Long-Lost

One of the things I like about Facebook is that I can connect with other adoptive families as well as my extended family.  All my cousins on my mom's side of my family are on FB, and I love that I can see what's going on with them here and there via facebook.  Three cousins (well, make that four-- stay with a minute) on my Dad's side also are there.  Although we seldom see them, I like that I can connect with them, too.

So, in the spring of this year, I tried to track down one of my cousins on my Dad's side.  My uncle, his father, allowed my cousin's stepfather to adopt him when we were all young; I think I was 8 and M was around 11.  After that, he just disappeared from our lives until I was 17, and he came to our grandpa's funeral.  After that, he disappeared again.

Some time in the spring, I decided to see if I could find him out there in FB land.  Within like 2 seconds of typing his name into the search-- there he was.  My cousin.  15 years older looking, but it was definitely him. So I sent him a message, and he replied.  We're now "friends" on FB, and it's an amazing thing to be able to reconnect with him again.

When we were kids, M would come up from ** (where he lived as a child) and spend a lot of the summer with his dad/our grandparents/my family.  J (my brother), M, and I had so much fun together.  He was like an older brother to both of us more than he was a cousin.  We did family trips with him, and we spent almost every day in the summers with him, except when he had to spend days with his mom's side of his family.

And then, suddenly, he was gone.  I remember my mom telling us his last name had changed and that we probably wouldn't see him again for a long time.  I know I didn't understand it at the time, and my memories of what happened exactly are clouded by that childhood misunderstanding and confusion about losing my cousin with no warning or real reason why.  He just disappeared from our lives.  We didn't have contact again with him until, like I said, our grandpa died.

Recently, though, via FB, M and I have been able to reconnect.  After some bad years, I think he's finally happy now and in a good place in life.  I'm really glad about that.  He wants to meet his 3 siblings-- my uncle's other kids from his second marriage-- whom he's never met.  I don't know if that will happen, but for now, I'm thankful that we've been able to talk and get some of the hurts of the past out in the open.

Hopefully he's forgiven us all for abandoning him.