I have been watching a BBC programme (English spelling!) called “Long Lost Family”, and I have been crying alot, watching all the stories about people finding long lost family members; sisters, brothers, children, and parents.

Right now I am feeling super sad about it all, about my dad’s choice to hide his first children, the twins, from everyone except his immediate family, who also chose to hide them. It just feels sad and weird, compounded by how far away we are from our entire family, and that they are probably the reason for that. The information does fill a hole, but maybe the hole is a little bit deeper than I had thought.

I don’t know what to think about this all, today. Sometimes I am so happy about it. I wish so much we could take a train and meet each other and walk around or get dinner or a beer or something. I somehow want to see how tall they are, especially since we match each other in heights – Mark and I at 6 feet and Pat and Carew at 6 foot 4. 14 years and a world apart – and yet, sort of together finally.

I think that lately I have been so mad at a dead person, and also so sad for him and wanting to hug him all at the same time, just to tell him that he didn’t need to do this. I wonder how a parent couldn’t want to see their children and know who they become. The Universe gave me a great gift when I was 34 when I got River as a son after so many years of fraught feelings around having children and being in relationships in general. Cody is my favorite person and I am so lucky to be able to love him and have him in my life, and River is a major bonus, as is his family. I just don’t understand why you would give that up? I am sure that some part of my Dad decided with Carew and I that he wouldn’t give us up, despite being really challenged in the parenting and adulting department.

I don’t know what else to say. It has been grey and rainy here for a couple of days, but I know that spring is around the corner. This winter has been long and full of so much, so many learnings and questions, curiosities. I just can’t get my head around it, this human condition. Sometimes people make these crazy decisions, and what is so crazy is that, in those moments, those are the best decisions of each of these people. They are doing their best, even if their best seems, to us, later, as unnecessary, bad, or hurtful. Blah! I don’t know what to say.

I will say that I am thankful that I have brothers and that knowing them completes a hole in my life that had been there for so long. I didn’t know what or who they were, but I knew that they existed, maybe for my whole life. What a world!