DNA Diaries

I have needed time to process all of the things that happened during my first ever sleep over type visit with my daughter. There wasn't one piece of it that I would have traded for anything in the world. We spent our first new years together. No big gushy hugs or kisses, mostly watching the younger kids throw crap all over the house. You call it confetti, I call it a mess that needs to be cleaned. Don't get me wrong, I'm a slob. My house could be way cleaner. But the amount of confetti that was being thrown and the places it was getting into just made me shake my head. I did enjoy the fact that Rachael didn't bat an eye over it. She just let them fly and when it was over the broom came out and it was cleaned up. One of the many conveniences of hard wood floors.

The older kids came home shit faced. I thought that was pretty funny. They were only gone for 3 hours and two of them could barely walk. They did the right thing though, they called and Rach went and got them. The buckets and towels arranged strategical next to the sleeping arrangements with a wet wash cloth hung on the side was a sight to behold. Rach put her brother down on the couch and tied his long tresses back to make it easier for him to utilize the bucket. I started to get up off the couch to take over since it was my responsibility to tend my drunken son, and I immediately sat back down. I figured it was nothing less than a pleasure for her to tend her baby bro after all these years. She got his settled and I arranged the towel with the bucket and wash rag. After a good vomit there is nothing like a cool rag to either wipe the mouth or the forehead.

My grand daughter was being tended to by her boyfriend up stairs. No worries there, he is a fine young man very capable of handling my sometimes over bearing grand daughter and that in it self was a treat to see. Two down two to go.

We went into the kitchen with the remaining two who were still on their feet. the fun never stops with intoxicated teens around. I learned so much that night. My other son's aversion to the room spinning is to spin himself. So on his toes (which is natural for him, he lives on his toes) he spins like a ballerina or his mother on the dance floor in her younger and drunken years. I was very afraid he was going to land on his face. We already have one kid with a permanent bonded tooth, no need for them both to have one. When he finally wound down and got ready for the other couch where his bucket, towel and wash cloth await, he had the sense to pull his own hair back and pony tail it. Not long after being in the horizontal position, he started to utilize his bucket. Instead of leaning over the edge of the couch like his brother who couldn't move if he wanted to, this one gets off the couch, on his hands and knees and actually starts spinning in circles from the waist up around the top of the bucket. Too bad we didn't have the sense to film it as he denied it the next day. All in all it was an awesome time. Family at it's finest. Sharing and caring for one another in a way that only people who really love you will. The next day was less fun but still good entertainment. Watching a hang over is much better than feeling a hang over. At least it was for me. It took most of the day for the really wasted two to get up and moving. Poor T, hung over as he was, there was still no escaping the throws of being an uncle. He was hung on, tugged at, hair pulled, loud in your face children everywhere and it was probably killing him. D got the dogs. He went to bed with them, and spent most of the day with them as they too would not leave him alone. Too much entertainment for me. I was loving every bit of it.

The grand daughter awakes, looking like someone who was shot at and missed, shit at and hit. My heart over flows with excitement. I can't wait to watch her struggle through the day. Needless to say it was a slow moving, less than quite, aspirin filled afternoon and evening. The dead awake after 5pm.

When we got home, I had little time to reflect, there were things to do around the house, things to take care of with friends, pictures to select for an audition, and colleges to finish up applying for. As wonderful as it was, the visit with Rachael's sister, her parents, the seeing where she was for so many years and how safe she was, the finally laying eyes upon the people who took my daughter in as their own. I still felt something was missing. I actually felt guilty about it.

A week had passed and not a word about how her parents felt after the meeting. Nothing from her sister passed on through Rach about how it made her feel to sit in the same room with the mystery woman who was 13, on drugs, a run away, and clueless as to who she had slept with all those years ago, compliments of the agency we used. I don't know why I expected more, I just did. It was so monumental for me. I was hoping the feeling was the same for them, but it seemed that it was exciting at the time and now it's over. No fan fair, no big revelations, nothing. I was expecting more and trying to tell myself not to be disappointed. Maybe it was that they needed to keep their distance. Maybe I was still capable of taking something from them and they needed to keep some of their guard up. Maybe I just didn't want it to end and it had.

Then it came. Rach called me last night and had finally gotten a hold of her sister and her parents. Her parents called to thank her for "allowing them" to be a part of her reunion. There it was, the thing I had been expecting and thought wasn't going to happen. The thing I thought I was the only one feeling. It had affected them. They feel the same thing I do, a connection, a link, an answer to the mystery of why their (our) daughter thinks and acts the way she does. The inner working of what makes her tick. They saw it, and it made sense, for the first time in 36 years. Just like I saw where she resided, how farming was a big part of who she was. How could I understand that? I have no connection to farming what so ever (growing pot maybe). But in her family, farming is everything. It is the profession that makes all other professions possible. It is the pride of who they are as a whole.

Her sister told her that Rachael seems more at peace than ever before. It was visibly noticeable. Rach agreed. No more secrets, imagination putting faces to that which we had not known, trying to piece together stories without actual puzzle pieces. And best of all no more silent panic attacks. No one has to worry any more. We met face to face and no one died.

Now the evolution of phone numbers. Rach's sister talked to her parents and agreed that it is important that they have my phone number. In all actuality it makes sense. They will know long before I, if something were to happen to Rach. I know Rach's husband would let me know as soon as possible, but what if; what if something happened to both of them. Funny how that happens. Her whole life thus far has gone by with never a thought of me being on the roster of contacts, and now after one meeting my name and number are being requested. That's something I never expected or even thought about to be honest. I had once hoped that we would one day meet. I gave up. I wanted it, but felt that it would not be a realization. Now I'm on the roster.

How unbelievable awesome is that?