T
Tain
Guest
Original poster
I'm kinda frazzled. I don't really know how to handle what I've been given, for once. I'm back home... I actually got back Monday. My father was visiting me... drove my car up to me and such, which was a nice gesture, but one that I really didn't want him to offer because of his age. While we were leaving the licensing office he randomly spoke during a lull in our conversation and said, "I have a story to tell you."
To which I cheerfully replied, "Let's hear it" without any fucking clue of what he was about to lay on me.
He said, "23 years old, a young Airman who just got out of the Air Force... had a wife and two kids. Came home one day to find all the clothes piled in the middle of the living room with a note that said, 'I knew you wouldn't leave, so I did.' "
There was a long pause before he said something like, "So I didn't really have anything left to do about it. She disappeared. The family wouldn't tell me where she was."
And I looked at him and said, "Wait a minute, you're telling me that--"
"Yes. ... Yes."
So that's it basically in a nutshell. That's how he dropped it on me that I have a half-sister and a half-brother who up until recently were missing, due to the fact that their mother told them that my father died in Vietnam. I've lived my whole life thinking that I was the only one, and believe it or not I more often than once wished that I had siblings. So it's a big deal to me even if they're "only half."
I think I'm happy, but it makes me nervous at the same time. Unsettled is maybe a better word. I pretty much took it in stride and didn't really let it sink in much while my father was still around. But the more it sinks in, the more it seems to disturb me a bit. My grandparents' 70th anniversary is coming up, and they're doubling it up as a family reunion. My sister will be there, and she wants to meet me. She apparently saw me when I was a baby as well. It just trips me out.
Like I said, I have no idea how to handle it. But I feel like I'm avoiding it rather than engaging it... perhaps because I have no idea how to engage it.
To which I cheerfully replied, "Let's hear it" without any fucking clue of what he was about to lay on me.
He said, "23 years old, a young Airman who just got out of the Air Force... had a wife and two kids. Came home one day to find all the clothes piled in the middle of the living room with a note that said, 'I knew you wouldn't leave, so I did.' "
There was a long pause before he said something like, "So I didn't really have anything left to do about it. She disappeared. The family wouldn't tell me where she was."
And I looked at him and said, "Wait a minute, you're telling me that--"
"Yes. ... Yes."
So that's it basically in a nutshell. That's how he dropped it on me that I have a half-sister and a half-brother who up until recently were missing, due to the fact that their mother told them that my father died in Vietnam. I've lived my whole life thinking that I was the only one, and believe it or not I more often than once wished that I had siblings. So it's a big deal to me even if they're "only half."
I think I'm happy, but it makes me nervous at the same time. Unsettled is maybe a better word. I pretty much took it in stride and didn't really let it sink in much while my father was still around. But the more it sinks in, the more it seems to disturb me a bit. My grandparents' 70th anniversary is coming up, and they're doubling it up as a family reunion. My sister will be there, and she wants to meet me. She apparently saw me when I was a baby as well. It just trips me out.
Like I said, I have no idea how to handle it. But I feel like I'm avoiding it rather than engaging it... perhaps because I have no idea how to engage it.