radiate happiness. I looked through years of birthday and anniversary well-wishes. I found a post from her husband to her about their 34th anniversary. She’d married him only four short years after me.
What are the chances?
I googled him, again sifting through funeral notices. I learned that the man she had married had five siblings, four older and one younger. His father would have been 69 in 1978, his mother 61.
His name is Don.
Her middle name Joy.
I was Jocelyn Dawn. I was theirs. They had sent me off with a small piece of
themselves.
I had three brothers. Not half brothers as I’d initially thought, but full brothers.
I wondered, did she ever feel outnumbered by the boys?
105
My mind raced with a myriad of questions. Now what? Do I make
contact? A post that says, hey, check out my Facebook page because I’m
your kid? What if they haven’t told anyone and I mess up their happy
lives? What if they have closed that door, locked it? Can I handle it if this
goes badly? Am I strong enough?
I decided that I needed a safe path in. The siblings had all known
about me when I was born. In my searches, I found that my maternal aunt
is actually a trustee for the board of education for which I work, one in a
long line of strange coincidences. She was 31 when I was born, a grown
woman who would have understood the situation. She was a teacher, like
me, a professional. She made sense to me.
It was New Year’s Day, a day of fresh starts.