I Found Out That I Was Adopted At 30!

This is Our American Stories, and as you all know, listener stories are some of our favorites. We play them a lot here, and send your listener stories to OurAmericanStories.com. This is a short form to fill out. You can type it up, send it to us, and you’ll be hearing back from us. We love these stories. Your stories make this show what it is. Up next, Skip Breeves, who listens to us on KOA News Radio 850 AM and 94.1 FM out of Denver. Skip found out something interesting about himself when he was in his thirties. Here’s our own Monty Montgomery with the story.

Skip Breeves. Real name isn’t actually Skip.

My real name is Jory. As I understand, when my mother was pregnant with me me, my grandfather would say to her during the course of the pregnancy, “When is that little skipper coming out of there?” And so when I was born, the name Skipper just kind of stuck. I had four children that are grown at this point. I grew up to be a professional musician. I was a professional drummer at one time, and I had the moniker known as “the world’s tallest drummer” because I’m 6 feet 11, and so everywhere I would travel to perform, everybody would say, “We’ve never seen a drummer as tall as you.” I had the privilege of playing with nationally known bands such as The Drifters, The Platters. I played with The Marvelettes, the female group from Motown. So I had a pretty happy career as a professional drummer. All in all, I’m doing okay. My childhood. First of all, my father was in the Army for 25 years, so all of my childhood life I was a military brat. We traveled around a lot, but I lived a good portion of my childhood in Germany. My childhood was a good one for the most part because I had a very loving, hands-on, attentive father. I had a very good father. I liked being in my father being in the military, all the traveling around. When I look back on it, really prepared me for life in all of the challenges that it would bring upon me as I moved through life. I was a little Black kid, but, you know, I grew up around a variety of races of people. So, because of that and living in another country, I grew up to learn that people are just people. I didn’t grow up with any kind of racial issues. My father didn’t teach us any of that while we were growing up. I will tell you this: He certainly taught us to stand up for ourselves. He taught us, you know, “Hey, respect other people and have them respect you.” So, my father certainly didn’t raise any of his kids to be pushovers or to be walked on or walked over. But he raised this just to be decent people who, you know, make a positive contribution to society. So I grew up like that, and I’m still that same person to this day. But my father was a major, major influence on me because he really was a man who loved his kids. He took care of us very well, cared about all of us deeply, deeply, and he would do anything he could to help us, support us, and to stand by us. So my childhood, for the most part, was a good one, you know.

But it wasn’t one without its quirks.

When I was five years old and we were living in Germany at the time, my mother came up to me one time and she said, “Skipper,” because that’s what she called me then, and she still calls me that to this day. My mother said, “Skipper,” she said, “I got to talk to you about something a little bit important. We’re going to go see a man, and he’s a judge, and this man is going to ask you, you know, certain questions about your father, and whatever questions he asked you, you know, say yes to them. And, you know, are you happy here in this family? You know, how does Leston treat you?” (Because that’s my father’s name, Leston.) “You know, how does he treat you? And so forth. So a man is going to ask you some questions about that, you know, just answer the way I’m telling you to answer them.” And I said, “Well, okay.” I mean, I was five years old. I had no clue what was going on. So, sure enough, you know, we went to some building. I can remember going into a little small room, which now I’m pretty sure was the judge’s chambers. At the time, I didn’t know what it was, but we went back there, and sure enough, there was a judge there with the typical judge clothes on, and he did start asking me questions. “You know, how did I feel about being a part of this family?” “You know, what did I think about my dad?” It wasn’t that many questions, maybe four or five, I think, that I can recall, and I pretty much answered positive and affirmatively to all the questions. And so, you know, the judge said, “Well, okay, that’s it,” and we walked out of there and went home. I never gave it another thought. But what I found out was later on, when the whole issue came up of him not being my biological father, when I went to go talk to my mom about it, that’s when she brought that up. She says, “Skipper.” She said, “Remember when you was a little boy in Germany, and five years old, and you had to go talk to that judge?” And I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Well, that was the occasion that your father was officially adopting you.” And I said, “Oh, so that’s what that was about!” But at five years old, it didn’t mean anything to me. I just went in and answered the question, and we came out of there.

That’s right, Skip was actually adopted, and he didn’t know about it until he was in his thirties with kids of his own. But it took some discord in his father’s life for that information to come out.

My mother and father divorced. So, some years later, my father remarried, and unfortunately, you know, some years into the marriage, that relationship began to sour as well. Well. Sometime prior before that, my father had taken his then-wife down to Texas, because, you know, my father’s from Texas. And, you know, as his wife was visiting with some of the, you know, older relatives, the conversation just came up that I was not, you know, Leston’s biological son. When my father and her started having some issues in their marriage, as I was told, she threatened to call me and tell me personally that, you know, that Leston is not my father. As soon as she said that, my father called my mother and told her the situation, and he says, “You know what? You need to tell Skip what’s went on all this time. He needs to hear the story from you.” So my mother called me one day, and she was crying and trembling on the phone. And yes, I was 33 years old at this age, married, but she called me on the phone, and, you know, trembling, and I could, I could tell there was a lot of anxiety there. And she said, “Skip, I need you, I need you to come over here because I got something real important to talk to you about.” And I said, “Okay.” So, you know, I got in my car and drove across town and went to her house. And so when I walked into the house, she was shaking and trembling, and, you know, she was kind of crying and said, “I got something I need to tell you.” And I basically said, “Just go ahead and tell me.” I said, “You know, just you can relax and calm down.” “Whatever it is, just, just go ahead and tell me.” And she says, “Well,” she said, “You remember when you were five years old and you went before that judge, so on and so forth?” And I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Well, Leston is not your biological father.” She said, “That was part of the adoption process.” And I said, “Okay, so, you know what?” And she kind of looked at me like, “That’s it?” And I said, “He—what do you, what am I supposed to do, you know?” And she said—and I said, “First of all,” I said, “Mom, that doesn’t bother me.” I said, “It doesn’t bother me at all.” I said, “You know, I wouldn’t trade him for a father for any other man on this planet.” I said, “I’ve never felt like I was not a part of this family.” I’ve never felt like he was not my father. I said, “So, you know, you can relax, you know.” I said, “There’s, there’s nothing to be upset about.” I said, “I don’t see that to either of you get anything wrong.” And she says, “Well,” she said, “Skip, you know, we never meant to keep this from you.” She said, “But,” she says, “but you guys just got along so well and did everything.” She said, “It just never came up.” So I said, “I’m okay.” I said, “I’m not mad at anybody.” “I’m not upset.” And I said, “So, everybody can relax and calm down.” “It is what it is.” “Let’s keep moving.” There’s been absolutely no change, no altering whatsoever, none whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I think finding that out probably brought me even closer to my dad because after I found that out, I called him up and I said, “You know what, Dad, I love you even more.” I said, “Because, man, you took on a child that wasn’t yours and gave me a great life.” You know what he just said? He just said, “Well, Skip or I love you too.” And we didn’t have a very long conversation about it. It wasn’t very long at all. I mean, I think the conversation might have been two or three minutes, and it was over.

You know.

I grew up very, very secure knowing that my father was that kind of man. He just raised me to just be okay with who I am. And I’ve learned that that’s a very important position to know, because who in the world are you?

And what a beautiful story! A special thanks to Skip Reeves for telling it. Skip Reeves’ story, a beautiful adoption story, here on Our American Story.