SUNDAY JULY 27- A NEW BEGINNING!

For the first time ever the Riley's (Britta,shane,Tim and I ) were on time. 10:30 on the dot we rang the doorbell of Steve Fritz's home( my newly found half brother) with palpable mixed emotions of expectation and trepidation. We were greeted with hugs and obvious sincere exuberance and extensive preparation. Food, name tags notebooks for each to sign with contact information and boxes of archival material that my mother had collected documenting meticulously family events in her own handwriting and scrapbook style. Obviously that is one gene that she did not pass on to me.

It took about 7 1/2 minutes for the loving welcome and obvious desire for connection to assuage all our jitters and we all settled into really getting to know our new family. We laughed cried and went through albums and scrapbooks each prompting tales of what it was like to live in the Aldeen Johnson Fritz family.

This went on until about 2 o'clock when cousins ,first, second and many times removed kept pouring in with their families. The heat kept us all congregated into the house most of the day which lent itself to many individual side conversations. I heard heartwarming versions of Aldeen as a mother, grandmother, wife, friend. Of course speculation on how I came to be and the possibility that perhaps we all have the same father has spurned many new ideas of how to track him down.

It's hard to express the joy I felt on hearing what a wonderful woman she was. Enduring whatever was necessary during those times for an unwed mother and then having the largess to give me up for adoption of course is a gift of love hard to comprehend much less find words to adequately express gratitude.

To have had six more children and apparently several miscarriages and then raised them apparently with little help from an alcoholic husband. "She was the family glue". "She was my "special person", I could tell her everything and I still do." It was these conversations that revealed her character and touched my heart with a desire to emulate her.

Britta, Shane, Tim also gained a deep respect for their grandmother as they heard tales from so many others. We tried to say goodbye several times but something would start another story and so by 8:30 PM (nonstop since 10:30 AM) I told them what Riley would say" You said you were going SO NOW GO".!!

We compared endless stories till we got back to the hotel but I for one was exhausted, exhilarated, overwhelmed and immediately crashed with visions of the tears in Steve's eyes as he said "I had so hoped it would go well, but this was over the top more than I had ever dreamed of."

I must've slept but not until I had reviewed in my head every conversation. Prayers were especially difficult for saying "Thank you" was hardly adequate. Realizing that not only was I given a beautiful adopted life but then to be given another whole family of love is --- well--- being truly Blessed. Amen

Moms wedding picture