Of the various things that you, a man of 58 who was happily adopted in your youth, but who has discovered your birth father thanks to a 23andMe test taken by a total stranger, can ask in your first phone conversation with the man in question, “Are you Michael McDonald?” is probably one of the more surreal. Doubly so if the response is an immediate, “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
This is per a story from Kansas City’s KCTV-5, reporting on the unlikely tale of St. Louis man Michael Goessling, who was contacted after an unknown half-brother of his reached out after finding out about him from a genetic test. Goessling, who says he “had a wonderful childhood,” and “could not pick two finer folks to raise me,” admitted to curiosity about his biological parents, and so was put in contact with the man in question—only to learn that he was the famed Doobie Brothers vocalist.
McDonald and Goessling’s biological mother conceived him when they were both 14, and put him up for adoption when he was an infant. McDonald (who says he remains in close contact with the mother, who Goessling has also now met) said that “We always talked about him. And it always came down to our greatest fear was, how did life treat him?. I always carried that guilt with me. But just to know that he was okay and that he had a good life, and a life certainly that I wouldn’t have been able to afford him at that time, was a great reward. The real rock stars in this story are his adoptive parents.”
Goessling and McDonald recently met in person when the musician’s tour took him through St. Louis, embracing and expressing love for each other. McDonald, 74, also says he’s currently wrapping his head around the fact that he’s suddenly learned that he’s a grandfather.
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