I seldom heard from my father. We had never been close, but when he was 94 years old, he left me a brief voice message.“I have something important to tell you – something very personal and private,” he said.A feeling of dread swept over me. Was he ill? Had I done something wrong? We never shared anything that was “personal and private.” Even his suggestion to meet by Zoom surprised me. When did my father start using Zoom? I agreed to talk to him, and when I signed into Zoom, he was already there waiting for me. He appeared nervous and had difficulty directly looking at me. It took him a moment to get started. “When I was a medical student, I worked at a pioneering fertility clinic,” he said.  “On several occasions, I donated sperm. A year ago, I was contacted by a woman who thought I might be her father.”He took my stunned silence as an invitation to go on. “I know this is a shock, but it appears that I fathered over a dozen children through sperm donation.”“Oh my God,” I barely managed to reply.“Yes, they had been searching for me — well, not for me at that point, but for their father,” he said. “They found each other on one of the DNA websites, shared their stories, did some research, and narrowed it down to me.”My father was a highly renowned OBGYN and researcher. He was a brilliant man, capable of great charm and humour, who, even at the age of 94, remained astute and worldly. His children were thrilled to have discovered him, and he soon found himself the object of fascination of these newly acquainted offspring.My father revelled in these relationships, basking in the loving light they cast. He held Zoom meetings with them, corresponded with some over email, and met oth