A son and his mother share their story

By Joan Janzen

As Mother’s Day approaches, we all are reminded of the important role moms play in our lives. Since December of 2020, Kindersley resident, Doug Dale has been acknowledging the occasion due to the unique circumstances of meeting his birth mom for the first time.

Doug Dale and his biological mom Maxine. Photo (submitted by Doug Dale)

Doug always knew he was adopted because his adopted parents were always very open about it. “I had a wonderful upbringing,” he said. “I didn’t really want to search for my birth mom before my mom passed on. I didn’t want to upset her.” However after his mom’s passing, he was too busy working a lot of hours and didn’t have time to pursue a search.

It was during the Covid period in August of 2020, when Doug and his wife were watching television and saw an advertisement for a DNA search, and thought maybe they should try it. “It took about two months to get the results and I found a second cousin once removed who lives in Kelfield. It was a 4 percent DNA match,” he said.

Doug contacted his cousin, and with the help of the cousin’s daughter-in-law they discovered Doug’s maternal grandmother had 12 siblings. Through a process of elimination, the daughter-in-law found Doug’s birth mother within two days.

“I was driving home from Swift Current when my phone rang,” he said. It was his cousin who said she had his mom on the phone and wanted to do a three-way call. “I had to pull off on the side of the road because I knew I would be crying,” he confessed.

During that first phone conversation he recalled, “All she really said is that she didn’t give me up because she didn’t love me.” His mother explained two years before he had been born, she had a child who was raised by her parents. “When she was expecting me, her parent’s didn’t want to raise another child so she gave me up for adoption,” he explained. She was 19 years old, single and working at a print shop in Saskatoon at that time. He remembered it being a very emotional conversation.

His mother had also been searching for him, and her daughter had already obtained his name and location. However the land line number they found had been disconnected, so that ended the search.

“My dad was so grateful I had found her,” Doug said. “The first thing he said to me is, you must say thank you to her.”

That same week, Doug and his wife headed to Alberta where he got to say “thank you” in person to his 84-year-old mother Maxine. “It was wonderful! Fantastic! This was my roots,” Doug said.

Since then he phones her once a week and tries to visit every month.

“It’s been amazing. Every time we go up there she has another photo album to look at, to show me what her family was like. I show her a lot of photos and some home movies of me growing up,” he said.

They also share similar features. “We have the same shape face and the same eyes. And the same white hair,” he chuckled.

At the time of their meeting, Doug and his mom didn’t make their discovery public, except for sharing with close friends and family. But after three and a half years, they both felt comfortable sharing their story, and we hope they’ll share many Mother’s Days to come.