I’m pretty sure you’ve bought something from the man whose birth certificate reads Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen. No, really, you probably have. But I doubt you’ve heard of Ted Jorgensen, the teenager who fathered him.
Ted has a monster laugh that rocks his whole body. The customers at his bike shop love his prices and fabulous service. His current wife of 25 years says he has a deeply compassionate nature. But Ted had a deep secret that he’d never told to his four stepsons. His wife knew it, but they’d never told the kids. As Ted’s theory went, he would never hear or see anything about his son again, so what was the point? That was before a reporter walked into his bike shop late in 2012 and delivered the shocking news on where to find his son.
Ted was a senior in high school when he and his sophomore girlfriend Jackie crossed just over the border into Mexico to get married. Not that many months later, on January 12, 1964, their son Jeffrey was born and they brought him home to their apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jeffrey stayed with his grandma during the day while his mom finished high school.
But by Ted’s own admission, he was a pretty lousy dad. He drank away their meager income, stayed out late and did his own thing as a talented, but poorly paid, unicyclist. His new father-in-law tried to help. He paid for college, but Ted merely dabbled at it for a while before dropping out. His father-in-law tried again by lining up a job for him, but Ted wouldn’t follow through. That’s when Jackie left and went back home. When Jeffrey wasn’t quite one and a half, she filed for divorce.
The divorce settlement required Ted to pay $40 a month in child support. He did ... sometimes. The divorce settlement didn’t require him to visit his son. He did ... sometimes. A couple years later Jackie married a kind, hard-working Cuban immigrant named Mike. Ted signed over his parental rights, and Mike became Jeffrey’s adoptive father. Still drifting, drinking and aimless, Ted forgot his son’s new family name — one you may have heard dozens of times.
Jeffrey’s new father worked hard, siblings came along and the family moved to Houston. Their home was warm, competitive and the family bond was strong. For fun, the family, as adults, descended on Amelia Island’s Flash Foods for a commando-style raid. Jackie stayed at the wheel of their vehicle with the engine running while timing the attack. With walkie-talkies, the others, with code names such as Ffej Sozeb, stormed the store. One raced for the dairy cooler, another seized the coveted spot at the cash register while yet another kept the door open for the getaway. Hey, how else do you make an adventure out of buying a quart of milk for your morning cereal? So it’s not too hard to understand that Jeffrey said a few years ago that he only thinks of his birth father when he fills out medical forms.
Unforgettable Names
Meanwhile Ted had finally stopped drinking, bought a bike shop and became a loving father to four devoted stepsons. But the face of the young boy he’d fathered remained in his memory and kept surfacing. His wife Linda and he would talk over the subject from time to time. His wound had never healed. Then one day a reporter walked into his bike shop to give him Jeffrey’s new name, and his feelings gushed out.
Unlike Ted, God has never forgotten our names, been unaware of where we are or been indifferent to our needs. We’re the ones who’ve walked away from Him. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:22But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)). His longing to have us reconciled to Him is captured beautifully in this graphic figure: “How often would I have gathered [My] children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:3737O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! (Matthew 23:37)). Could His wishes be any more clear? Even if you’ve never been on a farm, you can feel in the image of the mother hen the tenderness of God’s desire to shelter, protect and be close to you. Is it true that you won’t let that happen?
Ted’s stepson Fala describes the family meeting Ted called to deliver “his news” this way: “My wife calls me unemotional because she has never seen me cry. Ted is the same way. Saturday was the most emotion I’ve ever seen out of him, as far as sadness and regret. It was overwhelming.” Ted asked Fala to help him get in touch with Jackie and Jeffrey. But so far it seems that Jeffrey has no interest. The clock is ticking. Ted Jorgensen has heart problems and emphysema. And the son he fathered ... it appears that Jeff Bezos (a.k.a. Ffej Sozeb), founder of Amazon.com and with a net worth of 34.9 billion dollars at this writing, has no interest in meeting Ted. He has a wife, Mackenzie, that he loves, a father, Mike, that he respects, a caring mother and no need for help with a mortgage on the house. The wound hasn’t closed yet.
I don’t know what will happen between Jeff Bezos and Ted Jorgensen, but I’m more interested in what will happen between you and God. Are you too satisfied with your current life to really care what He has to say? God says that He “is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). That’s what He wants. Are you willing to be reconciled?
In The Hawksbill Turtle, find what happens when asking, pleading and urging are stubbornly ignored.