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Muffins and Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life
AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win: Goto: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader
Dear Reader,
I'm on vacation this week. Congratulations to Diane O'Neill, one of the three runner-ups in this year's Write a Dear Reader Contest. Not only is Diane a wonderful writer and storyteller, she's easy to talk to.
When I phoned to tell her she was one of our contest winners, immediately I liked her. Right up front with her feelings and what's going on in her life, I discovered we had a lot in common. We both have three eccentric kitties, Diane's a writer (and a darn good one, too) and 20 years ago when she was recovering from being hit by a car (lugging a cast and crutches for a year), she discovered first-hand what few transportation options were offered to people who have a disability. "I assumed there were systems set up to help folks get around. I was wrong."
Experiencing a long recovery from a concussion, and her leg being in a cast for a year, Diane found new direction for her life. Ever since she's been very active in disability rights, and she uses her gift of writing to further that cause.
Diane's been reading at the book clubs since 2000 and every year she's entered the Write a Dear Reader Contest.
"This year was your year, Diane! Thanks for entering and for sharing such a delightful, heartwarming story. Congratulations!"
-- Suzanne Beecher
Siblings
Most people's memories of brothers and sisters go back to diaper days, but I was a college freshman when I learned I had half-siblings, and I met Chuck when I was twenty-eight.
One January evening in 1984, while I was typing away in my space-heated Chicago apartment, a little kid from downstairs banged on my door. The building was old and the doorbell didn't work.
"There's a man downstairs to see you."
Downstairs, I pulled back the door window's curtain and saw a man, about my age, with black hair that fell in his eyes. He wore dark-framed glasses and a charcoal overcoat.
"Are you Diane O'Neill?"
"Yes..."
"Chuck O'Neill's daughter?"
Who would know that? My parents divorced when I was a baby and I rarely talked about my father.
"Yes..."
"I'm Chuck Jr."
I looked closer, at the piercing eyes, the face more rectangular than round, the broad forehead, and I remembered a black-and-white photo in an album of my mother's.
I opened the door.
We talked for hours, and I learned about my other three half-brothers and my half-sister. They lived in Indiana. Jim was a minister, Dave drove a truck, John was away at college--ironically, one I'd attended, too--and Peggy was a high school junior. Chuck, the oldest of my half-siblings, worked in electronics and was here on business. He took time to explain how batteries work--and he offered to fix my doorbell. Every time he slipped and said "my" father, he quickly corrected himself to say "our."
But for me, the sibling bond wasn't automatic--Chuck was a stranger, and so were these other people in Indiana. Did I want to let them into my life? I felt cautious: "You guys don't know anything about me!" He responded wryly, "What do you want to do, send us a resume?" But a new boss would know more about me.
I didn't see Chuck for two years. Then one day he left a message on my answering machine, saying our father's mother had died: "She was your grandmother." But I had only met her once, when I was eleven.
Chuck called again: "We're back from the funeral--can we come over?"
An hour later, four half-brothers, one half-sister, a sister-in-law, a fiance, and my dad filled my living room.
I don't remember much from that afternoon. I showed my dad an article I'd had published. Peggy and I stared at each other, smiling, trying to figure out if we resembled each other.
Differences existed, emotional landmines to be sidestepped. My half-siblings grew up in small-town Indiana; I grew up in Chicago on welfare. Being abandoned for a new family leaves scars. I listened while my half-siblings reminisced about trips to "our" grandparents' house, when they mentioned an uncle who never called me niece. At our father's funeral, Peggy mentioned father-daughter times I'd never known.
Yet somehow, slowly, with twists and turns, half-siblings became siblings. John and his wife asked me to be godmother to their daughter and son. At my goddaughter's First Communion party, chatting with a sister-in-law's dad about his poetry, listening to my brothers debate Star Trek episodes, watching my son play with my godson, it hit me--I fit in.
Two brothers and their families now live in the Chicago area, and every Christmas Eve we gather at my place. Three years ago, Chuck took my son to Disney World. Jim calls often from Florida; when Peggy visited from Arizona, I cooked pasta for her, her mother-in-law, and my niece Becca.
Recently, I hosted a Game Day, complete with Apples to Apples and pizza. A new friend joined us, and I mentioned that I'd met my siblings when I was close to thirty.
"Stop. That can't be. You're all the same, the same sense of humor--"
Perhaps that explains how we became family--we are family.
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE REAL STORY OF AH-Q AND OTHER TALES OF CHINA by Lu Xun. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/September11Classics
AUTHORBUZZ: AS FAR AS THE HEART CAN SEE by Mark Nepo
This book is a collection of stories I've encountered and told for many years in my life as a teacher. The thing about telling and listening to a story is we discover each other, often unexpectedly. Ultimately stories bear witness to our love and suffering and reaffirm that we're not alone.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader Click on AS FAR AS THE HEART CAN SEE to read more. Author Mark Nepo would love to hear from you.
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