The fab fam
Family means everything to me. My mom has seven siblings, almost all of whom have children, and I myself have three sisters. My dad’s sister has two of her own, and I’ve always been close with all my cousins from every ‘wing’ of my extended family – I think I can count over 40 first cousins, which is big by any standard. Maybe not this big, but big.
And yet it grows. Leah and I went to her cousin's Bat Mitzvah this past weekend where I was introduced to a whole new family that I’m slowing becoming a part of. We sipped drinks and danced and snacked and watched dozens of tweens bounce and shout and beam and sing along with the semi-obnoxious DJ (maybe you’ve heard of him?), who played ALL their favorite songs. Leah pointed out that it wasn’t so much a Bat Mitzvah, but rather a Debutantes’ Ball, and the diva in question was dressed the part. In fact, the cake matched her dress, both in colour and design. And the tablecloths, balloons, lighting, etc...everything matched. It was a fun time despite getting lost en route in Toronto's labyrinth-like north end, where cities' borders blur together and are cut in half by mammoth freeways. Sure, it's quiet living up there, but its not for me.
That's not where the family ends. I was lucky enough this week to reconnect with someone I had almost forgot about, but he found me and we had dinner on Monday. See, my dad was adopted in 1955 by the Klein family of Viking, Alberta. The aforementioned sister was adopted a year later and they grew up as any normal family does. Sometime in the 80s my dad became curious about where he came from, who his 'real' mother and father were, and how it all...happened. He took out an ad in the Globe & Mail. It read:
Robert Michael Stater, born October 7th 1955 in Calgary, Alberta. Adopted shorty thereafter - do you have any information? Please contact...
Silence followed, until sometime in 1992 when a private detective called my dad and offered to apply for the adoption records - he succeeded, and slow but sure contact was made with the family that gave him up so many years before.
But I digress. My dinner partner was Tony, and he's technically my uncle - my dad's brother that he didn't even know about until he went digging for his adoption story. In fact, Tony has three other brothers, two kids of his own and lives just outside of Toronto. The last time I saw him was in 1994, during the summer after my dad passed away. I remember thinking then how amazing it was that dad found his blood family, and moreover, how much Tony looked like my dad. I admit that I was kinda nervous about meeting him again - that I'd be overwhelmed by the likeness, or that I'd be judged by my often-colourful past (since I was 14, anyways). Turns out, of course, that I had nothing to worry about. Tony is a relaxed, slender and handsome man in his late 30s, teaches music at an elementary school and loves his kids to the max. He still looks like my dad, and as we ate and drank a pint he spun me stories about his own father. A quick aside: when my dad first started looking for his birth parents, he found both of them - alive, in different cities - his mother willingly met him; his father told my dad that he was dying of cancer and that he could more or less fuck off.
Surprise surprise, the father in question - my blood grandfather on my Dad's side - is still alive. Tony told me about his fathers' philandering, how he cheated on his first wife (with whom he had two kids), the result of which was my dad. He then married again and fathered four boys, one of whom was Tony. Following me?
When my dad found his family, he was able to locate Annette, a daughter from my grandfather's first marriage. She was living in Okotoks, just outside of Calgary. Tony himself was living in Vancouver at the time, and my dad had every intention of bringing the three of them together that summer. Unfortunately for all involved, my dad died of a brain aneurysm that spring of 1994. I saw Annette at the funeral, and met Tony that summer and like a plume of smoke they vanished. I never heard from either again, so I kind of wrote off that half of my bloodline as...gone.
Until about a month ago, when I went home for a visit and my step-mom told me that she had heard from Tony - he was living in Oakville and was shocked to hear I was out east too. He dropped me an email last week, and suddenly I found myself sitting across from my dad's almost twin, reeling at the reality of knowing my dad's birth family, knowing where the other half of me came from.
It was like looking into a mirror of the future - what I might look like, how things might have been different if only...
---------------------------
Less drama, more music blah blah this weekend. I promise.
