Six degrees of sibling separation

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a game based on the “six degrees of separation” concept, which posits that any two people on earth are, on average, about six acquaintances apart. The following reads like a cliché Hollywood movie; however, this is not the imaginative tale of a screenwriter but rather one of fact that may someday become a Hollywood story. The following requires a bit of setup, but the conclusion is worth the read.

On Christmas Day about ten years ago, my mother pulled me aside from family and friends to tell a story that left me in a state of disbelief. She explained that nearly five years before my birth, she had given birth to a baby boy, whom she put up for adoption. A loving family, which included two sisters, adopted the newborn. He was never told of his adoption, yet his entire life he had felt a sense of disconnect. The adoptive parents intended to take the truth of his origins to their grave. However, as an adult, his sisters insisted that their parents tell their brother the truth. After an ultimatum from the siblings, the adoptive parents finally shared the facts of his birth. Some thirty years later, the adopted child (Jeff) went on a quest to find his birth mother. On this Christmas Day, my mom informed me that her firstborn had found her, and she had recently had her first conversation with the now-grown man.

After having some time to process the information about my newfound sibling, I was filled with a sense of excitement. I was actually the first family member to meet my half-brother. The meeting with him and his wife was pleasant enough, but, oddly, I felt little connection to this person—which begs the proverbial question: nature vs. nurture.

This is just the prequel to this Six Degrees of Sibling Separation story.

Fast-forward a decade. I received a call from my father telling me a story much similar to the one described above, however this one strengthens my feelings that we are all connected by six degrees.

Fast forward a decade. I received a call from my father, telling me a story much like the one described above. However, this one strengthened my belief that we are all connected by six degrees.

A couple of months ago, a car full of women stopped by my father and stepmother’s house in the Olympic Peninsula area of Washington State and knocked on the door. When my stepmother answered, one of the women asked if Jack (my father) was home. As my father greeted the women, they began to ask him questions about people he knew in his youth. After some pleasantries, my father invited them in. The women continued to chat about people he grew up with and soon learned that some of these women were the children of friends from his past. After about an hour, one of the ladies cozied up to my father and whispered in his ear, “I think I’m your daughter.” Taken aback, my father stared, then chuckled in disbelief. He told the woman that this was impossible since he never had relations with the birth mother in question. The woman (Susanne) was insistent and asked if he would be willing to take a DNA test. Though my father was very sure he wasn’t her father, he agreed to appease her. When my dad told me this part of the story, he added a caveat, “There’s no way she could be my daughter because I didn’t have sex with her mother… unless… unless I was really drunk!”

Susanne asked my father if he had any childhood photos. My grandmother was excellent at keeping scrapbooks of each of the kids and grandkids. As they thumbed through the pages, there were photos of the fathers of a couple of the siblings in the room. It’s amazing how all these people were connected. Apparently, Susanne’s mom (no disrespect) was rather “friendly.” While some of the ladies chatted with my father, my stepmother, Hattie, went to make some coffee, and Susanne followed to help. Hattie remarked how much Susanne reminded her of my sister Carylee. Later, Hattie took Susanne upstairs to show her photos of my sister and me. Susanne asked questions about us, one of which was where we lived. When Hattie mentioned that Carylee lived in San Diego, there was a pang in Susanne’s heart. She exclaimed, “I live in San Diego!”

Two weeks later, confirmation arrived. In addition to having a half-brother, I now had a half-sister. Already having gone through this experience once, it was less of a shock this time around. Still, I was extremely interested to learn more about my newfound sister. The story and the serendipity of how Susanne initially met our father are quite fascinating, but I’m going to briefly delve into Susanne’s life and our connections. I should also note that I have yet to meet my new sister in person, but I hope to do so very soon (perhaps a news crew will bring us together to help tell this amazing story).

