Thanks to all who responded to my post about reuniting with my brother
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=34827&site=3
Nice to see that Simon took an interest, thanks buddy! And it made me feel special that our lovely Prisca has taken an interest in my story as well. Thank you for your response Prisca, that meant a lot to me.
Well it's been a great weekend. Last night shortly after signing off here I drove out to my brother's house. With his directions I found it pretty quick, just looked for the race car in the front yard. I met my two nephews, Levi (10) and Benjamin (6) who immediately began calling me "Uncle Mike". Tina cooked us tacos for dinner and we all spent hours talking. Today I went back over so that Joel could take me to see our father's grave which I have never seen. I stopped and invited my adopted neices to go with me and they jumped at the chance to meet the family. So the girls spent some time with their new "cousins" and "Aunt Tina" while Joel and I drove to the cemetary.
We spent a lot of the drive in small talk about racing and cars in general on our way there. He wants me to come watch him race and maybe be a part of his pit crew. Well like duh! I'd love to!
Then we arrived at the cemetary. A small family plot way out in the middle of nowhere where the roads have numbers instead of names and the cemetary has no name at all. I walked through the gate first. Our father's grave doesn't have an upright headstone. Joel didn't tell me where it was and I didn't ask. I just walked through the gate and walked straight to the grave. It's like I knew where it was all along, you know? Now how cool is that! It's almost like I was drawn to it automatically.
Right next to his grave is our grandmother's. Her name was Mary but she was known as Polly though that wasn't her given name. Now talk about coincidence. My grandmother, on my mom's side was also Mary but was always called Polly though that wasn't her given name either. Now is that weird or what?!
A couple of family members have told me how my father and grandmother tried so hard to find me way back when. And the way I just walked straight to the graves it's almost like they'd finally found me instead of me finding them, if that makes any sense. I didn't even look at the rest of the cemetary when I opened the gate, I just opened it and walked straight to my father's grave and my grandmother's next to it.
What a great weekend it's been!
Mike.
p.s. To add some more cool to the story, come to find out my grandfather used to run moonshine. Boy am I ever going to hit him up for some stories next time I see him!