Hello
and welcome to my web site! My name is Charles White, I live in the great city
of
In April of 1963, my mother, Gloria, was allegedly sexually assaulted by
her older brother, Mike. I have heard several versions of what happened from
both sides on this subject; everything from two kids ‘just fooling around’ to
rape. To date, I am still not sure exactly what happened.
When
my grandparents found out that my mom had become pregnant, they shipped her off
to another city to live with her older brother until I was born. They were afraid
of what their friends and neighbors would think.
I was born in January of 1964 and promptly put up for adoption. My grandparents
apparently decided that this was the best way to give me a good life.. I did have one aunt who wanted to adopt me and raise me
as her own, but my grandparents wouldn't hear of it.
According to what the family has told me, the doctors had said that I would, in
all likelihood, be born deformed and severely retarded. They were wrong on both
counts. I didn't learn until later that this would be a source of continuing
nightmares for my mom. The only problem that I inherited was a degenerative eye
disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa, or RP for short, which I got from my
father.
I was placed into a foster home at the age of 5 days to wait for DSS to find a
home for me. Fortunately, this foster home was run by a kind and loving widow,
who loved all of her foster children as if they were her own. She had lost
three out of her four children to muscular dystrophy, and knew how special
children were. She had lost her husband to a severe heart attack in 1951. She
would later adopt me and call me her son. I can never forget the love that she
showed me throughout our years together. To adopt a stranger's child, knowing
that child would never have perfect vision, and knowing that there was the
possibility of other unknown medical problems, took someone with a lot of
caring and a lot of love. I lost my adopted mom to cancer in 1978. I still miss
her very much.
After my mom's death, I went to live with one of her sisters. I went from a
home where I was loved and cared for, to a home where there was no love; only
abuse. I was told repeatedly that since I was adopted, that I wasn't really
part of the family. I had suddenly gone from being a part of the family to
being little more than property. People that I had known as my aunts and uncles
were now total strangers to me. Most of them I would never see again. The only
exceptions to this were two aunts that lived close by. They knew how much I missed
my adopted mom, and they did all they could to help me through it. I also met
my best friend, Dale, during this time. Over the next few years, his family
would come to see what I was going through and would do all that they could to
help. I owe my aunts and Dale's family more than I could ever say. While I
lived with my aunt I had to endure both physical and verbal abuse. I moved out
as soon as I hit 21 and never looked back.
In late 1988, my birth mother found me. Everything seemed to go fine at first
with meeting the rest of the family, but it didn't last. It would be 3 years
before I would even get to go to a family dinner. I had been invited several
times up to that point, but the people who were supposed to come by and pick me
up (I'm legally blind and don't drive!) would conveniently forget to come.
Also, my father and his brothers and nephews would go to the coast for a week
in October to fish. I had been invited to go on a couple of occasions, but they
would tell me that they had decided to cancel the trip for one reason or
another. The week would get here and they would go anyway. I would later find
out that my father didn't want me tagging along because some of his friends
might go and they didn't know about me. I could go places with him, but only if
he could identify me as his nephew or a "friend of the family'.
In June of 2001, I was diagnosed with an inoperable growth in my brain which
turned out to be a tumor. My birth family quickly abandoned me because of lies
told by my father. He had decided that since I wouldn't give him access to my
medical records and didn't have (or wouldn't give) him the answers that he
wanted, that I must be lying, and proceeded to convince the rest of the family
of this. He had forbade me to tell anyone outside of the family that he was my
father, and had told me earlier that year that he felt no parental bond toward
me, so I felt that he didn't deserve to have the same rights as a parent.
To give you an idea of what some of these people are like, my sister (my father's
daughter) had become pregnant in 1996. Both she and her husband had told me
that when her child was born, that it would know me as its uncle. She gave
birth to a great little boy who I still love and miss a great deal. I still
carry his picture in my wallet. I don't have the heart to take it out. The
greatest birthday present I ever received came from him on my thirty-sixth
birthday. He sang 'Happy Birthday' to me. He was only three at the time. He
never knew I was his uncle, nor will he because that would mean that his mother
was my sister, and therefore her father must be my father as well.
My dad isn't about to stand for that being known! He works with the local
courts and with the local chapter of an organization devoted to preventing
drunk driving, and apparently felt that he had to keep me a family secret at
all costs to protect himself and his 'reputation'. When he discovered this
website, he was, to say the least, more than just a little upset! "I
want no more of this garbage." I believe is how he put it. The only person
in the family who never accepted the lies that he was trying to tell was my
sister Tracy, my mom's middle girl, who continues to be a source of great
strength, wisdom, and encouragement to me.
My birth mom, who lives in