The Moon, the Earth, and the Truth in Between

By Candice "Candy" Bland

Chapter 1: Born in the Shadow of the Moon

In the summer of 1969, humanity was looking up at the stars. Television screens across the world flickered with black-and-white footage of Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon—a giant leap for mankind, a testament to a country sprinting into a technologically brilliant future. But back on Earth, in my corner of Pennsylvania, the world moved at a much slower, older pace. While the nation was making strides toward tomorrow, our community remained deeply rooted in yesterday, bound by old-fashioned rules and rigid expectations.It was into this clash of eras that I was born.

My mother was just eighteen years old, a young woman walking across her high school graduation stage with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was hopelessly in love with a man named Mr. Burrell, who was a close friend of her older brother. But love, in those days, was heavily policed by tradition. Because my mother was young, unmarried, and fiercely protective of her secrets, she refused to name my father.

In a small town with long memories, her silence was a storm. To shield her, and to give me a chance at a stable life, my maternal grandparents stepped in. They took custody of me when I was just an infant, raising me as their very own daughter. Their sacrifice allowed my mother the freedom to leave, to step out into the world, and to fulfill her life exactly as she saw fit.

Chapter 2: The Warmth of the Canopy

Growing up with my grandparents didn't just mean having a roof over my head or food on the table. It meant being enveloped in a rare, foundational kind of love. They taught me the meaning of responsibility, family loyalty, and unconditional care. To me, they weren't just guardians; they were the anchor of my world.Yet, secrets have a way of seeking the light, especially in a family that gathers often.

Sometime after my birth, the truth began to leak out. At a family party, surrounded by music, laughter, and the casual slip of conversation, my uncle’s friend—Mr. Burrell—confirmed what many had whispered: he was my father. Eventually, the weight of the truth grew too heavy for my mother to carry alone, and she finally confirmed the news to my grandparents.

The revelation didn't come with celebration. In their eyes, it brought a wave of shock and a stinging sense of disgrace, a reminder of the societal molds they so deeply respected.

Chapter 3: Horizons and Distances

For the next eighteen years, my father was a figure defined by distance. He lived in the vast, icy wilderness of Alaska, while I grew up in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. Nearly four thousand miles separated us, a gap too wide for occasional phone calls and sporadic visits to bridge.

Mr. Burrell would call, and he would visit when he could, but the thread between us never tightened into a true father-daughter connection. He was a man from a faraway place, a character in the background of my life rather than a central presence. I grew up accepting this as my reality: I was Candy, the girl raised by her grandparents, with a father in Alaska and a mother living her own life.

Chapter 4: The Whispered Doubt

Then came my eighteenth year. Just as my mother had stood on the precipice of adulthood in 1969, I stood on my own threshold in 1987.

At eighteen, you think you understand the shape of your world. You think you know your history. But family legacies are rarely written in straight lines. It was during this milestone year that a relative pulled me aside, unravelling the tapestry of the past I had spent nearly two decades believing.

They looked at me and delivered a shock to my system: they told me that Mr. Burrell was not my biological father, because my mother hadn't been entirely honest about who else she had been seeing.

That single conversation changed everything. The information sat heavy in my spirit, a quiet, unresolved echo that lingered in the background of my mind for the next thirty-two years. I went about my life, grew up, and built my own path, but the question mark over my identity never truly faded.

Chapter 5: The Maury Episode at Fifty

At the age of fifty, I decided I could no longer live with the question mark. I managed to conduct a DNA test using Mr. Burrell’s DNA. When the results came back, the numbers didn't lie: science confirmed what that relative had whispered over three decades prior. He was not my father.

Armed with undeniable proof, I confronted my mother. Faced with the DNA results, the walls of the past finally crumbled. Only then did she admit there was another man—someone else she had been in a relationship with around the time I was conceived.

I was consumed by a wave of intense annoyance and frustration. For fifty years, I had lived a lie. It felt surreal, like finding myself dropped squarely into the middle of an episode of The Maury Povich Show. The deception felt heavy, almost unforgivable. Intellectually, I understood that her silence was born out of the hyper-conservative, judgmental era of 1969, but that understanding didn't make the betrayal any easier to accept.

I had spent half a century in the dark. I refused to spend another day there. I went on a fierce, intentional mission to find out exactly who my biological father was, and to see if he was still walking this earth.

Chapter 6: The Link to the Puzzle and the Long Road Home

I submitted another DNA test, searching for the missing pieces of my genetic puzzle. When the ancestry results arrived, they brought a revelation that shook me to my core: I was Afro-Haitian. Seeing those words on the screen changed my life; for the first time, I felt a profound sense of cultural alignment and true belonging.

But the DNA database held an even more miraculous surprise. As I scrolled through the matches, a familiar name jumped off the screen—the name of a girl I had gone to elementary school with. Decades ago on the school playground, we used to run around, laugh, and playfully call each other "sisters." We had absolutely no idea that our childhood games were the absolute truth. We were sisters.

Her name was Keisha, and she became the vital first link to my puzzle. When we reconnected as adults, we welcomed each other with open arms, and ironically, we never felt like lost siblings awkwardly trying to find common ground. The bond was already there.

Finding Keisha didn't mark the end of my journey, though—it ignited a fierce new determination. With my sister by my side, I became unstoppable in my mission to find our biological Haitian father. Yet, the road was anything but easy. For the next seven years, Keisha and I hit one brick wall after another, met with blocker after blocker that threatened to keep his identity in the shadows forever.

Then came the phone call that changed everything. Keisha called me with the news we had prayed for: she had found him. His name was Harry, and he was living in a nursing and rehabilitation center.

Without a moment's hesitation, I packed up my family and traveled to meet the man I had been missing my entire life. Walking into that room, reality hit me softly. Harry was not in the best mental or physical health. The vibrant history I had imagined was housed in a fragile frame, but the circumstances didn't matter. It didn't stop me from pouring out a lifetime of love and relief onto him. Standing by his side, I simply let my soul quiet down and observe the incredible blessing that God had provided.

It is never too late to search for the truth. At fifty-seven years old, I am just now finding out who my father is, and I am deeply honored to have finally met him.“

-Candice M. Bland