The rest of my trip in Florida was split between trying to relax and find out more about "the new family" as I had termed them. I talked to Mom and Dad on the phone as much as my vacation schedule allowed, and also began to message Celena and Valerie on Facebook to get more details. And I scoured my new cousins' Facebook profiles as much as possible.
While I learned that there were some interesting similarities (both families share a penchant for naming their children with J-names: June, Joyce, James, Joseph/Jon, Jeff, Jennifer, and that June shares a birthday with my son Michael), we also learned that my dad was born in between Carol and June (Carol was born in October of 1946, Dad was born in November of 1947, and June was born 18 months later in June of 1949), which raised a lot of questions. Why was Dad was put up for adoption in the first place? Was this truly the right family?
I messaged Valerie to see if she knew more information. Did the sisters know of a brother given up for adoption?
"Joyce apparently told June and Carol that she overheard their grandmother and an aunt talking about Marcella giving up a baby boy for adoption at some point, but Marcella would not discuss it when they asked her about it," wrote Val. "She was married at the time your dad was born, so it's really a mystery why he was put up for adoption in the first place. I guess we'll never know."
I wondered if anyone knew anything more. However, you just had to look at the pictures of Dad, Marcella, June, and Carol to see that this was the right family, no matter what logic said. The physical similarities between them were indisputable and we were not the only ones to think so. Marcella had three sisters and a brother, who all had children, so there are many cousins out there, some who commented how much Dad looked like Marcella.
When I returned home from Florida I had more time to look at Celena's pictures, and this was when we were blown away again. I came across a picture of her when she was about three. It was like looking at a picture of myself when I was that age. I quickly ran downstairs to get the photo album Mom had made me one year, the one with lots of pictures of me when I was little. I scanned in a photo of myself at that age and put it next to Celena's photo. Wow, you could tell that we were cousins for sure.
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| Left: Jen age 3. Right: Celena age 3 |
A few days before the meeting things really started to get weird and the universe seemed to shrink by about 10 degrees of separation. (Insert the theme from the Twilight Zone).
Dad was being blasted by friend requests from his "new" cousins. One of them had the same last name as a boy that my mom dated before she dated my dad. When asked if this cousin knew the boy, she responded with a message: "He's my/our cousin!"
This same cousin then noticed that she had a mutual Facebook friend with my brother's wife, Janet. Turns out this Facebook friend, who is one of Janet's best friends for many many years, is a cousin.
"I'm freaking out!" said Dad.
"I'm freaking out!" said June (on her Facebook post).
I think we were all freaking out a little, but in a good way. Things were happening fast. In the span of one week, my dad had discovered his birth family, talked to his sisters, seen pictures of his birth family, and was preparing to meet them - all thanks to the internet and social media.
Stay tuned for my next post in which I tell you about "The Meeting."
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