Roses From a Brother

Roses From A Brother

This has been an interesting week. My mother had a half brother that she never met. My Grandfather remarried late in life and a child from that marriage was adopted by a new father when the child was very young. All connection was lost, including the child's last name. The first year I got on the Internet I started searching for this uncle...my mother's only sibling. My mother was nervous about finding him since her relationship with her father had been difficult so she didn't encourage me. That was in 1993. Since then, I've searched every few months through google and also sites where lost relatives try to find each other.

During my most recent search, I found something that made me stop dead in my tracks. A photo of my grandfather was posted on an ancestry site. Time stopped for a few shocked minutes because the only surviving people who would have access to a photo of him are my mother and her half brother. I knew I had finally found him. It took some more digging but within hours I was talking on the telephone to this phantom figure I'd been chasing for 16 years. And shortly after that, he and my Mother (his half sister) were talking to one another...two days before my Mother's 79th birthday. They have been emailing and talking non stop since. The roses in the picture were sent as a birthday tribute to my mother by her brother...symbolizing the family he has now found.

I'm not sure how to express it exactly, but there is something just a little sad in their connecting...now I have no one to search for.