When I created this webpage, way back whenever, I did it for two reasons:
1) I was trying to find ways of keeping amused that weren’t going out to the Cardinal’s Hat, the Three Kings, the Apple Tree or the Swan with Two Nicks, and that would keep me writing, even if it was just a line or two here and there about formalist films by dead Russians.
2) I knew I would be leaving the country, and I wanted something on the web which would, at the very least, remind my family and friends of what I look like.
It turns out that this weblog had a third reason for being, which at the time was known only to the Fates.
I spent the first twenty-four years of my life not knowing my biological father. The events surrounding my birth would make a perfect Thomas Hardy plot, and so for various, tragically avoidable reasons Duncan was not around when I was born.
Mum had told me about him since I was old enough to speak and listen, and while I grew up happy and content knowing that I had one father who loved me and provided for me, I knew that there was another father in another town, maybe another country, whose blood I shared. I often wondered what else I shared with him. Did we look alike? Behave alike? Did I have his smile, his laugh?
When I was eighteen my parents told me that, as an adult, I was legally able to search for Duncan and make contact. Mum knew his parents – my grandparents – lived in the same house as they had when she knew him. All I needed to do was walk up to their gate, but for the past seven years I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What if Duncan didn’t want to know me? What if he was married to a woman who didn’t know his past? I thought about the meeting many times, running it over in my head, but I hesitated at the point of action. Who knows what kind of an incident I could have caused?
About two months ago the twenty-four years of silence were broken. On the last day of our holiday in Florida I checked my email. Among the usual offers of free money from Nigerian businessmen, Vicodin, weight loss and penis gain tablets, was an email from a girl called Cate Graham with the subject “Half Brother?”
A couple of stiff drinks later I replied to her email. The things she knew about me were correct. Out of nowhere I had a half-sister. I hoped it wasn’t a cruel hoax or a practical joke. The next day, back at our apartment in Rochester, I hooked up the laptop and checked my email again. Another email from Cate. If I was happy to correspond with her, would I mind if my other sisters wrote too?
Other sisters? Yes, there are two, Sinead and Rhianon. Cate, do your parents know you’ve been in touch? Yes.
A couple of days later, the expected email from Duncan arrived. A few days after that the subject of meeting up was broached. On June 3rd I stepped off a plane at Heathrow terminal 4 into the arms of my lost-and-found family. It’s been a very strange, exciting and fulfilling few weeks. I was an only child from a small family. Now I have an extra father, a kind-of-stepmother, three half-sisters, a set of grandparents and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins, all of whom I’m sure will be mentioned here eventually. And, in a certain mood, under the right light, my biological father and I do have the same smile.
From left to right: Lynne, Rhianon, Caitlin, Sinead, Duncan.
So, how did Duncan eventually find me? After years of calling various organisations, searching through records, asking friends of friends who lived in the town where I was born, and checking Friends Reunited and making no progress the solution was deceptively simple: on a whim he googled my name and found this site. OK, so there aren’t millions of Liam Creightons, but there are quite a few. Try this: go to Google, type my name into the little box and click on “I’m Feeling Lucky.” You’ll get this website. The only reason that happens is because more people have read this page than any other that contain the words “Liam Creighton”.
So, who is to thank for this happy ending? Lots of people, but right now I want to thank everyone who’s ever looked at this silly little website. Those hits made everything easier. Hurrah for the internet. Hurrah for blogging. Hurrah for my conviction that what I write is worth reading. And hurrah to you for reading it!
Cheers.
