One Of The Bigger Things On My To Do List

I have a phone number, here. It’s typewritten on the twelfth page of the genealogical record of my father’s family. The phone number belongs, I think, to my aunt, Elizabeth. Its seven digits are typed next to her name. The name of her husband is listed next and the names of her four children, my cousins, follow his. There is no other family information provided….no marriages, no births of grandchildren….just the phone number. Everyone else who was interviewed for this included those kinds of details and the absence of them, in this instance, has always made me wonder. Was she saying, if you want to know more, call me? Was she saying that to anyone or was she hoping that I would call? Or my sister or my mother? For a long time I was sure that Elizabeth put her phone number there just for me. Just in case my branch of the family was found and added to the record. But in hindsight, that was a long shot.

I should have tried this number years ago. It’s been saved in a file folder for eleven years. Mom sent it to me in January of 1995, a few weeks after the Boxing Day phone call she made to say, “Guess what? Your father’s dead. He died two years ago in Victoria.”

I always wondered if I would ever find out if he was dead or alive. I suppose I figured that if I did find out, it would be through some official channel. A phone call from a British Columbia law firm to inform me of my inheritance would have been nice. My childhood fantasy was that he was rich and would someday return, take us back and make me a princess. Not to be…..no lawyers, no inheritance, no tiara…..okay, I wore one once at a Clay Aiken pre-concert party…..it was a joke......I think! It is funny how this information did get back to Mom…..a totally small world experience, in which a long time neighbor had a cousin who was related in some way to my father’s family. During a visit that Christmas, the cousin showed the neighbor his family tree project and the neighbor recognized my mother’s name on it. He told his cousin that she lived a few houses down the street and the rest is……well, family history.

When the cousin returned to his home in New Brunswick, he mailed my mother two things…..a copy of what information he had already compiled and my father’s obituary. The obit didn’t have a cause of death. It really only had two pertinent bits of info……buried in Greenwood Cemetery and predeceased by wife Linda in 1974 (who the hell was Linda??)….no mention of surviving children. What about me? And Patty, my sister? And the girl who was supposed to have been twelve when I was sixteen? And the one who was four when I was seventeen? I think there was another one after that, but maybe they were all just rumors and not sisters after all. Are they all at the end of my dialing finger? I bet Elizabeth knows. The chances are good that one of these now grown women have come seeking their birth father and they’ve found Elizabeth. Even if they are nothing more than rumors, I still have a million questions. I have this link, this number, I need to try it….really. Eleven years is too long to wait. A lot can happen in eleven years. Maybe this number no longer works. Maybe nobody wants to open up this can of worms. Maybe nobody up there cares. I guess they all think I don’t care….eleven years is a long time to wait. Why has it taken me so long to get up the courage to test the strength of this link to my father's family? Hell, I know why......it's a pretty big door to open and probably more than a roomful of emotion behind it. Yup, bottled up emotions in a pottery jug. Haven't a clue what's inside.....I hope it's something that will wash down a plate of big chicken.

I’ve left the folder from the file cabinet on my desk. I swear I AM going to try it. I’ll try really hard not to interrupt their dinner, or the season finale of what might be a favorite TV show. I pray that she is still alive……most sixty-six year old people are alive, right? Well, unless they died at sixty-five or sixty-four or sixty, like my father did……twenty-nine years since I last laid eyes on him. A man I never knew, barely remember, and am supposed to resemble.

If I’m going to do this tomorrow I’d better go check the liquor cabinet and make sure my favorite brand of courage is in stock. Of course, I don’t HAVE to do this tomorrow……the voices in my head have ADD they might be onto something else tomorrow.

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