Anger, grief, joy: How one woman turned a family lie into a life full of love

Marie and her biological father, Willis, meet for the first time in August 2019. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Leask)

What started as a lie ended in lots of love for 48-year-old Marie Leask after finding answers to a decades-long journey of ancestral research.

The New Brunswick resident, who is mixed in ethnicity, found out she was adopted in her early teens. Her British parents, who she lived with in the U.K., gave her non-identifying information about her birth mother and a few relatives in Halifax, N.S., and with that, she set out for more.

Leask said her mother gave her up for adoption because she felt she could not raise her due to her mixed ethnicity. Leask found out her mother was white Nova Scotian with traces of Irish, and her father was Black Nova Scotian.

With hopes to get information on her biological mother, Leask sent out a letter to Halifax's children's aid. A week later, they sent a letter stating that they had found her mom.

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"I didn't have any time to breathe in between. [My adoptive parents] had encouraged me in the first place to send the letter, they were totally in support of it," Leask told CTVNews.ca in an interview Thursday.

Marie Leask sits on her adoptive mother's lap for her first Christmas with her adoptive family. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Leask)

"It really was lovely, to start," Leask said, recalling that she and her mother, and some cousins, reconnected over phone calls and letters.

In October 1998, Leask met her mother at a train station in the U.K., greeting her with two flower bouquets folded in with nerves and excitement.

To her surprise, her mother gave Leask her birth father's name but didn't say good things about him, Leask said.

"It was a very trying time. She was a stranger to me. We had nothing in common," Leask admitted.

But Leask wanted to give their relationship a second chance and was eager to go to Canada, so she moved in April 1999.

Not long after, Leask said her relationship with her mom was over after an argument ensued between her mother and her mother's boyfriend at the time about Leask. "I was overwhelmed," Leask said.

Searching for answers

Staying in Halifax, Leask connected with an aunt and uncle on her mom's side, who told her more about her father, Raymond Jackson, a former boxer in Nova Scotia. With their help, she found a phone number.

Leask said Raymond didn't have much recollection when she revealed herself as his daughter, but three days later, she went to visit him in New Brunswick, where he was residing.

"It was amazing. I got out the car, and we actually look quite alike. This is the first person that I've met in my whole life who's Black and looked similar to me. I was raised in a white family in England," Leask raved.

"We had so much in common. It was a totally different relationship than that of my mother. We had the same personalities," Leask added.

Soon after, Leask said she drove to Hamilton, Ont., to meet her newly discovered older brother, who accepted her with open arms.

Leask said Raymond and her were good friends for years before losing touch.

It wasn't until 2019 that they reconnected eight to nine years later as Leask went on a scour to learn more about her history.

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It was on Ancestry.ca that Leask put together family trees while she awaited results from a DNA test she did for Raymond after he expressed curiosity about who his father was.

She discovered another tree with Jackson names and emailed the man, Charles Jackson, who created it. They talked over email for a few months, Leask said.

When the results came in, Leask said her highest match was Charles. A phone call in Champlain Mall's parking lot led to Leask and Charles sifting through how they could be related. Charles decided to call his father, Willis, who agreed to do a DNA test.  

A surprising discovery

In mid-September 2019, the results came in: Willis was Leask's biological father — a second cousin to Raymond.

Leask found out Raymond and Willis were raised together in New Glasgow, N.S., on a hill where eight Black families commonly resided. "I think Raymond and Willis' grandparents were siblings," Leask said.

"I cried so hard. I just couldn't understand. Why did she lie?" Leask questioned at the time.

On a bittersweet wave, Leask said she was excited, now discovering she had two brothers and a sister who lived in Toronto.

Marie with her new-found siblings meet for the first time in November 2019. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Leask)

In a mixture of anger at her mother, devastation having to break Raymond the news, and losing her sister in the U.K. a couple of years before, Leask said, "It was just so many emotions. It was a tough October."

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"You're still my birth dad. We're still going to see each other," Leask said she told Raymond in an hour-and-a-half emotional conversation.

Leask went to see Willis that weekend in Halifax for the first time with her cousin Karen from her birth mom's side. The following weekend, she went again with Raymond.

Raymond, left, Marie, centre, and Willis, right, can be seen in this image. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Leask)

A family reunion

Extra seats were pulled out for Raymond and Willis at Thanksgiving that year. Soon after, Leask said she flew to the U.K. to fill in her adoptive family. On the trip back, Leask said she met all her family in Toronto. "My big sister had a big party for me at her house, all my brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, and half-sisters — everybody was there," Leask said.

Now, milestones mean bigger celebrations. Leask recounts her wedding in Vegas earlier this year. "My wedding day was the first day in 48 years that I've ever had all three sides of my family together," she said. "They adore each other," she added.

Marie meets her family for the first time. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Leask)

Leask said one of her sons lives with her brother in Toronto now. "He's getting to know the whole family and all his cousins."

"I just have such a loving family on both sides, I'm just accepted, and [there's] so much love."

As for her birth mom, Leask said the only time she sees her is at the funerals of Leask's uncles and aunts when she travels to Halifax. "We don't speak. I don't say anything," Leask said.

"All the lies that I was given, and told, mean absolutely nothing to the life that I have. I would take those lies again, over and over again to have this beautiful life with these wonderful people," Leask said.