Hurricane Florence and Family Secrets

Leave it to my parents to be some of the only people headed to the Carolinas right now.  As Hurricane Florence whips around in the Atlantic moving at turtle's speed, they came down for a weekend as had been planned for weeks.

They came a day early to avoid the impending storm.  They came with the items left behind by Isabella and I during our August visit.   They also down ready to share a family secret that had been hidden for a very long time.

Parentage has become an interesting concept to me.  This is especially true now that I have successfully given birth to an amazing, living child yet have no biological children.  Despite reading the blogs of other women in my position who seem to magically forget this fact, I don't.  It doesn't diminish the love I have for my beautiful daughter nor does it change the fact that she is exactly who God designed to complete our family.  It is just something I don't forget.   

Well as it turns out Isabella is not the only member of my family tree to whom there is not a genetic link.

There is another member of my family tree whom I grew up thinking I was biologically related only to find out after my nearly four decades this was, in fact, not the case.

This family member was born to a mother and a father who were married to one another.  At the time of his birth only the mother was aware that the father who was present, the father whose name was entered onto the birth certificate may not be the biological father of this family member.  For reasons that may seem obvious but are truly clear only to her, the mother kept this piece of information to herself for some time.  She kept this information to herself until three years later when she and her husband were determining whether or not there was hope for their crumbling marriage.   She chose that moment to divulge her secret.  The marriage did not survive.  The secret did.

The secret lived on for decades.  The secret lived on until medical needs have arisen in the next generation which have necessitated opening the circle of secret holders just a bit.  The secret lived on even after the family member whom it most impacted had gone.  He died never knowing the truth.

I asked many.. many...many questions all of which were answered.  As the next generation searches for information from the newly discovered branch of the family there was another significant piece of information.  You see my family member died of a condition similar to one that killed a half-sibling he never knew he had over a decade before.  This led to the one question that got to the tip of my tongue and stopped,  "What if he had known of his half-sibling?  Could that have changed...".

No, can't go there.  Can't be the only one to have thought that.  Can't change what was.  Can't change what is.

While I am quick to digest information, my emotions seem to process at a glacial pace.    So as Hurricane Florence continues to loom I am fervently praying this bombshell of family history is the most dramatic part of my weekend.  My emotions and the storm moving side by side at that same glacial pace.