Today is Monday. This won’t actually get posted until tomorrow but it’s a little after 11pm and I am just going to bed.

Today is Columbus day. A day we celebrate the life of a man who discovered America. Granted there were others before him who were actually here, but his trip is what seemed to start the growth and development of what later became this nation so we celebrate his slightly mistaken journey.

Today was also the day I tried to find proof of my birth. Like Columbus, I didn’t find what I was looking for but unlike him, I didn’t find anything at all.

My sister and I went to a local annex of the Orlando Library system. When I finally got to talk to someone about past nespapers, I was told I had to go downtown to the main branch. Yippee. First though, we traveled to the hospital. From the front desk, to administration, to records we were bounced but at least everyone was very nice. The lady in records looked thru their computer and even read off the two births for August 10th in that hospital but upon checking further she located more records for them so they had visited later on in life which means they weren’t me.

The other side was that this had been Western Orange Memorial Hospital and there was an Orange Memorial Hospital (now called Orange Regional Medical or some such, it’s all a bit of a blur now) downtown.

Off to downtown. We found the library, parked, and searched the the microfiche for about an hour. There were birth announcements from the surrounding areas newspapers but none from within Orlando. We checked for a whole week after the date of my birth and didn’t find ANY births listed.

By this time, I was so burned out that I didn’t even want to try the hospital but my sister told me I should so we paid out two bucks for parking and drove the few blocks to the hospital. (Okay, we actually drove to another hospital and realized we had another two blocks to go.) This place was HUGE! It had all sorts of buildings but we finally found the parking lot however we needed to pre-pay the 4 dollar fee in cash. Luckily my sis had it because I was broke at this point. (The ATM at the library was busted and we hadn’t really stopped anywhere else that we could have gotten money.)

We finally found the main entrance and was directed to the records department. We promptly got lost and got new directions. We still couldn’t find it until some lady passing by heard us and pointed us further down the hall. A lady was sitting in the office and turned looking annoyed that we interupted her. I gave her my best smile and asked if this was the place to look into old medical records for births. Her reply was sharp and short. They had all been destroyed from back then. I felt crushed. I think I mumbled a reply and walked out barely hearing the lady say something to my sis (which I later found out was to ask if she was with me.) I didn’t even think to ask what had happened or how she knew what year they had been destroyed since I hadn’t even said a year yet. I felt like I had “ADOPTEE” painted on my forehead or something since it was the answer so many recieve yet I hadn’t even said the word. The hour drive back to my sister’s seemed longer that the drive out.

We had pizza with the kids and then I drove to Jacksonville to visit my parents and here I am typing in bed. Tomorrow, we are supposed to drop by the agency. I am dreading it in a lot of ways.

I miss my wife and son. I need a hug

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