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As an adopted person; once an Air Force dependent, I write about loss, separation, impermanence, and adoptees' rights to truthful identity and natural heritage.

Not Forgotten

A Collage About My Adoptive Father

Mary Ellen Gambutti (Mel)

Jun 18, 2022

Just as Mother's Day may not be a cause for adoptees to celebrate, Father's Day can stir up a memory soup of mixed feelings: sad reflections, and joyful memories. This is a memory collage of place and time.

Al Caffrey, the only father I knew, had been an Army-Air Force camera tech in India, during WWII. During the Korean War, he was recalled to the Air Force and was assigned duties as an Assistant Photo Officer in a photo squadron. In 1951, his squadron was transferred to Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, South Carolina. His wife, Agnes, left her Brooklyn Public Health Nursing job and joined him. He was thirty-one; she was thirty. Al was unable to have "a child of his own," so they decided on adoption at the urging of their priest. They "chose" me--without knowledge of my biological parentage--"out of the goodness of their hearts," their priest might have said.

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