This is planet money from NPR.
When Richard Lonzinger was in his mid forties, he learned that his birth mother, Barbara, had passed away, and Richard made a choice to try to get a particular piece of her estate to which he felt entitled.
At the time, he believed that securing that inheritance would help him belong, to connect to his birth family or maybe his heritage.
But gradually, Richard came to doubt the choice he made of.
It was in March 2010 that his birth mother passed away.
There had been a service, but Richard didn't find out about that until after it had already happened.
I unfortunately, did not get notified for the funeral.
And it's one of those things where I'm shocked, you know, I'm like, well, why wouldn't they tell me?
Richard was adopted?
He was in contact with his birth family, but they weren't very close.
But even so, missing his birth mother's funeral, that was hard on him.
It was especially complicated for Richard, considering the circumstances under which he was adopted, which are pretty horrifying.
Richard is part of the Ponca tribe of Oklahoma, which is a small native community.
One day, when he was a toddler, Richard's birth mother drove him and three of his seven siblings from their home in Oklahoma across the border into Texas.
The tragedy of that story is we got abandoned in Amarillo at a bus stop, and so the police picked us up, and that's how we got into foster care.
From there, he was adopted without any of his siblings, into a white family of three, a mom, a dad, and a sister.
And it wasn't until Richard was in his twenties that he really started to wonder about where he came from.
I was trying to figure out, you know, what am I supposed to be?
Who am I supposed to be?
Unsettled.