just a good news update, and apology
my next door neighbor I mentioned 2-3 months ago, recently diagnosed with cancer, but had no contact with son or daughter in many years…the one I tried to be a hero on, by finding the daughter on facebook and trying to contact her, as well as showing him his grandkids photos for the first time.
both the son and the daughter just visited him. seems they found out by word of mouth, despite having moved away. She told him she never received my FB msgs, and I think that is due to a flaw in FB - if you get unsolicited msgs from ppl not on your freinds list, you must go thru several steps to find them (msgs icon, then “other”). I had no idea, and sure enough I even had some aged msgs there. I believe they self destruct after so many days (so FB users you may want to check every so often, as FB does not flag you when an “other” msg arrives.)
Many of you told me to stop stalking her. Which I did. Seems the grape vine worked better than my well intentioned efforts. It was like the scene from “Home Alone” where the “scary” old man in church, that lives next door, is reunited with his long lost kids and grandkids…and right at Xmas to boot.
So it ended on a good note.
And my apologies for snapping at those who accused me of stalking his son & daughter.
I opted not to go over and meet them, altho he said they all walked over to meet me…but I have a 3 story house, and the door bell only rings on the middle level (I finished the lower level and moved into it last summer).
So I just observed the initial reunion from a distance.
He is now about 2 months into Chemo and radiation treatment, but seems happier than ever before. Not sure if it was doctors orders, but he also stopped drinking. My hunch is the drinking was tied to not seeing his kids / grand kids all these years, and it is no longer needed.
PS at the same time, I received a pleasant email from my ex, updating me on the kids (hers) -and I was able to set one of them up with a mentor in her very unique planned field of study, with only me and the ex knowing I was orchestrating it (to avoid a confrontation with her ex, the kids dad, that she went back to).
So all has ended well.
signing off now, before this starts to sound like a jackie deshannon song