Martin Bridgeman

Wonderfully, as it happens.

Because of a little pressure on a major work project my thoughts were not totally on the upcoming meeting. That worked in my favour in a way because of my tendency to overthink some things. It hit me at odd times though; shopping, driving, just as I drifted to sleep. I was about to meet blood relatives. It was a little daunting but it found its insistent place more as the weeks went on. 

We were still working through the social worker who’s been a constant in all of this, from 1998 in fact. (I could never be accused of rushing into things I suppose). We chatted about possible meeting dates and in time agreed to deal directly with each other, me and my sister. That took a little time to sink in and at that stage I still didn’t know many details. Emails exchanged, tentative steps, finding our respective footings. Again, another step towards meeting and then the best way to describe things is a steady, almost insistent stream of facts, principally that I was now a brother to two sisters and five brothers. It’s a hell of a thing for a previously only child to find himself in this position. I have a truly wonderful older half sister, that I knew in 1999, but now two more and five brothers to meet? We took our time to get to know one another, each respecting the other’s space and it has been very rewarding for us both, of that I’m sure. Now I’m the oldest of another family? 

People talk about the range of emotions that can run through you when confronted with this type of information. I was told by my social worker that my silence and facial expressions when told about my sister initially were priceless. She meant it in a good way, of that I’m sure. Anyone who knows me knows that I can talk but there you go. Some things just give you pause for thought. And here it was, seven times more.

I’ve written about that place before and it came back to me again recently; the wonder of it all, the worry of it all; will we get on (yes, and very much so), how alike are we (quite, in some ways, not in all). People write about levels of obsession and that is what it is. Your focus turns full face to that other person or people in ways that are hard to explain to people that are not adopted. For only children, it is a complete change in your sense of self. As an adopted person you do feel anger too, wondering if we could have been together, the whys and wherefores and the feeling of being somehow being cheated. It took me time to wrestle the negatives out of myself and to focus on building a new relationship with a then stranger, a half sibling. These are new times, pose many questions and an involve attempts to piece the jigsaws of our lives. It’s a work in progress, like any relationship, and our many long conversations have bonded us over the years in a relaxed way while we managed our complex feelings and understandings. It’s been nothing but good, fantastic even, but not anything like completed. However, fantasy and reality are not companions. It’s a fact that we were raised separately and my fantasy was wanting a sibling in my childhood. No amount of anger can change it and, after a while, I accepted it, with help and support from professional people and my loved ones. 

It’s a fact of life that some only children crave the company that siblings bring. Some are perfectly happy being on their own. As an adopted person who discovers, at almost forty years of age, that he has an older sister,  it was bittersweet. As I said elsewhere, it’s complicated. Now, here I am at fifty seven and seven more siblings? Deep breath!

And so, fast forward to January and the initial emails. Quickly I discover that I am now the eldest of seven siblings on my father’s side. Once again I have rattled a family tree and now I have seven more blood relatives. Once again, the complexity of it could have been overwhelming but with professional support and that of loved ones who asked the questions I did not often articulate, I managed to come to terms with this breathtaking discovery. Of course, DNA is a major step forward and it did away with some uncertainties but apart from that this was fresh territory for this group of seven and for me. I emailed some pen pictures to set some sort of scene and I got some emails back in time. One started with the line:

“This is your brother xxxx, formerly the eldest boy in the family. 😂”

That took the breath away.

That said, this email and the others were not all dramatic, but were all warm and welcoming and all expressed the hope to meet and how much they were all looking forward to it.

This helped the nerves in ways I can’t fully express but I took great solace from the generosity of spirit. More details came, some social media contacts with in-laws gave up more detail in a normal way, bringing me up to speed. Pictures came too, smiling faces and proud parents, beloved memories and videos, gently introducing the the wider family…and the sheer volume of numbers…

That said, it would never replace a face to face experience and I was heartened to hear that everyone would be able to make the first meeting. We talked more tentatively, then more openly and then to practical details. We agreed that we would meet as immediate family, me with my wife and the seven siblings. We agreed that a private room in a hotel would work best for everyone. 

I imagined a formal, business setup; screens, bottles of water, tea and coffee but the alternative was not neutral ground or a wide open space where private moments could not be shared. It was obvious we all felt the same and so we finalised times. 

We drove to a hotel about ten minutes from where I grew up, the irony not lost on me. My wife and I discussed how nervous we both were but equally how determined we were for this to work. What could we do in any event? We had a place to meet, in private, we’d all been discussing separately and together how we all wanted this to go well? What could possibly go wrong? 

Nothing. That’s what went wrong. 

I managed to get there early so was in the room first, paced around a bit, felt nervous, then relaxed, then nervous again and resigned to the fact that I was bound to be nervous. Thankfully that took about two minutes and then there was a knock on the door. Almost all arrived in together, smiling, hands outstretched, welcoming. We laughed nervously about the room, joked about who was going to make the presentation and whether the equipment would work. We knew we had some similar business experiences and this was a link back to our exchanged emails so we were sitting down, practical things taking over, who wanted tea, still or sparkling water, the nervousness easing. I avoided the chair at the top of the table and we sat as around a square table as you can.

Soon I was at ease, we were at ease, our stories flowed and a relaxed ‘agenda’ emerged. We all expressed that this was what we were all waiting for and that we were all happy to be together on this. The family dynamic established itself quickly; banter, anecdotes and that ease became the norm, each of the brothers and sisters filling in, joking, details flowing in conversation, exchanging more and more detail. Pictures were exchanged too, emotional moments ebbed and flowed and soon we lost track of time. Three hours passed easily. Some of the family had planes to catch, places to be, family commitments and travel to organise and so we parted with plans to meet again. 

We went for lunch, tried to managed the transition back to ‘normal’ and throughout my wife and I said very little, letting the moments and the meeting sink in, but we prompted each other with details, remarkable facts and checking if we’d heard the same things. We agreed that it had gone extremely well and that our nervousness was probably misplaced but understandable.

We then met my oldest friend, the brother from another mother, who has been my go to in the personal things and that allowed us to share, explain, remark and bounce ideas off each other. It was almost the perfect way to step down from what had, in retrospect, been an emotional few hours. In telling him what had happened we were able to make better sense of it. 

Later that night I had a text from my brother who said he had been to see an aunt and explained about me. She had, it seemed, taken it in her stride and I relaxed a little more. I thanked him by text and he texted back:

“Not at all, Martin, you are part of the family”

I’ll take that