Mom and Dad visited this weekend and while we were having lunch with friends of theirs, someone mentioned my first meeting with their minister.
Reverend Macaleer came to their church a year or so after the retirement of the minister who’d been there while I was growing up. It wasn’t planned that way, but I happened to be home for a visit the same weekend that the church had a party to welcome the new minister. Mom and Dad were planning to attend, so they invited me along.
I should have seen it coming. When Reverend Macaleer saw me, he walked up to introduce himself and said, “You must be Ellie’s son. You look just like her.” All my life, my facial features have been similar to Mom’s, but growing up that’s not something I enjoyed being told. But as a grown up, I’ve learned to respond with humor.
Mom says she’ll never forget the look on Reverend Macaleer’s face when I responded, “I’m adopted.”
Now the problem with this statement is, it’s not true. It was all in fun, but the bottom line is, I lied to a minister! That’s just not a good thing to do. So to set the record straight once and for all, I’m most definitely not adopted and even though I give them a hard time, I love Mom and Dad very much.
But I am from Dad’s first marriage.