The First Visit

Well, it has been a couple of days since I posted anything.  We are leaving on Friday to visit the “new” family and I have been getting stuff together for that trip.  I also have a new nephew arriving sometime today (hopefully) via my wife’s sister who is at the hospital and may even be in labor as I write this (though by the time I manage to post it I expect he will have made his entrance). So, it has been a busy week and I haven’t found the time to rant, uh I mean write.

As this second visit approaches I think it is probably time to talk about the first one.  It was pretty short, not nearly enough for something I had been waiting a lifetime for (even if I didn’t know I was waiting for it for most of that lifetime, I still was).  I left for the airport from work, underestimating the amount of time I’d need by a little bit because I didn’t take into account the fact that I would have to park in the “nose bleed” parking and take a shuttle to the terminal.  I’ve traveled a lot, fairly regularly by plane, but I don’t think I’ve ever flown anywhere alone before.  Every trip I can remember doing alone in the past I drove. Anyway, the wait for the shuttle and then a long line to check my bag conspired to make me later than I planned.  Luckily my flight was slightly delayed (yes, that is some unusual luck, but in this case the delay was lucky) and I ended up with about the same amount of time to spare as I originally planned. 

The flight was uneventful, and it was non-stop so no layover to drag out the anticipation.  My sister picked me up at the airport.  I was very excited to finally meet her after months of exchanging emails and text messages.  I spent a couple of minutes wondering around in front of the airport trying not to be creepy looking in peoples’ cars trying to find her.  It is amazing how many cars there are of the same make and model when you are looking for a specific one.  I did find the right one eventually. 

I can’t adequately describe what it was like to hug my sister for the first time so I won’t try.  Needless to say it was great.  I dropped my bag in the trunk and off we went.  I was rather amused when I got in the car and it was a manual.  I thought I was one of the last souls on earth committed to the manual transmission (most of the vehicles I have owned over the course of my life have been “row your own”), but apparently there are a few others out there.  I was staying with mom and dad, but we made a detour to my sister’s house so I could meet her husband and the one of her three children that was still awake when I arrived. 

At this point I have to break the story for an amusing anecdote: Apparently my mom, not knowing who or where I was, was worried for some years that one of my sisters might bring me home as a boyfriend.  This sort of thing is not outside the realm of possibility, it is actually not unusual for siblings who don’t grow up together and are unaware they are related to be attracted to each other.  Given the fact that for about ten years we lived in relatively close proximity it was at least in theory possible.  What makes this amusing is that the younger of my two sisters (the one who got me at the airport) married a man who is my age; I’m only four months older than he is.  The older of my two sisters is the same age as my wife; my wife is only four months older than my sister.  So, the ages in both directions match.  Thankfully the people did not.

So after meeting my brother in law and niece it was off to see my mom (dad being already in bed).  Mom and I are both kind of night owls; it is nice to know where I get it.  I’m really bad at going to bed, even when I have to be up early.  When I have to be up early I tend to miss out on sleep rather than miss out on staying up.  So, we sat up and talked.  My sister begged off, something about having to work in the morning.  One would almost think she had a family to support or something.

The next day I met everyone else, starting in the morning with my other sister.  She is also fantastic.  She is very different from our younger sister, yet I seem to have a fair amount in common with both of them.  It was surreal.  This is the morning when the “shag carpet incident” I have described before took place.  She originally turned up without her children since they were in school, but she eventually left to get them and brought them over, so I got to meet my niece and nephew also.  As expected, they are great kids.  I was expecting to like her, I wasn’t expecting to feel the connection I did to her right away, but it was there.  Having no frame of reference I probably shouldn’t have gone into the weekend with any expectations at all, but I’m not sure that would have been possible. 

Next up was my youngest brother.  We are eighteen years apart, he was born a week after I turned 18, just a few months before I graduated from high school.  So, I didn’t really know what to expect.  I shouldn’t have worried.  He reminds me a little bit of me at that age, more driven than I was, but I see the resemblance.  He has a great sense of humor, or at least what I consider a great sense of humor, which probably means the poor guy has to explain it to a large percentage of the population much as I have been doing all of my life.

