Family Search: Michael's Life Story

So in the midst of all this searching, I happened upon a most amazing thing. I found my eldest half-brother's recorded life story from 2010. So I not only was able to hear quite a bit about his life, but could also hear his voice...which was somewhat haunting and enthralling at the same time. The quality of his voice did sound a lot like Dad's, with a slightly different accent to it, very subtle; like a different area of California.

He was soft-spoken, and sounded like a gentle, kind person. He started off recounting his earliest memories from childhood, about when he was around 2 years old, and his brother, William, was a baby. He talked about one day when his father came home and an argument started between his mother and father, and there was lots of shouting, and at one point his father became extremely angry and picked the very young Michael up and threw him against a wall and then he fell onto the couch. Then his father walked out, and that was the last time Michael saw him. So that was his very last memory of his father...my father.

Hearing that for the first time sent chills through me. I never expected to find such a bit of history by searching the internet. It goes to show that you never know what you will find when you first start looking, and, I guess, be careful what you look for; you just might find it.

I listened to the recording of Michael's life story, which was part of a Voices of the Sages series that his church had put together. It turns out that Michael found Jesus Christ about 17 years ago, and is considered one of the Sages of the church, recounting the way he was saved and what it meant to him, and how it changed his life forever. He did not speak any further about his/my father, except for that little bit when he was 2 years old; but I began to wonder about his life, and how that episode influenced how he went through his life, and how he eventually found Jesus. He seemed to believe that he has always been searching for something, floundering around, and now was "saved". If it had been any other person recounting this story about his life, I probably would have stopped listening to it halfway through. But, since it was my half-brother, and I was hearing his voice for the very first time, I felt very compelled to listen to his story all the way through. I wanted to know how he felt, and why he felt that way. I wanted to know him. Hear his voice. And see if I could find, or feel, some kind of commonality that might link the two of us together.

I have wanted to find my 3 half-brothers ever since I was a little girl. As I got older I came to believe that it would never happen, and that it really didn't matter.

What brought me to this search in the first place? I guess I was thinking about my dad, on his birthday, on the day he would have turned 96. I was thinking about the few photos that I have from him of his sons, and the one wedding photo of him and Margaret. I began the internet search by looking up his and margaret's names...and found a newspaper article about their wedding announcement on November 20, 1941. That was golden. That eventually led me to Michael's recorded life story on the church web site. It is amazing to me how many parts of life we can now access through this electronic entity we call the internet.

So I feel connected, but I will never contact my half-brother, Michael. I would not want to interrupt his life now. Oh, I would like to sit across a table and spend some time talking with him. And have some time to tell him just what my father was like, and how much I loved him, and that he was a good person, and all of that. But, I do not want to interrupt his life.

The Family Search: Margaret & Michael

I have had some success this past week. I found Margaret first of all, and a newspaper article announcing her and Dad's marriage on November 20, 1941. Since then, I have found Michael and William online, and it has been quite stunning and somewhat shocking to say the least.

In this search I have found out some information that I have been wondering about my whole life; or at least since my awareness of their existence. I actually found an audio recording of Michael's voice where he is telling his life story. This was very emotional for me, as it was him explaining what happened in the early years of his life, and when Dad left. He was about 67 years old, only a few years ago.

This is the terrible reality of how violence can go on from generation to generation. The violence that Dad experienced as a child, the lack of love from his father, the sight of his own father walking away and never coming back - this was the horror that his children experienced and the awful reality that Dad had to face knowing what he had done. I don't know how he could live with himself all those years. But I do believe that to cope with what he had done, and to go on in his life, he eventually must have decided that he would never let that happen again, and he didn't by the time I came along. He loved me, and I new it. He was always there for me. And he never harmed me.

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