It would be an understatement to write that I was never especially close to my father.
Not a huge surprise for a gay man of my generation growing up on the edge of Appalachia.
Although both my parents were teachers and progressive for their time, having a gay son in a small, rural town who spent a lot more time writing poetry and playing the piano and bassoon rather than being interested in cars and baseball must have been a challenge.
To give myself some credit, though, I became a good tennis player and runner, two sports I pursue to this day!
Several years ago my father and I had a rare conversation with each other that lasted more than three minutes. He told me he had no idea how to raise a gay son, what to expect, how to act as a father around me.
My father himself had a complicated family: his parents were divorced, he had more than his share of struggles growing up, and, as an adult, he rarely saw his own father whom I never knew.
My mother’s side of the family was different. Her parents met and fell in love as teenagers and were devoted to each other, their six children, and their many grandchildren the rest of their lives. They lived, no kidding, deep in the wooded hills of Pennsylvania where it was so quiet when I was young you could hear a train occasionally pass through on lonely tracks deep into the night.
My maternal grandfather had 15 younger siblings, many of whom I knew. At one point, he, his siblings, his parents, and many of siblings’ spouses lived under one large roof and mostly spoke German. My grandmother insisted on having her own home, a courageous move at that time for a woman marrying the first-born son of a large family. Although she was unfailingly gracious to her 13 sisters-in-law, it must have been difficult at times.
My grandparents’ home was warm, clean, familiar, welcoming, and filled with books.
Even if they might have thought I was gay, although I don’t know for sure if they did, I never doubted my maternal grandparents’ love. I promised my grandfather I would always keep the German language going in our family, and my grandmother, a very young grandmother, and I had a great time watching tennis matches, talking about poetry, even seeing Broadway shows together. I could not have asked for better.
By the time as I was in my early 20s, I had met my maternal grandfather’s family who had stayed behind in the “old country” and were even farming the same piece of land the family had owned since the 1300s. I was living and working in Austria. I mostly spoke German every day.
And yet I knew I had another side to me: my father’s family.
When my father died almost five years ago, his brother, my uncle who moved to Australia in his 30s, visited me in Hawaii. We have become close. I wrote him last year and stated he was like a father to me, in a sense the father I wished I could have had. My uncle and his wife, who is originally from Austria, have been wonderful to my husband, me, and our daughter. They have sent pictures of my father with his three siblings, photos of my paternal grandparents, his parents, my father’s parents. I look at the photos of my paternal grandparents and want to cry: two stunning, complex people, once young, who felt they deserved to live their dreams. Had they not tried, I might not exist! Had they not dared to dream, I might never have a family I am rediscovering, including my uncle’s daughter who I feel is now like a sister to me.
Two years ago, my boss told me about 23andMe. I was intrigued. Although I had heard all my life, “We’re German,” I had also heard about people from Scotland who had married into our family. Vague rumors swirled around about nobility which is pretty funny to me because as far as I knew, we were farmers and factory workers on both sides of my family until my parents’ generation when they and many of their siblings became teachers.
But I also heard that my paternal grandfather was an extremely accomplished musician and tennis player.
A few weeks ago, under the small artificial tree we keep up in our home in Hawaii all year because we believe every day we are together as family is a gift, was a package for me: you guessed it — 23andMe.
It took me a while to start down this path, but I did and the results are in, and I will finish this cliffhanger on Friday before I embark next weekend on a ridiculous goal: marathons on back-to-back days. If I succeed, I should give the post this title: 52 Miles and Crazy!