Finally I met the older of my brothers, who is still 15 years younger than me but doesn’t seem that way.   I suspect, though I have no personal experience, that going to war will do that to you.  He is definitely the hardest to read.  Even so, I see some things we have in common, not the least of which is being terrible at keeping up communications with people.  I was a little shocked when I saw him because every picture I saw of him he was clean shaven and when I met him he had a pretty full beard.  The beard does work for him though, I approve and so did my oldest son when he saw the picture.  Some guys can do beards, like my brother.  Others, like me, cannot.  Well, to be fair I have never had a beard, but I don’t think I can pull it off.  I tried to grow one once, but after five days it was annoying me so much I shaved.  I have to hand it to my brother though, he makes the beard work and he is no hipster.  I’m looking forward to getting to know him better.  I get the impression there is a lot to know.

That Friday night was the first time in my life I was in the presence of so many people I was related to.  Really related to, not “related to” because a court somewhere said we were related or because the state falsified my birth certificate. There was a moment, not too long after my younger sister arrived with all her children and husband, when I looked around and realized I was in the presence of three generations of real, authentic family for the first time in my life.  People I not only shared DNA with, but physical features, personality traits, a common sense of humor (everyone has it to one extent or another, I never had to explain a joke the whole weekend), and a bond.  In that moment I finally knew what had always been missing from my life, a sense of belonging.  I always felt uncomfortable at “family” gatherings in the past.  I felt like a third wheel, a square peg, whatever cliché one wants to use.  I never knew what was missing because I had never before had this experience.  I had no frame of reference upon which to evaluate my feelings of discomfort. It took me 43 years to find out why it always felt wrong before.  It felt that way because I never felt like I belonged with the people I was with.  I had to meet the people I did belong with before I could understand that was the problem.

Much of the rest of the weekend really is a blur.  I was on a natural high of belonging for the first time in my life.  I had a great time and really enjoyed everyone’s company.  I feel like I made a reasonably good impression, but being the person I am there are always lingering doubts.  Too many years feeling disconnected, out of place, and unimportant to ever really believe people would want to spend time with me. 

When I left on Monday afternoon I felt like I was leaving home rather than returning to it.  For at least the rest of the week, and it may well have been longer, I was extremely down and difficult to be around.  The crash from the natural high was not easy.  Three and a half days was not enough time after 43 years in the wilderness.  To be fair I’m not sure there will ever be enough time, but every day I miss with them now seems wasted after so many missed already. 

This is where it becomes difficult to explain and to understand.  Anyone who is the product of a closed adoption doesn’t need to have it explained to them, they understand already if they have considered their circumstances seriously. At best, an adopted person has their children to see themselves in.  If they have no children then they have no one.  Even if they have children, until those children are born, they have no one in which they can see themselves, see traits they share, see where they came from or (in the case of children) are headed.  That may not seem important, but it is when it isn’t there. 

I have no doubt that my appearance in my siblings’ lives is a big deal to them.  They have certainly made me feel welcome and as if I had always been part of the family.  They cannot share my experience as a whole simply because their circumstances were different.  I don’t fault them for that, I don’t fault anyone; it simply is.  Some things did change for them, they are now 5 instead of 4, my oldest sister is no longer the oldest child, they all have a terribly long winded brother to get to know, and the list goes on.  I don’t mean to minimize their experience.  It is just a different experience than mine.  I went from having only two people one the planet so far as I knew who shared my DNA, and they were my children, to having 12 in the blink of an eye.  I went from being an only child with no experience of being anyone’s brother to being the oldest of five.  I went from having no nieces or nephews on my side of the family to having four and one respectively.  Most importantly I went from feeling as if I had nowhere I belong to knowing exactly where I belong.  This experience has completely changed my life.  That change has been almost universally for the better, what little bit has not be is caused primarily by the distance I am away and it would mostly be solved by being closer.  My other issues were not caused by this discovery; they were simply brought to my attention by it.  At least knowing about them I can work on dealing with them.

So, it is time to bring this to an end. There is more packing to do, and as I suspected my newest nephew has arrived before I even finished writing this, let alone gotten around to posting it.  One more work day, then one long drive, and I’ll be back home where I belong, for a little while at least.