This is a totally true story.

As the half century mark approaches I look back, in celebration, of a life totally unexpected, unplanned, raw and incredible as its outcome is ongoing. The future not yet set but continues to be promising. I look back with a sense of purpose and meaning. I look back and can see worth and value, while so many have a hard time seeing it for their own lives. In short, I look back and smile. Most don’t have a story like mine, and my story has so many layers, so many variables, that it would be incredibly hard to present it in any kind of coherent, cohesive, fashion, or even as a template for anyone else’s life. However, I do believe that each persons unique story has lessons, experiences, and stories that others can learn and benefit from. Even just for entertainment value.

I’ve been told that the very origins of my story are unusual enough to put the rest of my life in a perspective that would “explain a lot of things.” Few know the entire story. Just pieces. I’m not sure even I know the entire origin story but what I do know fascinates even me.

Let’s begin in Tehran, Iran, in early 1969, during the Iranian revolution. Iran is in disarray. Almost a third world country. A young 17 year old Sephardic, Persian, Jewish woman is walking home from school with her sister. Sitting on a wall, hanging out, is a young Persian Muslim man.* An up and coming auto mechanic. They become friends. Neither of their families knows about their friendship, as that would be verboten. She has enrolled as a foreign exchange student in the United States for the upcoming school year and got accepted. She will be going to the United States soon.

One night they are hanging out and they get physically intimate. No penetration occurs. However, the young man ejaculates on, or about, the vaginal area. Just casual exploration and enjoyment by two young people. Neither think anything of it as Tehran doesn’t really have the best informative sex education classes in 1969. Nor do parents talk to their kids about such things back then. Shortly thereafter, this young Jewish woman gets on a plane to the United States to start her first year of college.

She stays, as a boarder, at a lovely blond haired, blue eyed, non-Jewish family, for her school year. She’s been in America about 3 months. Her night of enjoyment just 3 months prior. She hasn’t gotten her period. 6 months have gone by since that night. Thinking it might be the flight, time change or even the change in diet, causing the irregularity, and slight weight gain, she goes about her daily studies. One day she’s not feeling so well and goes to the doctor to get checked out. The doctor informs her that she is pregnant. Of course, you can imagine the fear in this young woman. Alone. In a foreign country. Away from her family. With no one to talk to. She has decisions to make.

She decides to have the baby and would give it to the non-Jewish family she is staying with. If her family, in Tehran, found out about the child, they would likely excommunicate her. Or even worse. Same for the father. Such was/is the culture. She kept all this to herself.

Shortly before giving birth, she decides to give the baby up for adoption, to the Jewish Family Services in the state she was in. It just so happens that a young, orthodox, Ashkenazic, married couple, living in Phoenix, AZ, were on the list for adoption.

They were just starting their lives together as husband and wife. He, a Yeshiva University (YU) graduate, a young doctor in the US Army working with American Indians. She, a teacher. Wanting to start a family, but not getting pregnant, they applied  to Jewish Family Services to adopt. One day they get a call asking if they’d be interested in adopting a Jewish Persian baby about to be born. Not knowing what the future held or that he was to become The Jewish Rapper, they said yes! They took a leap of faith. One that was based on unconditional love.

That baby was born, quite healthy, at the end of that year. The couple flew to the hospital to receive that child. The husband had the foresight to make sure everything was in place should there ever be a question about the verification of the childs Jewishness. He made sure the circumcision was performed according to Judaic law. He also took note of any available information of the young birth mother, should it be needed in the future.

Imagine the onslaught of emotions the young, mother must have been going through. The fear. The uncertainty. The unusual and unfamiliar circumstances life had provided her. Her dreams of that child having an amazing life, with an amazing family, in a safe, loving Jewish environment were in question. Living the rest of her life not knowing what was to become of that child would have a been a very heavy weight to bear.

The biological father never knew of the child. He would pass away, in Tehran, of a heroine overdose, approximately 4 years later. The young woman would graduate college, eventually get married and have 2 children of her own. The only individual in her universe that would know of this child would be her sister. The rest of her siblings, parents and grandparents, would never know. She would meet that child, approximately 25 years later, by an unbelievable set of circumstances, pieces that would be put in place a little more than a decade earlier, that, unknown to either of them, would bring them together and confirm that her decision was, in fact, the correct one, thereby reducing that weight she had to bear.

The adopting parents brought the child to Phoenix for approximately 2 years. A short stint in New York and then settling in Baltimore, where they had a daughter the old fashioned way. Unbeknownst to them, they would get the most unusual ride of their lives.

But that’s a whole other story…

*In the Jewish faith a child is Jewish if the mother is Jewish. In the Muslim faith a child is Muslim if the father is Muslim. That adds a unique twist to my life.