annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Out of the mystic List form, starting chronological, but liable to drift: 1) Woken by phone call from Elder daughter's MS Nurse, arranging a meeting of everyone involved in November. ED, SIL, me, MSN, OT, and a whole load of other well-acronymed folk. So I'm only just getting round to thinking, bloody hell, my never met first cousin, only living person with a blood connection via my real mother. Real mother died when I was a baby, leaving a sister and a brother, both of whom also died in their early twenties. My aunt had thought she was unable to have children so adopted, then immediately got pregnant, had the baby and died soon after. Her husband and my dad didn't keep in touch and I didn't even know what sex these cousins were, until my brother started searching for a long lost relative on his mother's side of the family. He paid some researcher forty quid and she came back with a phone number within the hour. I emailed her as soon as I heard this - quick, before I could change my mind, and told her the story with all the names I knew. It took about ten minutes for her to find my uncle and give him my number and there we were, chatting on the phone. Sadly, the last they'd heard of me was in 1973 when I'd recently married a foreign guy so that he could avoid conscription into his country's army (I may not have mentioned him - I often go years without a thought of him), and I could feel Uncle's initial enthusiasm waning as I summed up the key events of the past thirty odd years. You know, the marriages, the divorces, the kids - it all seemed like the right thing to do at the time (I was very stupid), but it doesn't come over well in a few sentences. I discovered that my adopted cousin was male, living in Wales with a family and that my 'blood' cousin was a female who had just bought a boat "in another of her hare-brained schemes" (liking the sound of her). I had a bit of an email flurry with Male Cousin, but it fizzled out as I was sliding into Breakdown 2 (This time it's serious!). Then a couple of weeks ago, frie3nds-reunited (which I haven't used for years) emailed me and asked if I wanted to 'friend' him. Well - why not? So I did and we had another few emails, but he's a middle aged blokey bloke and I don't care and I don't need another one of those in my life. And it turns out that the blood connection matters to me. If we'd known each other all our lives I don't think it would - they'd both just be my cousins. Maybe if he was a she - I'm rubbish at advancing friendships with blokes. Then today an email from her, female cousin. Female cousin whose mother also died when she was a baby. I stopped writing then, and replied to her. Ooh, how exciting! I look at my kids and their cousins and see how Dad flickers through their faces, and Ma through the ones that are hers, and the pics Son brought back from his visit to Venezuela and all that side of his family. I want to see her face - I've always wanted that. I used to make up fantasies about people that looked a little like me - that we'd become friends then discover we were cousins... So that was today. Not what I'd call restful, though I have spent a lot of it on the sofa. Laters xx 9:31 p.m. - 17.10.11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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