Feeding the Tree

I have a confession: I’m kind of addicted to reels. Videos of family members reuniting after long periods apart always get me. I can’t get enough of them. I love them.

The one of the military woman surprising her son at the pep rally? Or the twenty-something year old man who’s been away for two years because of Covid and surprises his mother at the restaurant, pretending to be the waiter? Waterworks. Without fail.

Don’t even get me started on the shows and documentaries about adoptees searching for their biological parents. Have you ever seen “Long Lost Family”? The hosts, who are adoptees themselves, help other adoptees locate their family members. We root for them, desperately wanting them to find what they’re looking for.

We all want to know where came from and to whom and how we're connected -- not just on the tree, but through anecdotes. How else can you explain why a second cousin twice removed would reach out rather than be satisfied by seeing my name pop up on her tree?

As for the DNA show, at the moment the biological parent and child first see each other, they are no longer just data on a report or a name on a photocopy of a vital statistics record. They’re no longer an idea, but a real, live being.

At this point, I’m bawling.