Beautiful Strangers

It’s been a big year. One could say, a year of the unexpected. A year of circumstances that seem to be happening to us, but we still maybe aren’t quite convinced they are real. Somehow we have taken a peek, “Through the looking glass” to a world that suddenly appears recognisable, yet unfamiliar, and upside down.

It had seemed to us meeting strangers who share half your DNA is reserved only for plot twists in a good drama, or perhaps those who had been involved in a life long search for adopted family members.

However, life assures us that none of us are immune to the calamity that comes with being human. And if calamity looks like a different father, and new grandmother, and gaining two brothers, two sister-in-laws, four nephews and one niece, while also not replacing the ones that you have? Well, perhaps it is truly perplexing, and equally wonderful, all at the same time?

Joel and Hayley, Sam and Meghan, we loved meeting and spending time with you and the kids. Strangers, with so much to talk about.

The common thread of the past which ties us together is truely complex. And while looking out at the world from the inside of a mirror is perplexing, backwards and upside down, perhaps it can help us see the future we want to walk into with so much more clarity. And that, is a gift.

You guys arrived as names we had heard, and you left feeling more like friends.

We look forward to seeing you all again soon,

Corey, Mel and the kids.