Karen's Journey: Another Relative Added to My List

I recieved a very short and sweet e-mail this week from a first cousin I have never met; she saw that I had signed our grandma's guest book on her obituary.

My biological grandmother passed on May 14, 2011, she was 94 years old. I was fortunate to meet her last summer after my biological father called her and told her of my existence. Meeting her was a blessing in my life. She played the guitar, recited her own poetry and made a lot of eye contact with me; she made me feel special.

Finding my true paternal family at the age of 51 was so bittersweet.

My grandma Rose was the mother of nine children, she raised her family during the depression , through war times and poverty. The one gift she bestowed on all of them was the gift of music and most of her children had a career in the music industry at one time or the other. I have been told stories of how poor this family was, but that they use to sit on the front porch of the tiny house in Portsmouth, Va. and play music every night. Neighbors would come from blocks away, my aunts would harmonize the vocals and my father and his brothers would sing the leads.

My cousin called me several nights ago to share some family stories of what grandma was like, since I only met her briefly. The one thing she told me is that grandma Rose was a very strong woman, even though she was 5 feet tall and all of 100 pounds, she was a larger than life personality. She grew a vegetable garden in her backyard until she was in her late 80s.

Of her nine children, she had buried three. One was an aunt everyone says I resemble named Doris, who died of bone cancer; as well as two sons, named Jessie and Eddie.

I am still trying to write this new family into my ancestry tree, as much as I yearn to belong , they are still strangers to me, and I to them. However, meeting my half-sister Kathy, and now talking to my first cousin Julie, I am starting to feel a kinship.

I try to be thankful for what I do have and that is the truth, at last.

Since my appearance on "The View" last week, I have received some very inspiring e-mails of support and more than a few that were not so nice. Even though teen pregnancy runs rampant in our nation today, I have heard a few refer to me as illegitimate and expressed that I should be ashamed of telling this of myself.

I  was an innocent child when I was born in 1958 and after a lifetime of not feeling like I was wanted in any family, I am blessed to have a wonderful husband, three amazing children and a granddaughter who are my family.

Now I have a sister and a cousin too...