The family album at grandma’s house is like a history book of the family. Looking at the photos of your parents when they were funny looking kids. Listening to the amazing stories behind each photo is like traveling back in time. The introduction to family members that passed away long before you were born provides an unexplainable fullness to your life. The photos give you some context behind the way some of your family members act and carry themselves today.
As you flip the pages of the family album with grandma, you can feel the emotion in her voice as she tells you old stories that grip her heart to this very day. People she loved and folks that meant the world to her. You start to feel as though you have met these people and know them as they once lived.
Through the scratches and faded spots of a picture, you make out grandma, your great grandparents, and grandma’s older brother, your great uncle. You see another little fella playing around in the background of the picture. “Grandma, who is that little boy?” Grandma takes a deep breath and pauses for a moment because she has not seen this picture in a long time. She explains that he is her half-brother, James. Grandma is a bit embarrassed to explain how this young boy is her half of a brother.
The other kids in the room stop what they are doing to hear this story. The older family members already know of Uncle James, but they are curious to see how Grandma will explain this family mystery to a new generation of the family.
Grandma starts with a little back story about her father. All the women thought he was the best-looking man in the small town where he lived. He always had multiple girlfriends. One of those girlfriends happened to be grandma’s mother. Her mother loved him deeply and would do anything to make him happy. He asked her to marry him, but he wanted to be free to see other women from time to time. She agreed to his wishes.
The life of the family was very normal. He worked and grandma’s mother took care of the home. One day, her father came home from work with a little boy in his arms. It was James. Whose child is this, she asked. Her father responded that his name is James, and he is my son. She was speechless. Grandma remembers being in the Livingroom when this discussion was taking place. She recalls getting up and going into the kitchen to have a closer look at the baby’s face. The baby looked exactly like her father.
He explained that the mother of this child had recently gotten sick and passed away. He did not want James to go to an orphanage, so he decided to take him into his home. It was tough in the beginning, but James slowly became an integral part of our family unit.
The only remaining question, where is Uncle James now? Grandma explained that James died in a car accident 20 years ago. He had a wife and four kids at the time of his death. That is when Grandma started to cry. She was not crying about the death of her brother though. She wished she maintaining a relationship with his wife and children. After 20 years, that wing of the family has grown significantly, and her kids have no knowledge of them.
She gave her children all the information she had about her brother and asked them to find the rest of their family. She stressed the importance of reuniting with that wing of the family because it made the family whole again.
Make your family whole again. Reconnect with the missing parts of your family unit.
