I think I have a half brother. My step mom told me and my sister one day randomly that our dad told her he has a son who was born before he started dating my mom. My mom and dad started dating in high school but my dad was a senior then. And my stepmom says my dad told her before my mom, he was dating a girl and she got pregnant. His mom told him he needs to step up and take care of the baby so she moved in with them when she was pregnant. But when the baby was a week old she left and left a note for my dad that said she didn’t want him to be the father. And he never heard from her or the son since. My step mom says my dad hasn’t told us this because he doesn’t want anybody to know but this past year he’s been thinking about that boy so much and wants to see if he’d be able to find him. I don’t know if it’s true but if it is I think it would be cool to try and help my dad find him. And I wish he’d tell me if it’s true so he would know there’s nothing to be ashamed about.

My great grandmother was around 92 years old when she passed away. Throughout my life I have seen her a lot since she lives relatively close (about 20-30 mins away). I moved away to florida for college in 2020. Fall of my freshman year in college covid was huge and my great grandmother wasn’t doing too well. Spring rolled around and my great grandmother had beaten covid and pneumonia. She was a very strong woman. I was about a month away from being home when she was put in the hospital again for covid symptoms. Everything seemed to be fine with her health but my mom asked me to facetime her cause she missed me. I facetimed her later that night and promised her I would see her in a month. She passed away about a week later while I was on spring break. It was slightly unexpected given her age and health condition. I was at the bar with my friends. Safe to say it changed my night around really fast. I was 3 hours away from my school with friends for spring break. My parents didn’t want to fly me all the way up the next day for the funeral and ruin the rest of my vacation because it was a decent amount of money to fly on such short notice. I watched the funeral from a room at my friends beach house. I couldn’t help but cry because of how awful I felt that I couldn’t be there. My regret isn’t that I wasn’t able to say bye. My regret is all the times I could’ve gone over there when i got older and had a car and chose not to because she lived so close and I thought I saw her enough with my family. When I got back home for summer break I went to her grave to honor the last promise I made to her. Just wish I could’ve did it in person.

• June 27, 2023