Only Child - The Back Story

I do kind of profess a lot that I am an only child.   I say it all the time, especially when I'm trying to explain why I might be more selfish than most people or try to explain why maybe I seek accolades.  It's part of the only-child-syndrome.

But I'm actually not technically an only child.

I came home from college one weekend when I was about 20 or 21, and my Mom had been drinking and she was kind of arguing with my Step Dad about telling me something important and that "she needs to know!"

I vividly recall her saying something to him like, "well she has to know in case he shows up at the door some day."

Course I don't know who she's talking about and I had no clue the words that were about to be uttered from her mouth into my brain.

What I found out on this sunny afternoon was that I actually have a half brother.  I have brother somewhere who's probably anywhere from 2 to 6 years older and that he was given up when my Mom was in her late teens.

Because I was 20 or so when I heard this, I was very excited!  Oh My God I have a brother!  I was an only child for so long it was really cool the idea that I would have a brother! 

Reflecting back, I can definitely say that if I was in my younger teens or a child, I probably would not have been very excited to hear I had a brother.  The reason I say that is because when you are an only child, you the most important being in the household (well, we think we are lol) and you get all the attention, you get all the gifts, everything revolves around, and you don't have to share anything. So I'm pretty sure that I would have felt extreme jealously and hurt and would have been scared to hear that I had a half-brother if I had learned of him 5-10 years younger.

But when you're older, you're pretty excited about it.

However, I've never met my brother and I don't know his name, I don't know who adopted him, if he's still alive, knows he has a sister, etc.  I don't know anything about him.

I asked my Mom if she ever wanted to find him and her exact words to me were very painful and she said, "I'm too ashamed as a person to even try to find him."

She wasn't very happy about her life and she didn't want him to see her for who she was or turned out to be.

He was given up in the '60s when back then obviously you weren't supposed to have a child if you weren't married.  She "visited" her sister on an Air Force Base in Crete, Greece one summer to have the child so no other family members or friends would find out the family's "terrible secret."  A Military couple adopted him right after he was born. 

After seeing some things on TV stories and stuff I just hope he realizes he was given up because she wasn't married, not because she didn't love him.  My Mom didn't have a choice with her options - back then you didn't have a child out of wedlock. 

And then she ended up having an amazing, beautiful, loving, daughter... just kidding.  She did have a great daughter and her and I had this AMAAAAAZING bond. 

I hardly ever brought up my brother to my Mom.  I think maybe we talked about him literally twice.  It was just something we didn't talk about again, especially after she told me she was too ashamed to look for him.

And now that my Mom is passed, I could look him up.  I tried to find out the year she was in Crete (that's when she met my Dad), but didn't find the info.  But, I think it's best that I keep her wish even in her death.