Susanne was adopted and raised as an only child by older parents who lived in eastern San Diego County, on a 120-acre chicken farm. While Susanne’s adoptive parents were loving, they were also quite poor. She knew from an early age that she was not destined to raise chickens on a dirt farm in rural San Diego. Full of energy, spunk, and moxie, Susanne acquired a fake ID at age fifteen and began skydiving, logging 40 jumps before moving on to her next adrenaline rush. At sixteen, and unbeknownst to her parents, she became a demolition derby driver. After an injury caused a herniated disc and forced her into traction, she gave up the sport. By seventeen, Susanne had left home to join the circus (true story), where she performed with elephants. Dressing up in sequins and wearing makeup with sparkles prepared her for her next adventure a few years later when she became a Hollywood makeup artist.

While in Hollywood, Susanne met her second husband, George, and soon moved back to San Diego to help him establish his law practice. They were a successful power couple living the American dream. For their 20th wedding anniversary, Susanne and George flew to Florida for a cruise. After returning from their cruise, George suffered a cardiac arrest while working out in their hotel room. CPR was administered until an ambulance arrived, but it seemed hopeless, and they were about to cease their attempts to revive him. Susanne was insistent that they continue; this man was the love of her life. They made it to the hospital, and George survived, but not without significant brain damage, which forced the couple to close the law practice and begin a new, more humble chapter of their lives.

During my initial conversation with Susanne, I asked her what part of San Diego she lived in. She asked if I was familiar with the area. I told her that I’d lived in San Diego a couple of times and used to work on Harbor Island as the Director of Marketing for a large yacht dealer. She asked if I knew a guy and provided only his last name, Macintyre. I responded, “Will Macintyre?” and she said yes. “I worked in the same office as this guy,” I exclaimed. She told me that she and her husband were friends and neighbors (I’d even been to Will’s house before). Susanne then told me that she had lived in Arizona a couple of times, including the Phoenix area. When I asked her where, she said it was the same area we had lived in as kids. I asked when she lived there, and when she told me the year they moved away, I said that we also moved that same year… to Texas.

These six-degree-of-separation stories were beginning to freak me out. To further surprise me, Susanne then told me how she showed pictures of me and my full sister to a good friend of hers, explaining that these were her new biological half-siblings. Her friend pointed at my picture and said, “I know that guy!” I found out that her parents owned the Jeep tour business in Wickenburg, AZ, where my mother and stepfather live, where I had recently visited, and for which I had produced a tourism video.

Apparently, Susanne’s friend’s parents had shared my video with her. Just to add more intrigue to the story, after learning this from Susanne, I asked my mom if she knew the owners of the Jeep tour business. She said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, they are clients.” My mom picked up the phone and called the Jeep tour operators to tell them the story, but she was interrupted with, “Are you talking about Susanne?” My mom was floored. While the Jeep tour folks knew of the connection between Susanne and me, they had no idea I was the son of their bookkeeper. In other words, they didn’t realize the person who produced the tourism video was my mother’s son.

There was a linchpin, a piece of the puzzle that nearly didn’t fall into place, allowing for the chain of events to connect. Susanne had been searching for her birth mother for nearly forty years. One reason it had taken so long was that she thought her birth name was “Prat” when it was actually “Prater.” Over the years, Susanne had hired several adoption agency specialists, but to no avail. Just a couple of years ago, she hired Omni Trace, who, for some reason, did not work on her case for a long time. When Susanne finally demanded results, they provided all the information she needed within a few days, allowing her to begin her earnest search for her birth family.

Susanne discovered that her birth family still lived in the Seattle area, where she was born. She reached out and learned she had several brothers and sisters, three of whom were from different fathers. She also learned that her mother had passed away ten years earlier and that she had just missed meeting her mother’s twin sister, who had passed away a couple of months before Susanne found her birth family. With the initial introductions out of the way, Susanne made plans to visit them all and flew to Seattle. Many of the family members met her at the airport, and they planned to meet and spend time together in the coming days. Susanne had made no effort to find her birth father, as no one knew who he was. For all she knew, he had died in the Korean War.

