From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of storytellers and independent radio producers.

We feature stories that run the gamut from the sophisticated to the profane and today a little

bit of each.

Two stories about families that have been separated and the moment they try to come

together, beginning with a story about a guy returning home with a mission.

I was assaulting his dream, you know, saying everything he was excited about that he was sharing with me was

Misbagotten was a bad idea was morally corrupt, but all he had to do was admit I was right and then we'd be okay.

Then later on mother and sons separated by adoption both set out to find each other.

But first, David Ellis Dickerson is an artist and a storyteller. You've heard his work on

this American life and other places. On YouTube you can find him creating

extremely specific greeting cards which he calls greeting card emergencies.

But today on this show, he's going to tell us about his mission of mercy to save his family

from themselves.

When I was 28 years old, I came back home for the first time in six years, fully aware that I was the black sheep.

I had rejected the faith, I had rejected Tucson, Arizona, I was the only one in the family who wasn't married.

And I was sitting with my dad in a booth at a diner, and it should have been just this kind of innocent thing

where we're just I'm visiting you know after six years and it's nice to catch up but it

wasn't like that we were facing each other we both had as it happens cowboy hats and cowboy boots and I remember thinking this is a

showdown because my dad and I were at war. My dad didn't know this. I was at war with him. I was at war with all Christians.

And I was just waiting for my excuse to fire a shot.

I've been raised an evangelical Christian, you know, conservative Bible believer Christian and I loved it so much that I said I'm going to be a

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