When Life Imitates Fiction

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I just finished reading U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton. In addition to solving her PI mystery, heroine Kinsey Millhone has to come to grips with a grandmother she thought had rejected her when her parents died.

Interesting. Kinsey is a complex character that has sustained the mystery series from A to U so far. But, like most mysteries, nothing I expected to experience in real life.

Enter email from a cousin I have never met. One I didn't even know existed. If I'm understanding her email correctly, she's my father's first cousin.

Forty years ago, I spent a summer with my my father's second family and met his sister's family. I know my aunt's first name: Juanita. That's it. Not her married name, not her children. I don't recall meeting any of the rest of the family, although I might have.

Now this total stranger invades my email box and shares bits of family history that confirms our relationship.

She also told me one piece of news that I didn't know: my father died a few years ago. (She didn't realize I didn't know) I've lost both parents in the space of four months.

I'm not sure how I feel. At odds and ends. This poem by my good friend Roberta Brosius sums it up well:

Regret

He’s gone now—
Though he died to me
Decades ago,
And I mourned what might have been.
Today I rue what never will be.

© 2003 Roberta Tucker Brosius

Good news: My oldest granddaughter Savannah was baptized this morning! She received Christ as her Savior a couple of years ago, but now she has made it public. Praise the Lord!