Love Thursday: Brother from another mother

For reasons that aren’t mine to share here, and that aren’t necessarily my business, and that I don’t even completely know anyway, I have three half-siblings that I never knew. My dad and their mother divorced when they were very young, well before I was born. Although my dad supported them financially, he was never part of their life.

I’ve always known this—I don’t remember when I first learned it—but it was rarely discussed. So of course I asked myself What are they like? and Do they wonder about me? and Will we ever meet? It was baffling because I believed then, and still do, that my dad was an excellent father. How could he have agreed to something like this? What kind of circumstances led to such an awful result? I’ve never wanted to ask for an explanation—never want to make him face those days again, or to feel like I was questioning his love for me or them.

The youngest of the three, my brother C., stayed close to my grandmother and uncle. A few years ago he contacted my father. He was going through a divorce and looking, I guess, for support and advice as he went through the same trauma that had torn his own family apart when he was only a baby. They gingerly began reconstructing a relationship, first via e-mail, then phone calls, and finally a real visit. My dad met the son he hadn’t seen for 40 years and the four grandchildren he’d never known.

Then this summer, a series of lucky coincidences separately brought my brother, sister, and me (my full siblings, the ones I’ve been stuck with all along) to the Western town where C. now lives. We each had the chance to finally meet him.

We loved him. We loved his girlfriend. We loved his kids. Once, twice, three times, they welcomed us—in my case, my whole family, plus an additional family of four!—with easy, effortless hospitality and affection. The kids called my brother “the brother from another mother” of the title. They called my sister “Half-Aunt Susan.” (Unfortunately, that’s where their creativity ended and I didn’t get a cool name.) C. is fun, smart, successful, and clearly a great dad. His girlfriend, S., has developed an amazing relationship with C.’s children. The kids, who range in age from barely 6 to 15, are universally good-natured, clever, and well behaved. Which I honestly find incredible in a group that includes two teenagers, not to mention the difficult divorce they’ve been dealing with, if you’ll excuse my grammar.

So I love my new big brother. I’m sad that I won’t see him and my nieces and nephews often. But I’m doing my best to celebrate the gift of reconnection and forgiveness we’ve all been granted.