A wonderful first meeting

Catherine, Kim, Karen and I traveled to Sarasota today to meet Arlene and Ricky Franco, my cousins. Arlene is the daughter of my late Aunt Edie, my father Mel Kohn's sister.
Arlene and Ricky are, to put it best, wonderful people, outstanding hosts and the type to make visitors -- even strangers though related for a lifetime -- feel completely welcome, completely comfortable. And, oddly, I felt an immediate connection with Arlene. Almost like I've known her forever.

But I guess we're from different branches of the same family tree. The same stock. The same blood.

So this visit was something special for me. A chance to commune with a newcomer to my life and family. It was like that from the moment we left the car. An at-ease feeling and openness about our families and, to a large degree, my origins.

After the usual hugs, handshakes, smiles and the like, we got down to business. That business being conjecture, speculation, jokes and what-ifs about the dividing forces between my two parents, Beatrice Spitz and Mel Kohn. Mel was Arlene's uncle and she said he was a pretty good guy.

So what would divide these two to such a degree that Arlene's mom would take the same photo I have of the two of them -- the only photo I had up until the past month of the two of them, or of Mel at all -- and cut my mother out of the picture. It's a literal and figurative phrase in this case, just look at the photo.

Compare it with the one below. It's kind of funny, kind of sad.

Since neither of the key players are with us, it boiled down to speculation, conjecture, educated guesses based upon conversations with said key players and those around them at the time. In other words, we what-iffed the subject about as far as we could. And that wasn't very far.

That said, we couldn't really determine how it was that my mother and my father would have nothing to do with one another during much of her pregnancy and thereafter.

But we do know that after their split, my mom remained in California -- as did my father -- before returning to New York when I was a little over a year old. What roles my aunt Edie, my uncle Dan or my grandmother played in any of this can't be determined.

Maybe that's a good thing.

So given these few facts, we did what anyone in our shoes would do.

We ate.

We talked.

And we got to know one another as best we could for a first time together. We learned about Arlene and Ricky's two kids, Bret and Ali. He's a lawyer, she's studying to be one. He's in Chicago, she's in New York.

We talked about this amazing discovery of a family divided by time. We talked about our parents, our children, our lives.

Ricky gave me a quick tour of the house. One thing you notice are the walls. Or, rather, the artwork on the walls. You see, Arlene is the artist of most pieces. She works in watercolors and oils, though I think she prefers oils. I told her she ought to get her works into a gallery. She's just that good.

I'm so glad we got to know one another and I hope our relationships grow from here.