Blood thicker than wine
Viox meets biological half-brother for the first time
Farragut resident Candace Viox and her half-brother, Scott Dickens, embrace as he arrived at McGhee-Tyson Airport Friday evening, June 15, from Arizona. Viox was adopted at birth in California and only met her birth mother 18 years ago.
“I’m so nervous,” she said, watching the aisle and sitting with her hands in her lap Friday evening, June 15. “Does he look like me?”
Finally, she saw a sandy-haired young man walking down the aisle. Both of their faces brightened into a wide grin. She jumped up from the bench, they walked to each other and embraced.
“It’s very cool,” her half-brother, Scott Dickens, said.
Dickens, 31, who is in the financial brokerage business with Charles Schwab, is working toward a master’s degree in accounting. Living in Arizona, he is one of Viox’s three siblings, along with half-sister, Amanda, 38, and half-brother, Michael, 29.
Viox, owner of Water Into Wine Bistro & Lounge in Farragut, knew as a little girl she was adopted — but only learned about her siblings when she first met her birth mother, Brenda, 18 years ago.
After that meeting, Dickens said his mother told him about
Viox, but Viox said his father would not allow her to contact Scott or Michael.
But a couple months ago, Dickens texted his mother, “Does Candace have a Facebook by chance?”
“She said, ‘Oh my God, she does.” he said. After Brenda contacted Viox, he sent a message on Viox’s Facebook page, and the two had been conversing ever since.
“Adoption always was a part of my story,” Viox said. “My (adoptive) mom and dad (Emmit Boone the late Linda Boone) always told me I was adopted.”
“My (adoptive) mom would always say to me, ‘Of all the babies, I got to choose you. So, I was always raised with ‘God has a purpose. You are special, chosen. We are blessed to be able to raise you.’”
Viox said her adoptive parents’ loving support made her the strong, confident woman she is today.
“I didn’t grow up feeling rejected because I knew the whole story,” she added.
“She was a very young mother,” Viox said of her birth mother. “She didn’t have the resources to take care of me and she decided to give me to two very special people who could raise me and give me a better life. She made that decision at 14.”
Viox’s birth mother was 13 when she met a young man described as having thick, black curly hair and an olive complexion — a preacher’s son born and raised in Louisiana who was in the Navy.
“The way the story goes, her mom wanted her to have an abortion,” Viox said.
Abortion was not legal in Louisiana, where she was living with her father, so Brenda was sent to California.
But she went to a pregnancy crisis center, and met the woman who would later adopt Viox.
“My (adoptive) mom, the late Linda Boone, counseled her and encouraged her to keep me, and they agreed to take me when I was born,” Viox said.
“That’s why I always tell people, “God has a plan and a purpose for my life’ because she absolutely could have chosen death, and I would never have existed, but she chose life and I am very grateful to her for that,” she added.
Six months after Viox’s birth, the Boones immediately filed the petition to adopt.
Being raised an only child, Viox longed for a large family. But after her daughter, Alexis, was born, she learned she could not get pregnant again, so she reached out and fostered children.
“I’ve had 11 who I had fostered, and three I had adopted,” she said.
Eighteen years ago Viox decided to seek out her birth mother.
“There were some health (issues) starting to come to light, so I didn’t know if (they were) genetic or was something I did, and I didn’t have that check box (for family history) at the doctor’s office,” Viox said.
“I would always have to put ‘adopted’ in big letters across the top.”
With very little information to go on, she hired a Knoxville private investigator, who found Brenda within 48 hours.
“When the investigator brought me her number, I will never forget it,” she recalled. “I just called [the number], and she was working at a diner.
“I said, ‘this is Candace. I’m your daughter,” Viox said. “(Brenda) just bawled.
“She started screaming on the phone and crying, so excited,” telling Viox, “I never knew if you would call me. I have so much to tell you. I’m so sorry,’” she added. “And, I’m crying. She’s crying, and we’re having this moment on the phone.”
Hearing her birth mother’s voice for the first time, “It was overwhelming,” Viox recalled. “I just had so many questions, yet I didn’t know what to say. It was very intense. It was beautiful and emotional and exciting. It was all of it.
“Imagine you have a family member and then all of a sudden you want to ask everything,” she added.
“She wanted to know about my life, how my mom and dad treated me. I thanked her over and over for giving me life.
“I wasn’t mad at her,” Viox said. “I understood. I never, ever housed anger or resentment.”
The two wrote letters, as there was no Facebook yet. Then two months later, they met at a truck stop along Watt Road.
“That was the first time I ever saw her,” Viox said. “She met my husband at the time and my daughter.
“In my opinion, she didn’t look anything like me,” Viox said. “She’s 5-(foot)-8 (tall), blonde, straight hair, larger build.
“There was no instant ‘Oh, my God, that’s my mom.’ I was expecting some kind of rainbow, butterfly, instant connection … I just had a lot of really hard questions.”
About four years after giving up Viox, Brenda got pregnant with Amanda and kept her. “Then (Brenda) started making some really bad life choices with different men, drugs and alcohol and ended up losing custody of my sister,” Viox said. “My mother spent most of her life in women’s prison.”
According to Dickens, Amanda “wasn’t doing well in life.” She’s also been in jail, the result of making bad decisions.
A few years after losing custody of Amanda, Brenda met Dickens’ father and gave birth to him and Michael — but she lost custody of the boys to their father after “getting back into trouble,” Viox said.
When Viox phoned Scott’s father, he told her, “‘Brenda’s not allowed to have any contact with the boys. I’d appreciate if you just let me raise my boys and don’t be involved in their lives.’”
Viox respected his wishes and did not try to contact them again.
Dickens and his mother later reconciled and became closer, he said.
After the meeting at Watt Road, Brenda had contacted Viox a couple times by phone.
“The last time she had contacted me was for bail money, apologizing, she had messed up her life again, was back in jail,” Viox said. “I said, ‘No, Brenda. I’m sorry.’ That was probably 16 years ago.
“I hadn’t spoken to her until four weeks ago.”
Brenda Facebook-messaged her on Viox’s birthday in April, and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in so many years, but your brother, Scott, really wants to meet you. Would it be OK if I give him your name and information so he can contact you?”
“I said, ‘Absolutely. I would love to meet Scott,’” Viox said. “Within 10 minutes, I got a message from Scott.”
After that contact, they started an e-mail conversation.
However, the interaction between Viox and her brother was different than that of her birth mother and Viox, she said.
“I already feel a different, emotional connection than it was with my mom,” she added. “I empathized with him, especially with (me) being a foster parent. My heart goes to the kids.”
