rechelle's lifelyrics

Even though I didn’t know him very well, I grew up living with, and getting to know my Dad – his mannerisms, the kind of music he liked, the way he laughed, the little curl on one side of his mouth when he talked. I don’t remember how old I was when I “knew” or highly suspected that my Dad had other kids somewhere out there, but I think I was pretty young. One of my Dad’s half-sisters spent many years working on a family tree history that she published in 2002, and my suspicions were confirmed on the page preceding my family (Mom, Dad, Brother, and me) page. I was in my 30’s with several children of my own by the time I saw the name of a woman my Dad never married, along with their child that was born a couple of years before me – with only “Boy” in the name field. So a hunch was confirmed, but a bigger mystery was created. Who was the boy? Did he know about us in the same sort of vague way we knew about him? Would I ever find out who he was?

Fifteen years later, I received a random Facebook message from a man claiming to be my brother. Our first phone conversation was over 2 hours long, and I found out he never knew his true identity until both of his biological parents had passed away. Our Dad had been gone for 25 years, and his Mom had been gone for 15 years.

When we met in Arizona later that year, I was blown away by how much he resembled our Dad – looks, some of the mannerisms I remember, the little curl on one side of his mouth when he talks… For him, discovering his heritage and the large family he belongs to was bittersweet. It was hard to get over being lied to by the woman who raised him, who was no longer around to help him understand her “why.” She was married to a Caucasian man by the time he was born, and he spent his entire youth believing that the man who raised him was his biological father. Growing up, he sometimes wondered why he looked different than the rest of his family, but it wasn’t anything that ever spurred a truthful conversation. So many things about himself became clear on that trip to Arizona, where we met for the first time in person, and he got to meet several of our Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and their children. He kept saying he felt cheated by not knowing about his Native American heritage for over 50 years of his life. He didn’t get to build memories and relationships with his siblings and extended family. He never got to meet his Dad that was the other half of who he is.

One of the days while we were in Arizona, we got to spend some time with our Dad’s brother who I always loved to hear play guitar and sing at our family gatherings when I was a girl. My newfound brother was fascinated to learn about the musical talent in our family, because he was the only one who played music in his family growing up. I shared stories with him about our uncle’s beautiful voice and playing, how our Dad would pull out his clarinet once in a while to play, and about our Grandfather who was a brilliant musician and performed regularly in a mariachi band in Los Angeles. I was fascinated to learn my Brother also was a professional musician for a season of his life, and there was a slim chance we crossed paths in our youth. That day in Tucson, he played guitar and we sang together for our elderly and afflicted uncle. It was pretty amazing that my newfound brother and I really had that “sibling blend” even though we had no history together!