maternal grandpa, hidden older brother, paternal. because their mother had a bad experience with my father. as did my mother.
here's something i learned as a child. when i asked my stepmother if my father had other kids she affirmed that he did, supplied the name and said that was all she knew. it wasn't. i was eight couldn't force the issue and i soon forgot. mostly, but over the years pre-internet, it did cross my mind that somewhere out there i had an older brother.
he was since found and he and our younger brother met and spent time. we were lucky to have gotten that closure that i know so many don't. because family secrets. my grandfather the same kind of guy on my mother's side. that becomes," he who will not be named," because of being the type of guy people want to never see again. i just wanted a name of someone long gone from people's lives. people that i was too young to ask the right questions of. people already determined to keep a secret. people who've long passed on.
all of this meandering thought led me to a bleak one; there are orphans that don't get even that. a family with a secret to keep from you. it may seem an envious thing to say, or to presume it of our imaginary protagonist. that they are pining away for a family secret.
i suppose you already know you come from a dysfunctional family. it's likely; you're an orphan. your people for some reason, even if virtuous or tragic, let you go. if it were me i'd be wondering who was i in relation to where i came from? or, i should say, who? what kind of people were they who abandoned me? was it the times? was it shame? was it a super inappropriate coupling that i'd resulted in? who? what? where? when and why am i in this place, a ward of the state?
presumably, life goes on. what i also wonder is, how do you come to terms with yourself with stone cold leads and no discernible roots that you yourself are an offshoot of?
so, yeah, if you make it out of the system, childhood to adulthood you probably had to busy yourself with life and all of the responsibilities and realities. i don't know how those questions about identity would have been brought to your attention. when family talk arose, as it often does or in contemplative moments. i doubt it dominated, at least not in a way that incapacitated you.
it's like a double shift, the life of this person. can you imagine all of your life, at every milestone when the you you believe yourself to be gets shattered. those times when some change rocks you to your foundation. parents split, fortunes change, getting fired, being forced to leave your home. a natural disaster takes everything but what you have on you. your significant other splits from you or you get a possibly fatal diagnosis from the doctor. one of those times, no; many times in life when life knocks us out of our shoes. when it's time to stop procrastinating and it comes down to life and death to urge us along.
through it all we put our pieces back together, and we're the better for it. what was I talking about? oh yeah, there isn't only that kind of identity related crisis there are the ones we all go through. it's, who are we, who am I, and why am I here? with those two identity mazes in a single life. a person who came out of a life reared by the state and foster parents and god knows what kind of predators, sanity intact. that is impressive.
not only that, it would advance you in your spiritual search for here and what is here? what is really from there? the 2 nd life. well, i don't know. that's not how i got on that path of seeking and discovery. from what i understand lots of people do.
i don't really know what sent me down the road of this *particular line of contemplation. i suppose to illustrate for myself that we can indeed independently awaken and grow and learn from there. it's such an interesting unexpected experience. ups and downs, not to mention futures and histories. spirituality can manifest in as many ways as there are people. a myriad of ways to experience the source creator, so many aspects to embody. there's magic, synchronicity and academics and spiritual ritual practices. it takes all kinds.
our protagonist is the avatar i made available to myself to better understand myself. the pursuit i believe we come here for, to live out these lives to feel and act in a material form. we don't visibly appear without it. unless your sight is enhanced to see frequencies that we people normally can't. it's a way to see a perspective through another's eyes. we can come here, do all of the above and also do this right here, make a record of it. adding a new dimension, it's ever expensive.
*i do remember. i think it was part of a law and order plotline.