family

[llcoolvad]

So I have a half-sister and a half-brother, neither of whom I've met. My Dad's first family. She's 8 years older than I, he's 4 years older than I. I've known about them and their lives for my entire life, but having complicated families with half-siblings wasn't as common back in the mid-60s, so Dad never tried to blend us together. They didn't even know about me until I was in my late 30s. I always used to joke to myself that we'd finally meet at Dad's funeral. But then he died, and Mom didn't want to have a big funeral, and instead it was me, Mom, my aunt, and Patrick, and no one else. So my big opportunity passed. And I didn't feel much either way about it. Sure, we share a parent, but we don't have any shared experiences.

Except now there's facebook. And Mom joined facebook a while ago to check out her landlord's kids pictures. And then she friended my half-sister because she wanted to keep track of Dad's grandson. I looked at her profile a few times, checked out my half-brother's profile a few times, saw what my niece and nephew looked like. And then recently my half-sister sent me a message in facebook, saying that facebook listed me as a possible friend and so she decided to take the opportunity to say hi. I didn't know what to say, really, so I friended her and told her let's try being facebook friends for a while. I mean, she's sort of a stranger, really. Or at least I am to her.

I'm thinking about these things because today marks 8 years since Dad died. I always wondered why he didn't make us into a family. He wasn't ashamed of me (I was illegitimate, after all), I know that, nor was he of them. I don't know if he thought his ex-wife would make things complicated, or if it was something to do with Mom, or societal pressures, or what. But I would like to ask him that. He was always weird about family, so it probably had nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do with him. He was an only child, and had only one cousin. So family wasn't that ingrained in him, I think. Still, he was always odd that way, and when you grow up with it you don't really think to question it. It's only when you get some distance do you start to question things. I haven't tried to friend my half-brother. Maybe I should. I don't know what I'd do with a half brother or sister. It's pretty foreign to me, only child of an only child. Maybe it's my chilly Swedish genes.

Anyway, I'm missing Dad today. And thinking about family.

Comments

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Even though you have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, you do navigate through the world as if your family consists of one person. Your communicating with Paula more often lately has helped expand on the idea that you're not all alone in the world, I think, and even though you haven't had any contact (beyond the small amount of Facebook contact) with your half-siblings, there's always the opportunity to get to know them. People search for "lost" siblings and parents all the time and have terrific relationships with them after they're found, despite sometimes not even knowing that these other people existed.

Family is a good thing, usually. I think there's little downside to getting to know your half-siblings, if they're interested in it.