Blood may be thicker, but water is better for you.

Shocked, that was the feeling overloading my senses as I had looked at the message I had received on Myspace. It was 2009, I was 18 years old and sitting in the Arc (academic resource center) at my college in between classes. My entire life I have been told how my biological father wants nothing to do with me, I had never even met him because he left my mother while she was pregnant. I had learned to be ok knowing he did not want to be in my life even though I never really understood it. How can you not want your child? It makes no sense to me. So, you can see why I was so shocked that I have received a message from him. Curiosity eventually got the better of me and I read it. After a while I responded to him and I fully expected not to hear back again because it all just seemed so out of the blue. I could not believe it when not only he wrote me back but so did my aunt (his sister). For some reason it was easier for me to talk to her. I guess I still did not trust my father after being ignored my entire life and finding out that he had stopped his side of the family from contacting me as well. He told me about his wife and how I had two more half-brothers I had never met. I also have two brothers on my mother’s side that I grew up with. I just could not understand how he was so happy to have kept my brothers who are only a few years younger than me but never wanted me until I was an adult. After a few months of messages with him and my aunt I eventually decided it would be ok to meet them all. We sat up a time for them to come to Virginia from North Carolina to meet. I had grown up in North Carolina, but my mom had remarried and moved us to Virginia when I was 15 years old. The weekend came to meet Eugene (my father), his wife Sylvie, my brothers Michael and Caleb, my aunt Sandy and her husband Brad and even my grandfather C.J. To say I was overwhelmed would be putting it mildly because I just was not expecting to meet so many people at once. I ended up having a good weekend with them all visiting, we had met up in town and explored the mountains and attractions around where I lived. I could see where I had gotten my looks from because even though I lived with my mother growing up I do not really look like her or my brothers. It was almost scary how much I resembled all the people I had met from my father’s side though. After they left, I kept in contact with them through messages eventually messaging on Facebook when Myspace became outdated and we talked on the phone occasionally. It took a long time before I called my father anything but his given name Eugene. I immediately took to my brothers and my aunt though and I called them by those names. The way I saw it is that they never had a choice in whether I was in their lives or not and they wanted to be in mine now. My mother and my other two younger brothers on her side were not happy at all and Alan and Timothy were upset I claimed Michael and Caleb as brothers too even though that is what they are. All in all, it was a bunch of drama that I put up with for a few years because I wanted to give everyone a chance to be in my life if that is what they wanted. After a few months Eugene stopped messaging and calling me as much. It bothered me at first, but I would still get one or the other occasionally. It was just still such a new situation and we were all getting used to being in each other’s lives. In 2009 I moved back to North Carolina and saw them every now and then for dinner or hiking trips. I would go to his first wife’s house and visit my brothers who lived with their mom. It stayed like this for a few years with us barely speaking but I figured that was just how it was going to be with us. When I was 22, he and his wife Sylvie told me they were expecting a daughter. I was so excited because I have always wanted a sister. I knew it would be a bit strange because of our 22-year age difference but I was so happy for them. I even attended the baby shower and was there at the hospital when my sister was born. I introduced him to the guy I was dating, and he introduced himself as his first and last name instead of saying he was my dad. That bothered me a bit, but I let it go because there was a lot going on at that time. A few years later in 2014 I got married to Jon and even though Eugene was invited he did not show up. Later that year, my husband and I found out I was expecting a little boy. I was so excited and called to let him know and I did not get the reaction I was expecting at all, but I probably should have been expecting it after everything that had happened. He was upset because he did not want to be a grandfather yet, I was 25 years old at the time. I let it go and focused on the difficult pregnancy I was going through. I had developed pre-eclampsia and Jon and I were terrified we were going to lose our baby boy. I was admitted to the hospital so they could try and stop the preterm labor that had started two months early. I was so scared and called all my family members to let them all know what was going on. When I called my father, he did not answer, I left a message and asked him to call me back. He never did and it hurt. I knew I should not have given him any power to hurt me, but I had because I wanted him to care about me. He eventually told me he did not answer at the time because he was in a bad space and could not deal with me at the time. My son Lee ended up being born 7 weeks early and even though he was only 4 pounds he was healthy and only had to stay in the hospital for two weeks, we were so happy. Over the next year I tried to hold onto the tiny relationship I still had with my father, I saw him one time and he did not even hold my son because he said he was too small. My husband, son and I even went to my little sisters’ birthday, but people there like his wife’s parents and brother asked me who I was and were shocked to find out I was Rose's sister and Eugene's other daughter. Eugene never wanted anything to do with my son and when his wife invited us to hang out after my sister’s party, he told us he did not feel like having company and did not want to see us. I thought about it a lot over the next week and even though I kept trying, it seemed like nothing was ever going to be enough. I made the decision that I did not want to continue trying to let him into my life. I did not want to give him the chance to hurt my son as he was growing up by ignoring him the same way he did me. Lee did not deserve to be treated that way by his grandfather. It did not even really bother me to let go of the idea of having my biological father in my life. I knew that I had tried as much as possible to let him be there. I still talk to my aunt and brothers from that side quite often. Even though my son will be 8 years old this year Eugene has not even tried to contact me for the last 7 years, he even blocked me on all social media, because of that I have not even seen my sister since she was 2. I hope to one day be able to actually meet her and have a relationship with her as well. I may never know why he originally asked to meet me and be in my life almost 10 years ago, but I am grateful for it even after everything I went through with him. Now I have a few family members from that side of my family I love dearly, and I will never have to ask myself what if when it comes to him again. I have always heard that blood is thicker than water, but what I have learned is that while that may be true sometimes water is better for you.