Friday, May 18, 2012

Family Ties: Prologue

No, not my family. I have cousins by the dozens and I've always loved having such a large extended family.  TV Stevie wasn't quite as lucky growing up.

After his father's death (when TV was 10), there wasn't a lot of contact with his Dad's side of the family, except through Uncle Bill. The final breech was when Uncle Bill died. TV was in college.

Not long before Uncle Bill's death, a young man approached TV in one of his film classes and introduced himself as TV's cousin. TV's response was: no you're not. But he was. Richard is actually TV's first cousin once removed.

A few years later, when TV was working as a director at the PBS station in his college town, a "famous" psychologist who dealt with agoraphobia was a scheduled guest on one of the programs TV directed. Turned out Julian, too, was another of TV's first cousins, once removed.

In 1991, when Richard was living in Ithaca, TV and I had dinner with Richard and his wife, plus Richard's parents. Richard's father, George, was TV's first cousin. There is quite an age difference between TV and his first cousins on his father's side of the family. His dad was the youngest child by several years, married late, and Steve was the youngest of his siblings.

Flash forward to November 2011. TV Stevie and I arrived home one Saturday evening and checked our phone messages. "This is Calman G* and I'm looking at a lovely photo of my Uncle Kermit H*, and if you are the Steven H who is his son, please call me because I'd like you to have this photo."

Chills ran up and down my arms.

That single phone message launched an on-going journey of discovery and re-connection.

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