However, we had to give up our usual visit from her this fall. She is about 60ish now and not in the best health although she is a real trooper. She has never had any family to speak of. In fact, the entire time we were growing up, we never met a brother or aunt or anyone. Her mom and younger brother had died when she was young (her brother died of polio and her mom died when she was 16) and she was estranged from her father. She had another older brother out there somewhere that she had lost track of over the years and had no idea how to go about finding him...so she never did.
We just accepted the fact that mom was alone in the world. My dad's family "adopted" her, so-to-speak, and they still consider her part of their family even though my mom and dad have been divorced for years.
Fast forward to last April. My mom was out visiting for Maelin's 2nd birthday and we had some friends over. Mom wanted me to show her Facebook and what it can do. So I pulled up my page and showed her pictures of all my friends and family on there and showed her how neat it was to be able to find all these people from the past that I had no idea how to find previously. She thought it was pretty cool. Then we asked her, "Mom, isn't there someone you'd like to find? Maybe someone from high school or from when you lived in Chicago?"
She was quiet for a few minutes and then said with a very hopeful smile, "I'd love to find my brother Mike. He's older than I am so I don't think he'd be on Spacebook or FaceSpace, or whatever, but let's try him." So she gave me his first and last name and viola! He popped right up!
I showed his profile picture to my mom. She was completely silent. I asked her if she thought that was him. She said she didn't know...it had been almost 40 years since she'd seen him so she wasn't sure. I told her I'd send him a "are you who we think you are?" note and just see. The worst that would happen would be he would ignore us, right? Oh, but my family is quite drama-filled. It wasn't that easy. Mom was worried that we had found him and he'd ignore us and then she'd lose her family all over again. She was very nervous when I wrote the note and hit the "send" button...
Turns out, we shouldn't have worried. It WAS my uncle Mike that we had found on Facebook that night and he answered my note quickly and seemed excited that we had found him. We had family we knew nothing about! We were all very excited and my brother, sister and I quickly "friended" him and started catching up with each other.
My mom and my uncle have been slowly getting to know each other again. 40 years is a lot of ground to cover especially when everyone is so busy. They email and talk on Skype and call but they really wanted to see each other. I wanted to meet him and his wife Linda too. I think family is one of the most important things in the world and I am so excited to find out we have more!
So last weekend, we made the jaunt out to meet our family. It was a bit surreal because here are in essence, total strangers but it wasn't like that at all. I felt immediately comfortable and at home with them. The "blood is thicker than water" adage is very true. My mom was so happy and excited to finally have some of her family back after being alone for so long and we all had a great time. We ate too much, drank a bit, watched some football and just got to know each other. It was a lovely weekend.
This is the reason my mom won't be coming out to visit us this fall. We'll see her for Christmas. However, instead of feeling a loss that she won't be able to play with Maelin in the leaves, I'm feeling more contented about my mom than I have in years. She finally has some family. That's worth so much more than any words could say.
Here are a few pics of my mom, my Aunt Linda, my Uncle Mike and I. We had such a nice time with them (and with their doggies!) and I can't wait to see them again soon.
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