I'm walking out of my apartment this morning and I'm halfway down the street when a woman comes up and stops me. As soon as she introduced herself I was ready to walk away. It was one of my half-sisters. I have three, along with two half brothers, and I had never met any of them until today. I've said I never wanted to meet the other half, I had no need to, and neither does my sister. After my father died a few months ago my brother (mentioned in the previous post) set out to track down our half-siblings, which I told him I would rather he not do but he did it anyway. He tracked down a sister (not the one I met today) and they had coffee once or twice before he called it off and since then he's been stuck in the fog (see previous post). As I've said before, I understand his wanting or needing to know about that side of his family since he never got a chance to know his mother and now he'll never know his father either. That's rough.
We stood there on the sidewalk for a few minutes and I really didn't wanna be there but I figured I should at least hear her out since she came all this way. And then I couldn't help but ask a few questions. The first thing I asked was whether or not they knew he had three more kids (for a grand total of eight). She said they did know. I wanted to ask if he ever mentioned us by name and she said she doesn't ever remember him doing so. Then she added that about five years ago she was at his house looking for something and she came across a box in a drawer with newspaper clippings and a couple of pictures of the three of us. She never mentioned them to anyone, including him, before now but felt the need to say she thinks he kept them because he was proud of us and maybe not sure how, or even if, he should come into our lives. I'm not sure I believe that but whatever. She knew him, I didn't.
Then, she dropped a bit of a bombshell that I'm not sure I should pass on to my brother. My father didn't know my brother and me even existed until 1992. The three of us went to take this DNA test to confirm paternity (to this day, I have no clue what it was for since he never did pay any kind of child support). But, according to my visitor, he did receive notice that three children had been tested and all three belonged to him. So it would seem that my brother's mom never told his father she was pregnant. (I'm not surprised he didn't know about me since no one did until the day I was born). But since she's long since passed away, there's no way to know for sure. My mom might know but I don't know that I even want to get into all this.
You know how people hire other people to find their lost relatives and then they meet the relatives and feel immediate connection or something?? I didn't feel any of that. I don't feel any different than I did before I met her, which is not something I expected. Yeah, I was surprised by a lot of what she had to say, including the fact that both his widow and his mother (who is in failing health) want to meet us. But once she left I continued walking to work and by the time I got there I was pretty much set in my belief that meeting them would not help anything in my life. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to these people. Maybe my brother would be helped by getting to know them. Maybe. I don't know...maybe I should think on it some more, even though I'm 99% sure how I feel.
On the baby front things just got a lot more complicated. My sister-in-law and I spent two hours at the hospital yesterday and she was discharged with strict instructions to stay on bed rest until her December 28th due date. Yeah. So, I don't know how this is gonna work because even with all the people in our household there's no one to stay home and be on call in case she needs anything. But someone has to. I mean, do we hire a nanny or something to take care of her? Her brother works with me and I offered him paid time off (PAID!) to stay with her until we find something else and he turned me down. He said he would but then he'd have to kill her (she is awfully hormonal) and that would defeat the purpose. We'll figure it out somehow...
