A "Wild" coincidence!

A woman gets a few chapters into a library book and realizes the author is her half sister:

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/219754257/the-wild-story-of-cheryl-strayed-and-her...

I found this as interesting as the reunion: The woman was attracted to the book because of the cover: A hiking boot against a white backgound.

That is an interesting story. It struck me that the author was somewhat reticent to communicate with her half-sister (hadn't met, talked on the phone, had no plans to).

Also struck me that the author said that her half-sister was able to trick out who she was despite the fact that they she'd tried to be careful about not revealing identities.

I've not read the book, but I can imagine: If one's life is filled with so much drama/trauma as to fill a book, some level of family estrangement or self-imposed isolation could be expected. They may go several years, until one of them gets sick (or something), before they decide "family is family" and finally get together.

My dad never knew his father (his father was a bigamist, talk about wild tales!). He met his half siblings, who had grown up with their mutual father, when he was about 70. They brought photos, were generous in answering questions. But after that, they sort of moved out of each other's spheres.

Wow! I hope you took notes: Those must have been some good stories worth keeping for future generations! Age 70 is about what I'd imagine: A search for resolution, a look toward the Big Picture, etc.

It was really an incredibly sad and rather puzzling story. My grandfather was something of a cipher who had no talents or skills except the ability to get very young small-town women with to marry him and then establish a line of credit on his wives' families' reputations, which he then gambled away. He had at least three families before he finally settled down.

A woman I knew was contacted by her unknown half brother after her long absent father died. Her father was one of those men who literally went out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. His first family never heard from him again, but he had a second family in another state and the oldest son had some inkling that the first family existed and he sought them out after his father died. They visited and exhanged letters and phone calls for a while and then they settled down to Xmas cards.

I don't think that the multiple family situation is all that rare, and I am sure that it will be harder to keep hidden in these days of social media.

What I find even more interesting is a statement that a geneticist friend made to me. Her doctoral dissertation was on some genetic eye disorder and she took hundreds of family DNA samples. She was alarmed at how often people turned out not to be the biological children of the men who they thought were their fathers. Most of the time she suspected that the mothers weren't sure or were unwilling to admit it to themselves. She found herself in a big ethical dilemma about what to tell them,

Tattletale DNA is something that we will probably be hearing a lot more stories about in fact as well as fiction.

Seems there are several ideas for "ripped from the headlines" type novels here.

The bit about DNA is interesting.

As a college teacher, I am privy to conversations I wish I weren't.

A a young man confided to a friend that he had had to get a second job because a young woman of his fleeting acquaintance had given birth to his daughter.

The friend said, "Whoa, dude, get that tested! You don't need to be paying for somebody else's mistake until she's 18!"

The first student said he had already had the test and he was indeed the father.

"Bummer," said his friend.

#7 I had heard that about DNA tests and biological children before. People lived in ignorance before them unless there were real discrepancies in appearance, and we might have been the better for that.