Royce Shook

2 years ago · 1 min. reading time · ~10 ·

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Zooming and Family

Zooming and Family

Two years ago, my nephew did a 23 and me DNA test and we discovered that according to 23 and me, we had another brother who was older than I was by three years. I was the eldest of four brothers, so this was a shock. So, after a lot of investigation, he reached out and connected with us, but that is another story.

It was wonderful to meet him and to learn his story. At one point, he asked me, “What if my dad had known of his birth?” My answer was that I would not exist.

Because he is on the other side of North America, and because of COVID and Travel restrictions, we knew we were unlikely to meet in person, so we set up a monthly ZOOM meeting. Once a month, my four brothers and I meet to talk and to catch up. In 2020, we had a family ZOOM meeting but without my older brother, as we were investigating and figuring out our new relations. This year (2021) we had the second family Zoom meeting, and we invited my older brother and his family. His sister, his daughter, her husband, two grandsons and their children were there at the meeting. As none of us use ZOOM regularly, we take advantage of the 40-minute limit, but ZOOM upgraded us to unlimited minutes. 

We used the extra time well and before I knew it, two and half hours had flown by. My older brother’s family and our family explored our stories and learned a lot about each other. As one child said, “It is so nice to meet a family we did not know we had.” It was one highlight of my Christmas this year and look forward to meeting them again.

One of my great-nieces is learning to read, and she had her favourite book and she read it to us, another highlight of the meeting. Technology brings people together and as COVID continues to advance and attack, we will use more technology to keep in touch.

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