughter is married. I ask what does it mean to be Ashkenazi Jewish when I was raised Catholic and have fallen away from organized religion? Does it matter to me, and will it matter to my daughter?
On 23andMe, there are pages where I can “Explore My Ashkenazi Jewish Heritage.” With a few clicks, I learn that my ancestors came from Poland and the Ukraine and that many Ashkenazim Jews live close by in New York. There are holiday treats, music, and traditions listed for me to peruse. There are Yiddish words to study and places to visit for more information. Much of it seems unconnected to my life.
But after the wedding, I reviewed the places 23andMe suggested I research to learn about my heritage. One of the locations was Krakow, Poland. I’d been there. The summer after I graduated college was spent in Poland, learning about my mother’s heritage. I loved the city and was profoundly impacted by the trip to Auschwitz. It seems my two worlds weren’t as far apart as they first seemed.
As I look back on the wedding and all the joy of the day, I realize that I have work to do. I want my daughter to know her lineage so that if she has a family, she can provide them with information. I want to build new traditions as I learn more about my background and embrace my Jewish heritage, but never forget the people who raised me. Most importantly, while my search is not complete, I am happy my mother championed a cause focused on women having control over their bodies when today that is still being challenged.
