Long Lost Brother......

My long lost brother came into town yesterday. Kinda crazy, overwhelming, exciting, weird, and sad all at the same time. This is only the second time in my life that I have had the opportunity to meet him. My mom had Will as a teen and placed him up for adoption in California. About 10 or more years ago he hired a PI to find his biological parents. That is when I first found out that he even existed. So weird! I mean I had spent most of my life wishing that I had an older sibling and then over night one just appeared. Who is this guy? What does he look like? Why did he find us? We had so many questions and no answers at all. After Will found us he stopped contact for a couple years. He now has told me that it was all very overwhelming. It's kind of like having a box in front of you. You really want to know what is in the box so you peek under the lid. Instead of just getting to see whats under there the whole box explodes in your face!

 About eight years ago Will and his wife came to town because their daughter was sick and having a procedure done near by. That was the first time that we met. He was essentially a complete stranger, but he fit right in. It's amazing how even though you are raised across the country from someone they still can act exactly like you. He was only here for a day or two during that visit. When he left eight years ago he continued to keep minimal contact with my mother and no contact with us kids. Mom e-mails him every now and then with updates on our lives, sometimes she will get a response, sometimes not. So you can imagine what a surprise it was to find out that he was coming to visit us, for no reason other than to visit. He contacted my mom a week or so ago and said he was trying to do some soul searching.  He feels like there is a black hole in his life where his biological family should be. Will said he would be coming alone, living his wife and four kids back in Pasadena, CA. He wanted to come here and spend some one on one time with us, possibly meet his dad, and explore Kalamazoo.

Will arrived on Tuesday night and checked into the hotel where my sister Ana works. Wednesday I met up with him for lunch at Food Dance. We talked for hours, strolled around downtown, went to the KIA (Kalamazoo Institute of Art), and grabbed some coffee. He is so easy to talk to and such an amazing and accomplished person. He has all the same talents and positive traits as the rest of my family. The difference is he went to college, graduated with a bachelors in fine art, and continued on a successful path. Will has done set design and art directing for films (not just small films might I add). Some movies that he has worked on were Lemony Snicket, Hancock, Grinch who Stole Christmas, and many more. About two years ago he got out of the film industry and focused on the preschool that his wife had been running. That same year they purchased a second preschool and got that up and running. They now have two successful schools with a total of 196 students ages 2-5 years. On top of running the schools they have their own four children (Keagan-9, Addison-8, Weylin-5, Imogen-3). With all this going on Will said he just needed to take some time away and focus on himself.

He is leaving today. I am grateful that I had this opportunity to once again meet and spend time with my brother, even if it was only for a couple days. I just hope that this time he doesn't close the lid all the way. I would like to continue to keep contact open between us. I can't help but feel that God sent him here for a reason, I'm not sure what that reason is right now, but I don't want to give up before I find out. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of him, but I stole this one off of his wife's FB...lol.