:: Feature Story: Michael Curtis Scoville

Name:

In my words:
I will start at the day of abandonment, basically my mom left me in a park at 10 years old. She told me her and my sister were going to the store and they would be back. Well, they never came back, in fact I don't know if she EVER looked back. 3 women were in the park walking thier dog and it kept getting darker and they waited with me, my mom and sister never came back. They took me to the San Diego Police Dept. They asked me a bunch of questions that I did not know the answer to. A simple question like where do you live was hard with a mom like mine. We "stayed" with various people, gypsies to a degree.

Later that night I was admitted to the Hillcrest Recieving Home (now known as The Palinski Center) and went to about 8 foster homes from there. I moved out of my foster parents at 17 and started working. Since then I have gotten married to my wife Donna and we have two great kids, Mikey (8) and K elly (6). I have looked for my real mom and sister for the last 22 years and it has always come up a dead end. My wife and I looked since we have been married in 1996, and finally this last year in 2006, after 10 years we are finding family members and some answers.

This is the crazy part, my wife e-mailed Dr.Phil and they actually chose us to help. We were desperate and I think they knew it. Desperate and WILLING I should add. They hooked up with their FBI retiree, Harold Copus. I will be honest...he was very pessimistic, he said there was a 70% chance we would not find them. Well, long story short the first thing we found was a death certificate on my birth father , he was murdered. The second thing we found was a death certificate on my real sister. I have to stop right there and elaborate. My sister was ALL I wanted. I did not want my mom, she left me, but my beautiful sister, was worth surrendering my story on national television. I wasn't even looking for my dad, I always knew him to be dead, my mom told me as a child my dad died in Vietnam. This turned out to be another lie. He was murdered execution style and left in the desert of Wyoming to decompose for months.

So, the grand prize after all of this heartbreak is the most amazing to me to this day. My mom is alive and well in West Palm Beach, Florida. She has been sober for 18 years, married for 15 and so on. I did confront her and she still lies. She said I needed a man that's why she left me. She said she could only take care of one child. I have to say I have two children and I will never understand it. Another thing I don't understand is why I care, but I do. Sometimes I think she doesn't deserve to have me and grandchildren, but I am trying to come to forgiveness. Maybe I don't think she deserves it but I have learned it is true God has his own plan. This was not my plan.

My advice:
This is where I feel completely unqualified. I went into this saying I just want to know. I can handle the worst , I just want to know the truth. I meant those words when I said them, but I was not prepared to find my sister dead and my mom alive. I played it in my head a million times. In my head it had to be either they were both killed in a car and that why they never came back. Or....my mom was dead ( she always lived hard ) and my sister would be found. I NEVER thought my sister would be dead and my mom still alive. The only advice is run all of the options, even the unthinkable through your mind. One thing that helped me through this hard time was my support group, I am at a good place in my life, that helps. Anyway, trust your heart, and don't expect too much. That way you won't be dissapointed.