You look like my grand-dad

He answered the e-mail graciously, saying he'd love to talk about the upcoming four hour hike, as well as the Nature Preserve. I noted in the e-mail that if he were the son of Sharon, then I "knew of his grandfather from Scouting in Inglewood" a long long time ago.

We met; he greeted me with a big smile and a hearty handshake. For fifteen minutes, he regaled me with stories about the land, restoring the native flora, and how this all happened. Then, to the hike question, which I parried by saying I really had a different question by now, for which I needed to ask his confidence and his indulgence.

As I started the phrasing, he stopped me, backed away, and said, "you are the spitting image of my grand-dad; I've been looking for the Masonic ring, you're like a ghost from the past." The story unfolded easily from there, until he asked if his mother knew. As I said "no" he blurted out "well, she is pretty open-minded. Do you want to meet her?"

Ten minutes later, as I walked up to her door, she met me with folded arms and a quizzical look. "what's the story" she demanded. I froze, and blurted out, "do you want the short version or the long one?" She said, "let's try the short one" which turned out to be a show-stopper.

Recovery was not instantaneous. But when it happened, it was marvelous in terms of humanity and bonds that can exist even though we don't know them, or can't even imagine them. We embraced; we cried; we laughed.

And then, myriad questions. Who, how, how long, did she, did he??? It turns out that genetics does determine lots of things we decided that afternoon -- hobbies, habits, mannerisms, looks, attitudes, figures of speech even. Wild. Delicious. And somehow fulfilling to know, finally.