And yet it grows. Leah and I went to her cousin's Bat Mitzvah this past weekend where I was introduced to a whole new family that I’m slowing becoming a part of. We sipped drinks and danced and snacked and watched dozens of tweens bounce and shout and beam and sing along with the semi-obnoxious DJ (maybe you’ve heard of him?), who played ALL their favorite songs. Leah pointed out that it wasn’t so much a Bat Mitzvah, but rather a Debutantes’ Ball, and the diva in question was dressed the part. In fact, the cake matched her dress, both in colour and design. And the tablecloths, balloons, lighting, etc...everything matched. It was a fun time despite getting lost en route in Toronto's labyrinth-like north end, where cities' borders blur together and are cut in half by mammoth freeways. Sure, it's quiet living up there, but its not for me.
That's not where the family ends. I was lucky enough this week to reconnect with someone I had almost forgot about, but he found me and we had dinner on Monday. See, my dad was adopted in 1955 by the Klein family of Viking, Alberta. The aforementioned sister was adopted a year later and they grew up as any normal family does. Sometime in the 80s my dad became curious about where he came from, who his 'real' mother and father were, and how it all...happened. He took out an ad in the Globe & Mail. It read:
Robert Michael Stater, born October 7th 1955 in Calgary, Alberta. Adopted shorty thereafter - do you have any information? Please contact...
Silence followed, until sometime in 1992 when a private detective called my dad and offered to apply for the adoption records - he succeeded, and slow but sure contact was made with the family that gave him up so many years before.
But I digress. My dinner partner was Tony, and he's technically my uncle - my dad's brother that he didn't even know about until he went digging for his adoption story. In fact, Tony has three other brothers, two kids of his own and lives just outside of Toronto. The last time I saw him was in 1994, during the summer after my dad passed away. I remember thinking then how amazing it was that dad found his blood family, and moreover, how much Tony looked like my dad. I admit that I was kinda nervous about meeting him again - that I'd be overwhelmed by the likeness, or that I'd be judged by my often-colourful past (since I was 14, anyways). Turns out, of course, that I had nothing to worry about. Tony is a relaxed, slender and handsome man in his late 30s, teaches music at an elementary school and loves his kids to the max. He still looks like my dad, and as we ate and drank a pint he spun me stories about his own father. A quick aside: when my dad first started looking for his birth parents, he found both of them - alive, in different cities - his mother willingly met him; his father told my dad that he was dying of cancer and that he could more or less fuck off.
Surprise surprise, the father in question - my blood grandfather on my Dad's side - is still alive. Tony told me about his fathers' philandering, how he cheated on his first wife (with whom he had two kids), the result of which was my dad. He then married again and fathered four boys, one of whom was Tony. Following me?
When my dad found his family, he was able to locate Annette, a daughter from my grandfather's first marriage. She was living in Okotoks, just outside of Calgary. Tony himself was living in Vancouver at the time, and my dad had every intention of bringing the three of them together that summer. Unfortunately for all involved, my dad died of a brain aneurysm that spring of 1994. I saw Annette at the funeral, and met Tony that summer and like a plume of smoke they vanished. I never heard from either again, so I kind of wrote off that half of my bloodline as...gone.
Until about a month ago, when I went home for a visit and my step-mom told me that she had heard from Tony - he was living in Oakville and was shocked to hear I was out east too. He dropped me an email last week, and suddenly I found myself sitting across from my dad's almost twin, reeling at the reality of knowing my dad's birth family, knowing where the other half of me came from.
It was like looking into a mirror of the future - what I might look like, how things might have been different if only...
---------------------------
Less drama, more music blah blah this weekend. I promise.
posted by Eli at 2:29 PM
3 Comments:
Oh wow. What a fantastic tale!
i liked reading this a lot. i love thinking and talking and reading about family and where we come from and how it all ties in to and influences our lives in various strong and subtle and interconnected ways.
so you know, more family stories, less music is ok too you know. :)
i shed a little tear there eli.
i felt really connected to my own dad reading this...he had an amazingly complicated extended/adopted family situation too.
it was nice to hear about this. thanks!
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