I was born a scrawny, pale, yet unconventionally handsome bastard, the product of an illicit but no doubt passionate tryst in some rented pad in south Chicago.

The only thing I know for sure about my biological parents is that they were promiscuous, and both carried at least the recessive gene for blue eyes.

My father's listed on my birth certificate as "Unknown."  When I check my phone and see that Unknown's called, I always wonder, is that Daddy trying to call me?  Other than that, I've no thoughts about the sperm donor who begat me.

My mother was a single, thirty-year old woman from Kentucky.  Her, I think about.

Abortion has always been available in some form or another.  People since the beginning of time have been pumping concoctions, potions, surgical instruments, and improvised tools into the birth canal, all to create fetal demise and miscarriage.

Although 1953 sounds prehistoric, my then-pregnant birth mother would have had some options, especially if Unknown was helping finance things, and especially in such a mob-ridden, pay-to-play town.  But she chose to take the hardest way out possible.  She chose to have me and then give me up for adoption.

Take the absolute beating and major risks involved in giving birth, then say goodbye to your newborn son forever.  That's tough, double-tough.

But my birth mother did it, and I've had a good life, much better than I deserve.  I attribute much of it to good luck — like the good luck of not being aborted all those years ago, thanks to a double-tough woman from Kentucky.

Thanks, Mom.

Image: D. Garding via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.