What you wish for
While I was explaining this morning how I built my family tree from scratch, it occurred to me that I didn’t really build it so much as I found it in a forest. Most people have a general map of what part of the familial forest they inhabit or at the very least they know what kind of tree they are looking for.
My search started with nothing. If I am being honest with myself, that’s likely why I never embarked on a search for my natural parents before 2017. With sealed records and no clue where to start, it was exactly like finding one particular tree in vast woodland that covered the entire country.
The availability of DNA testing and the willingness of people to share their family stories is the only way I could possibly have found my tree. But, after a couple of years of passive activity and a few months of diligent searching, I am reasonably confident I am standing in the shadow of the exact tree that belongs to me.
This week I was fortunate enough to make contact with a half-sibling.
Our precise relation has yet to be proven with a DNA test, but shortly into an almost three hour conversation with the fellow I now believe is my newfound brother from another mother, he gave me what Occam's razor indicated was likely the intersection of paths of our shared father and my natural mother.
Without any prompting, he told me the time, place and opportunity of their meeting that fits with so much of what I had already found.
It seems our late father had a huge personality, full of flaws and virtues. The virtues included humor, intelligence and charm. The flaws, however, were deep and dark and make up part of a story that is, at least for now, not mine to tell.
This insight helps me understand why my natural mother would have been drawn to him and perhaps why she has yet to respond to my attempts to reach her.
Their relationship could not have ended well and at that end, there was me, a living reminder of just how badly it ended. I might want to forget it too, compartmentalize it into nothing more than a bad dream from long ago.
My sibling told me about himself, a man who overcame many obstacles to build his life on solid ground. He shared stories about the rest of our family, which like most family stories included heartache and loss and broken relationships.
It was so much information that it was almost overwhelming, like coming into a harsh, bright light after being in total darkness. After we ended our conversation, I kicked myself for not taking notes as a trained journalist does.
Yet I was surprised how much I retained. These people he described in such vivid detail felt so raw and so real and so close. They seem to fit into branches and into knots and into roots, forming the rings and the bark and even the twigs of a tree that belongs to me.
The Welsh have a term, hiraeth, which loosely translates to a longing or a homesickness for a place to which you cannot return or perhaps you have never really been. I get that now.
This search is everything I could have wished for and everything I never wished for. The warning about being careful of wishes resonates.
I don’t know exactly what’s next. I just know there is more to learn and I cannot stop shaking this tree.
