findingphilblog

Throughout this journey, a single primary source document remained shrouded in secrecy: Phil’s adoption file.

The idea of searching for it ebbed and flowed. I’d been told it would likely contain nothing — if it existed at all. More than 100 years have passed since Phil, Joe and Mary entered Allegheny County’s care. Warehouses flood. Paper folders get mislaid. Don’t get my hopes up, I was told. The “file” could hold no more than a single paper with his name on it.

I know better, by now, than to trust supposition. And, honestly, the folks at the Office of Children, Youth and Family and the Clerk of the Orphan’s Court could not have been more helpful.

This spring, I decided to cross the legal Rubicon. No matter what was inside, be it reams of paperwork or a single card, it would be an answer.  

Technically, my dad had to make the request. As Phil’s living son, he has standing before the court. So, together, we wrote the letters, collected the documents (including a certified copy of Phil’s death record) and sent them off to Pittsburgh. 

In mid-September, the Clerk of the Orphan’s Court presented our plea. Judge Lawrence O’Toole affirmed Dad’s standing and appointed Children, Youth and Families to act as our search agent.

What, if anything, would they find?

The answer came today: nothing less than the final pieces confirming the shape of this decade-long jigsaw puzzle.

The timeline is accurate. Assumptions were proven out by the legal paper trail and augmented by the amazing Christmas letters and the diligence of the city’s journalistic community.

The half-remembered boogyman, woven ominously through time as The Uncle in Ohio has a name. Ottavio Brescia. So do his two accomplices. Mike Natale. Pasquale Brescia.

There were only a handful of documents in Phil’s file, but they were good: The adoption decree and the Brenckles’ petition to adopt the boys. Law (still!) seals the file and prevents direct photocopying. However, our search agent was kind enough to hand-copy it all and provide a summary.

The final sentence punches me in the gut. 

 Oh, people “looked after” them. Just not well. Not with love. Their relatives watched as three beautiful children, who’d lost the two most important people in their lives, starved, sickened and almost died. These men saw dollar sign-printed punching bags. 

To be sure, there are sacks of waste wrapped in skin who do that, and worse, to children living on our street, going to school with our kids, standing in line next to you at the gas pump today.

This journey with my grandfather gifted me invaluable lessons. Chief among them is the urgent need to protect all children and improve the nation’s foster care and adoption system which, in many communities, fails badly and often. 

In terms of sleuthing, this is the end of the road. The mystery I carried from childhood through middle age has been solved. The names have not been changed, here anyway, to protect the guilty or the innocent. 

Here’s another thing I’ve learned, thanks to my writer’s critique group and a raft of writing manuals. The truth may be stranger than fiction, but it won’t always make a great novel. 

So, that’s the next horizon. The mystery is replaced by this riddle: How to write this incredibly personal story well enough so others believe its value? So much so that, in turn, will help the rest of the world see and love this long-ago, almost-lost little boy. 

Music, again, fills my soul with hope. In the movie Coco, little Miguel journeys to the Land of the Dead, hoping to solve a mystery mirroring my own: what happened to his great-grandfather?  

The final scene makes me weep. Mystery solved, Miguel’s living family celebrates All Souls Day. Spirits from generations past, beckoned by a photo-laden ofrenda (altar), visit the courtyard. 

Miguel bursts into song:

“Last night, it seemed, that I dreamed about you/ When I opened my mouth/what came out was a song/and you knew every word/and we all sang along/ to the melody played on the strings of our souls/And a rhythm that rattles us down to our bones/Our love for each other/will live on forever/in every beat of my proud corazon.” 

The lessons here, and there, are clear. Memory is powerful. Love can be almost magic, extending protection through generations. You are never too young, or old, to learn something new or reexamine your understanding of the past. 

Onward.