"I'm Going Home"
September 1, 2022
“You can’t go forward until you fill in the gaps of your past,” said Wesley, a former City Mission resident, just one day before boarding a Greyhound bus to Phoenix, where he will meet his birth family for the first time. “I’m going home,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about the night sky out in the desert where there is very little light pollution. The first night I’m there, I may just camp out in my sister’s backyard and spend most of the night looking up.” Wesley was given up for adoption at birth and never met his birth family who lives on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in White River, AZ. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times,” he said of his experience with his adoptive family in Northern Illinois. He was very close with his adoptive dad, but his mom and brother were angry alcoholics who took their anger out on him. He suffered physical and verbal abuse and was told over and over that he would never amount to anything and would always be stupid. “I was only 13 years old when it was at its worst,” he said. “I didn’t know how to reach out for help.” After high school graduation, he joined the Army and was stationed for 4 years at Fort Benning, GA as an Airborne Ranger. “I loved it,” he said of his time in the military. “I loved everything about it.” When his initial commitment was up, he decided to re-enlist. On the night before he was to be transferred to different army base, his friends threw him a going away party. “I call that my day of regret,” Wesley explained. A call from the police woke him up the next morning. He had no memory of it, but apparently, in a drunken stupor, he had punched out an Army officer the night before. He was discharged from the military and forced to return home to Latrobe, where he worked part-time jobs and amassed “countless public drunkenness charges.” Then his adoptive parents both passed away around the same time. His drinking became even worse. He couldn’t hold a job. Eventually, he had nowhere to go, and he ended up coming to City Mission for the first time in 2012. “Doug Bush was my rescuer,” Wesley recalled. “He motivated me and made sure I went to meetings.” Wesley only stayed for 40 days during his initial stay, but it made a big impact on him. About ten years ago, right around the time of his first stay at the Mission, Wesley began searching for his birth family. He started at the local public library, and his search led him to a private investigator who offered to take his case for free. She was able to locate his mom in White River, and she negotiated indirect contact between Wesley and his mother, who only spoke Apache, no English. At one point, the communication suddenly broke down, and Wesley was left with no answers. Undaunted, Wesley continued the search on his own. Eventually, he received a message through Facebook that someone knew his mother. Unfortunately, before he could make contact with her, his mother passed away. “I never got the chance to meet her,” he lamented. But through that contact, he discovered a revelation. He had 2 older sisters and a younger brother. One Sunday, just a few weeks ago, he received a call out of the blue. “I recognized the area code,” he explained. It was from White River. Ever since he found out his mother’s identity, he had been working with the Tribal Council there to learn about his family history and to be reinstated into tribe. So he picked up the phone. “Hi, I’m Sharon,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m your oldest sister.” They spoke on the phone for over an hour and shared their stories. “Do you want to come back home,” she finally asked him. “Yeah!” The very next day, he received an email from his sister with a bus ticket. “I’m finally going home,” Wesley said. “Where it all began.” On the phone with his sister, Wesley learned that his younger brother is an alcoholic, and he is still struggling. “I got a mission now,” Wesley said. “That’s the way for those in recovery -- to help one that is struggling. Others have been there for me. This is my time to give back.” Over the past 10 years, Wesley has stayed at the Mission six different times for a total of just over a thousand days. “Wesley has been talking about reuniting with his birth family as long as I’ve known him,” said Doug Bush, one of our House Coordinators in the Men’s Shelter. “It seems to have been the missing piece for him. He’s been looking for a sense of belonging. And that’s why he kept coming back to us.” “I can’t thank City Mission enough,” Wesley said. “They rescued me. They will always be a part of me. The Mission motivated me and taught me to be assertive. Without that, I probably never would have continued my search for my family.” Wesley also made some great friends during his time at the Mission. “I have supportive friends here,” he explained. “They’re proud of me. They threw me a party when I brought home my 1-year coin.” “He has good friends, because he is a good friend,” added Clayton, a fellow resident at the Mission and Wesley’s close friend. Wesley has been an integral part of the City Mission family, and we wish him the very best on his journey to get to know his birth family. Please join us in praying for Wesley on this new adventure. You can help dreams come true at City Mission. Visit www.citymission.org. “Five years from now,” Wesley said, “I hope to be on my own -- living happy, joyous, and free!”
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