Susanne was staying at her brother’s house when the family decided to organize a gathering to get to know one another and answer her questions. All the siblings except one were there. One sister was delayed due to an accident that prevented a ferry from departing on time. While they were waiting, one of the other siblings said, “We know who your father is.” Stunned, Susanne began asking questions when one of the siblings pulled out their iPad and started searching for our father. My folks own several properties across the state, which is public record. Apparently, they were scrolling through a list of properties and picked one at random, deciding to take a drive to see if they could find Susanne’s birth father.

Six Degrees close encounter…

As soon as the delayed sibling arrived, the family boarded a ferry to Kingston, WA. After a 30-minute drive, they found themselves near my folks’ primary home. Unfortunately, the area is a bit rural, and the GPS was sending them in circles. Spotting a real estate sign, Susanne asked a sibling to pull over so she could grab a flyer and get an address. It just so happened that the flyer she picked up was for my Dad’s home. Astonished, they ventured down the long driveway and saw someone was home.

Had Susanne’s sibling not been late, they would have arrived at my folks’ house to find no one there. It turns out my folks were on the same ferry as Susanne and her siblings. Talk about fate!

After meeting everyone on her maternal side of the family earlier that summer, Susanne returned to Seattle a couple of months later to meet the rest of her paternal family members. Everyone, that is, except me. I think she saved the best for last. 😊 In just a few weeks, I will be making my way to San Diego, where both my sisters live, to meet Susanne for the first time. It’s going to be a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration. Who knows, maybe a local news station will want to tell this story.

2024 Update: A Growing Connection

Over the past decade, Susanne and I have grown quite close, spending holidays together and even taking a couple of trips. One memorable journey was to the San Juan Islands, and another to Tuscany, where we attended a cooking school called Cook in Tuscany. We speak almost every week, and our bond continues to strengthen. Susanne is incredibly kind and generous, and her presence has been a wonderful and welcome addition to my life.

The Plot Thickens: Unexpected Discoveries

Susanne and a cousin of ours were members of a popular DNA family tree website, like 23andMe, where they uncovered even more family connections. It appears that my father was quite the ladies’ man, though he either avoided his responsibilities or was unaware of how many women he impregnated. Unfortunately, he passed away about a year after Susanne first met him, so we will never learn the full story of his romantic entanglements. While there were most certainly hardships for the women he had relationships with during that era, this discovery has turned into a gift for my family and me, bringing us unexpected connections.

A New Sibling: Meeting Ashley

A few years after getting to know Susanne, we made a connection with another sibling named Ashley, who is even older than Susanne. We estimate that our father was around 16 years old when he fathered Ashley. Susanne was the first to reach out and establish a relationship with her, but it was more than a year before I felt ready to connect. Despite Susanne’s encouragement, I hesitated to embark on this strange experience once more. However, over time, I’m so glad I did.

Ashley has two children, and her oldest, Shane, is just a few years younger than I am. We found we had a lot in common, and over time, we’ve been slowly building our own relationship. Recently, I was invited on a press trip to experience a Rhone River Cruise in southeastern France, and Shane joined me. It was an incredible bonding experience, and we had a fantastic time together, discovering even more commonalities. In fact, many people on board asked if we were brothers or related in some way.

A New Definition of Family

Growing up, I had only one sister. Now, I have three, along with a half-brother. According to the DNA website, there may be two more half-siblings out there waiting to be discovered. It’s fascinating how life throws curveballs, and with today’s technology, it’s remarkable to uncover just how connected we all are, in one way or another.

Embracing the Unexpected Six Degrees of Sibling Separation

In a world that often feels disconnected, my journey of finding unexpected family members has been a gift that continues to surprise and enrich my life. From discovering new siblings to building relationships I never imagined, these connections have taught me that family isn’t just about who we grow up with, but who we find along the way. The technology that revealed these hidden ties has brought me closer to understanding my own story and the intricate web of people who are now a part of it.

No matter where life takes us, it’s these connections—planned or unexpected—that make the journey worthwhile.

If you’ve ever been reunited with a lost sibling, as I’ve just outlined by six degrees, please leave a comment below…I’d love to hear your story.