My brother became more real to me on Friday night

Super-wife and I were sitting in our usual spots on the couch watching an episode of Dowton Abbey when I plugged the name of my brother, Claude Thorpe, into Google and it shot back his obituary from a New York newspaper.  I was incredulous that it was him.  He was somebody that I heard of from the time that I was a small boy.  He was never more than a name occasionally talked about and written about in old letters.

But, he was my brother.  Actually, my half-brother.  We shared a father who had him with another woman. As an aside, can you call a half-sibling a brother or sister?  I am choosing to call my half-brother, a brother because I feel he is.  I had one other half-brother and a half-sister.  So, that's two brothers and a sister.

When I found the obit from the paper, my eyes were glued to the reality of family that I never really knew. There was a cautious excitement.  Then I decided to ask my friends for some help.  I went to Facebook and my 800 plus friends and shared a screenshot of the notice of my brother's death and asked for their suggestions to find out more.

The responses poured in within minutes.  Wow!  A neighbor who knows her way around the web and who has an inquiring mind poured her heart into finding more.  A friend in St. Louis joined in.  A family-member in Maine offered some info.  More than 40 responses in a Facebook thread that took place over a couple of hours.

Where do I stand with this?

I know more than I did before.  My brother became a little more real and a couple more holes in my personal identity were filled in.  I will keep working at this.  It's not over yet.  I wish I could have known my brother before he died.  He had my dad's name.  

I find myself remembering what our pastor said in a sermon about identity.  "Remember who you are.  Remember who you are.  Remember who you are."  For too many years, I let my identity of my earthly father rise higher than my identity as the child of my heavenly Father.

I would still like to know more about my dad and his side of the family.