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By Cheryl Hedstrum

Finding out at the age of fifty that her dad was not her biological father and feeling that her whole life was a lie, Cheryl started out on a journey to find out the truth of where she came from and who her biological father was. With very little information to go on, she was determined to find the truth. Her journey started out trying to find her biological father, but what she found along the way was beyond what she could have imagined. She was discovering that her digging into the past would not only affect her life but the lives of other people she never met, lies, secrets, affairs, and promises that should have been broken but were kept for fifty-two years. Could she ever find out the truth? Would she look like him? Would he want to meet her, or reject her and not claim her as his?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642144253

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Welcome Home

Cheryl Hedstrum

Copyright © 2018 Cheryl Hedstrum

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64214-424-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64214-425-3 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To my brother and friend Ernie, who changed my life and heart forever, and who spent his last year and a half of his life showing what unconditional love a brother has for a sister. He will always be in my heart, and he is missed very much.

Every little girl dreams of being a princess or daddy’s little girl or the apple of his eyes. I never had that.

I was seventeen years old and living in Oregon with my mother when she died. I returned to Pittsburgh a few months after my mom died to help my dad with my younger sisters. Approximately four months after I was there was the first time I heard the rumor that my dad was not my biological father from my dad’s girlfriend at the time but who is now my stepmother. She asked me if I ever wonder why my dad treats me differently than my sisters. I thought it was because I lived with my mom, but she said it was because he didn’t believe he was my father. That was the first time I ever heard that Dad may not be my father. I knew my dad and I did not have a good relationship. I believed it was because we didn’t really know each other.

I didn’t believe the rumors. See, I am eighteen months younger than my older sister, and eighteen months older than my younger sister so the math, and knowing my mom the way I knew her, just did not add up to me.

Just a few days after I had the conversation with my stepmother and because my dad and I just couldn’t get along, I left Pittsburgh and moved back to Oregon

Through the years, every so often, someone would bring it up again. I did ask my mom’s sister about it and she said it wasn’t true.

Every couple of years, I would go back to Pittsburgh to visit my dad and I just had a hard time connecting until I was about thirty years old. I don’t know what changed, maybe because I was older and more mature, but my dad and I started developing a good relationship. He would come visit me in Florida (which he never did when I lived any place else). We started having more conversations on the phone and really started to get to know each other and our relationship became strong.

I remember when I was thirty-five, two of my sisters, my aunt, and two cousins came to Florida to visit me. That’s when my younger sister got mad at me and said my dad was not my father. I was extremely upset. I called my dad and demanded he do a DNA test with me once and for all. I told him I was tired of it always being thrown up in my face. He said, You’re my daughter. We did a test when you were born. (I know there was no such thing as DNA in 1964.) I knew he wouldn’t agree to the test, so I just let it go, although it was always in the back of my mind.

On November 23, 2013, at my son’s wedding, I took a really hard look at my dad and decided I needed to know the truth. Maybe because I was pissed off that he didn’t do any family photos with us and the fact that he