Wed, 18:20:
Random outdated news alert!
So my mom was adopted. She grew up with one sibling, five years her senior—Uncle David, the one we visited in Australia—but had three biological siblings, all of whom were found over time. Most recently, I met my Aunt Cyndi who lives in northern Minnesota across the river from Canada and who visited Seattle in 2017 (bit.ly/3qya2OX). Prior to that, I met my Uncle Terry at our home in Spokane, in 1992, when I was 16.
The first of Mom's biological siblings I met was Chris, somewhat ironically at the home of Grandma and Grandpa Minor, here in Seattle, at their house in Magnolia in 1986. I was 10.
I just learned from Aunt Cyndi today that Chris passed away in 2011. She noted that there was an obituary in the Seattle Times,and I found a copy of it online (bit.ly/43Pu5GM). I learned a lot of new things about him from that obituary today, most notably that he was born in Renton—Mom was born in Olympia, as was I—and evidently he grew up in Seattle. By the sounds of it, he got to know Terry in a way he never really did either of his biological sisters.
But here's the part that really struck me. There had been a "farewell luncheon" for friends and relatives (I am the latter, technically!) on Saturday, June 25, 2011, at Horizon House here in Seattle. Horizon House is a high-rise "continuing care retirement community" on First Hill, located all of one mile west of the condo where I now live (and where I also lived then) on Capitol Hill. What's more, Horizon House is *one block* from the apartment building where Shobhit and I first moved in together.
What would I have done, I wonder, had I known about the "farewell luncheon" at the time? Could I have gone? I could have learned so much more about him, that much I'm pretty sure. I don't know how it got lost on me that one of my biological relatives had been so close yet, evidently, so far away.
After Cyndi met up with me in 2017, she went out to Idaho and finally met Mom in person for the first time. After that, Mom and Terry were the only two of the four who ultimately managed to meet all three of the others. There were never any more than two of them together at one time.
I don't know who else would be all that interested in this, except maybe my brother, Christopher, and perhaps to a bit lesser degree, his children. It's kind of odd to realize I don't even know how many first cousins I actually have out there, scattered across the country.
