Nyel, Cousin Diane, Sydney, Gayle
Yesterday we drove into Portland and back just to have lunch. It’s not a trek I recommend for a blustery, stormy day but I wouldn’t have stayed home for the world. It was a red-letter occasion for sure. We met living proof that Nyel is not an orphan!
This was not one of those “meet your biological mother” events like many of my friends have had. And it wasn’t as a result of discovering people with the same genetic markers. But it was, indeed, a serendipity spinoff from the high tech internet world we flail around in even in isolated Oysterville.
Nyel’s Mother and Diane’s Mother, c. 1940s
First let me say that by the time Nyel and I met he was forty and had already outlived both parents. He was an only child and though he had four cousins – two on each side of his family – he had not seen or heard from or of them since his early teens. “For all intents and purposes, I’m an orphan,” he told me and that seemed to be the way he liked it.
Over the years, I’ve often marveled at how my orphan husband has embraced my family – first my parents and my uncles and aunts, then my cousins (first, second, third, and beyond,). To his further credit, he has taken on the stewardship of my grandparents’ house and takes pride in Oysterville, the village co-founded by my great-grandfather. Adoption works both ways and Nyel has adopted more family than he could have imagined thirty-five years ago when we met.
Fast forward to last fall when I received an email from a woman named Diane. She lives in Arizona and ran across one of my blogs online. “I have a cousin Nyel Stevens who was born in 1943. I haven’t seen him since high school…” OMG! I was so excited! But, Nyel dragged his feet in getting back to her. Fortunately, she is a patient woman and last week, out of the blue, we got a phone call. Diane and her daughter would be in Portland for a few hours on Tuesday. Could we meet for lunch?
Nyel’s Uncle Grove and his Mom, Muriel c.1940
When they realized that Oysterville was much farther away than they imagined, we suggested meeting at our favorite lunch place, Papa Hayden’s on NW 23rd. “I’ll make the reservations,” I heard Nyel say. “Is it just the two of you?” As it turned out, it was Diane and her husband Gayle, their daughter and son-in-law and five grandchildren!
At their suggestion, we sat at separate tables – us old ducks at one and the young folks across the restaurant a bit. I don’t know about the others, but it was non-stop talking at our table! Almost sixty years of catching up for Diane and Nyel, common backgrounds for Gayle (a retired school principal) and me, introduction by photos to their other nine children and their many grandchildren and now great grandchildren! (There were sixty of them at their Thanksgiving gathering for ‘immediate family’ last year!) And so many memories and stories triggered by old snapshots Diane had brought along!
We parted with promises to visit them in Mesa with a reciprocal visit on their part to Oysterville. I hope those things happen. It’s pretty special to go from ‘orphan’ status to ‘cousin of the multitudes’ in one fell swoop! Once again, hooray for my Oysterville Daybook and the World Wide Web!
A gem of a day and blog! Congratulations to Nyel! I love the Internet for the connections it reestablishes with those who would have been lost to us forever. <3