My Dad was married before meeting my Mom. He was in the Army working as a helicopter mechanic stationed in Germany during the mid-1960’s, where he met a girl name Christine who ended up getting pregnant, Dad wanted to do the right thing and marry her, although when it was time for him to come back to the United States, she didn’t want to leave Germany and he didn’t want to stay, so he left before his son was born. There was a lot of miscommunication mainly due to the language barrier during the time. My aunt tried to keep in touch with Christine since Dad was not very good at that sort of thing but eventually Christine broke contact, probably from aggravation.
My Mom told me when I was a teenager that I have a half-brother and the story behind it, Dad didn’t mention it until several years later, I guess he thought Mom did.
A year or two after Dad died I received a message on MySpace from a guy with a familiar name stating that he thinks I’m his sister, his picture looked a lot like Dad and knew it had to be my long lost brother but asked him some security questions anyway, yes I’m paranoid and of course he passed. He found my name by doing an online search for Dad and unfortunately came across Dad’s obituary, where he was listed as a son. If I was religious I would have thought that Dad had a hand in his children finally coming together. I was in utter shock and amazement and immediately called my Mom and aunt Samantha with the news. He doesn’t know English very well and of course I never learned German, so our correspondence was tricky. He had a lot of questions about Dad and I tried to answer as best as I could, my aunt also sent him a letter too but he never responded. He seems like he wants to reach out on his terms. I have him on Facebook, deleted my MySpace account a couple years ago since I was never on it anymore and that the website changed quite a bit. I also have his other half-sister Tina who he grew up with, she is much better with English and we have chatted online quite often, we call each other quarter-sisters and she is so cool. She said that James has always been distant, so I don’t feel so rejected by his silence. None of us can afford to go visit the other, but if I ever won the lottery, I would definitely make trips to Germany and offer for them to see the wonders of America.
I wish father and son had at least been on contact all these years, it would have benefitted both of them is so many ways. James felt like he was rejected or thought his dad died in the war, I so hate that for him.
James has a beautiful teenager daughter who he sees just about every day and Tina has an adorable young son. They both had a different kind of rough childhood than I did but we have all over-come and are productive adults. I hope that James finds the peace he needs when it comes to our father, I finally did the last time I saw him.
Written 11/5/16
