Family Found...a story of life, loss and love.

I grew up knowing that I had a father somewhere in Kansas and that we just were not going to have a relationship. This was neither my wish nor my intention. It was made so by the adults in my life. I was allowed to spend time during the summer with my paternal grandmother, whom I looked up to and adored. I still adore her to this day even though she has long since passed into the spirit world. My grandmother and I had and still have a connection that goes deep into the soul. She is the voice in my ear when I need encouragement, she is the old woman in my dreams giving advice and she is the tough, wise Cherokee woman who gives me a push when I need it. She was my father's mother and she is the reason I decided to contact my Dad. We had seen each other once in my life,my dad and I, when I was around 20, at my grandmother's funeral. Not a great place to meet 'that man' for the first time. I was devastated and I was postpartum and divorcing my son's father...so there could not have been a worse time for a first meeting. Let's just say that it did not go well. He was a stranger to me...and so he remained for another 5 years. The next 'meeting' we had was over the telephone. My new husband, myself and my son had just moved to St. Louis and were expecting our first child as a newly married couple. I was homesick and not in a great frame of mind. My ex husband was signing off his parental rights to our son so that my new husband could adopt him. Such an unexpected blessing for us all, except my 4 1/2 year old didn't understand 'why his dad didn't love him anymore'...when my father's wife contacted me, I had no idea what a few conversations would lead to, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, I still wasn't ready. It was to much to fast. Their excitement scared the shit out of me and I couldn't deal. So I bailed instead. Fast forward 19 years. I mean, I could give you 19 years worth of BS...or I could simply say a lot of shit happened. We got therapy and got healthy and here we are.... My grandmother had been creeping(loudly)back into my dreams, I knew it meant that it was time to do something about this missing piece. Little did I know what a huge piece of me it would turn out to be..and how much heartache and jealousy it would bring into my world. By the way, that heartache and jealousy isn't mine. okay, maybe some of the heartache. Here's what happened. I looked up my father's wife, she was searchable, my father wasn't so much. As this story takes shape I'm sure you will be as surprised by a few things as I was. First of all, I had seen my step mom on Facebook several months earlier via one of my Mother's cousins, but when I clicked on her profile, there was no way for me to contact her. No message button, no friends list, nothing. SO I let it go. THis time around, I decided to Google her and I found her on Linked IN...so I went to my account and looked her up and found where she worked, got the phone number, summoned my Grandmother for courage...and made the call. When she answered the phone, my heart started to pound and it instantly occurred to me, 'What if he's dead, or sick, or just isn't interested??!' To late to go back...my step mom paused after I told her who I was, excused herself, and began to cry. I asked her if she thought that he would be interested in speaking to me, and she said without a doubt he would. She also thought that it would help his heart since my brother Scott had taken his own life in 2001. Wait!!! What?! Now, I knew that I had a brother. Deep in the recesses of my memory bank lived a few precious stories from my Grandmother about my little brother Scotty. These stories were told to me when I must have been between the ages of 3-12...but I scarcely remember any of them. I think I knew that there was more children, but the way it was presented to me as a child was that my 'father was a son of a bitch with kids all over Kansas'. I guess I just thought that I wasn't allowed to have a relationship with any of them. What I did not know, was that there were two boys. Scott, 3 years younger than me and David, 6 years younger. When my step mom said that my brother David hadn't been the same since Scott died, I just about lost it. I had 2 brothers?! 2? One that I would never get to know and one that I had no idea was about to rock my world! The next question I had was,'Does David know about me?'. There wasn't really a clear answer to that, and after I introduced myself to him, it was clear that No, he did not, in fact, know about me. He had asked once, upon hearing a rumor of a girl somewhere out there, but no...he wasn't told about me. Okay, I am jumping ahead in my story. Back to my Dad. I waited to call him until I was at home that evening. I didn't need to have an emotional break down at work. I had no idea what I was in for, and I was honest with my step mother about that fact. I didn't know. Part of me felt selfish because I really missed the connection I had had with my Grandmother and I didn't want to come back into my father's life and then dip out, again. That wouldn't have been fair to him. I couldn't wait to get home and make the phone call. It went like this: ring ring ring.... Dad: Hello? Me: Hi Dad! Dad: Well, Hi there Honey. How are you doing? Me: I'm doing great, how are you? and then blahblahblahblahblah.....etc........and so on and so forth. It was just that easy. I went in with zero expectations,zero grudges, zero anger...just a lot of questions, tolerance, love and understanding (therapy is an amazing thing!). If only the world could be so kind. HAfuckingHA! My father and I spoke for sometime, and it was if there was never a loss of time. Sure, there was and still is a ton of information to share and a lifetime of hugs and kisses to give and receive...but the connection between a father and his daughter is strong and natural and easy. Let's remember that I have not said that my father is perfect, nor am I. We are just two people from the same tribe who already know each other because we share blood. He says it's easy because of me. Because I came to him with all my shit already worked out, maybe so. I say we came to each other when the time was right for us all. It's been 40 days that my father has been in my life. We speak almost every day. The connection gets stronger and stronger with each conversation. I feel blessed to have this man in my life. I don't know his whole history, nor do I need to. We are here today and for that I am thankful. Stay tuned....my next blog will be about my sweet baby brother. Talk about getting more than I bargained for! I never knew a soul mate could apply to a sibling, but apparently it can. When there are siblings that have been with you since the beginning and a new one comes along, it can present some issues in the family dynamics. Some of those dynamics are still being worked out...so hang on, it may be a bumpy ride.