A father and a brother speaks out!

PROUD FATHER, LOVING BROTHER Reaching Closure
By Robert Fabrikant 

More than 50 years ago I first learned that my father had a son from a former marriage. For reasons entirely inexplicable, I never sought out my brother from that former marriage. My father had turned his back on that son when the boy was not even 10 years old. Perhaps out of a sense of loyalty to my father, I blindly followed his example. Even after my father died, I stayed the course without giving it any thought. I did so even though my father had never told me why he had forsaken his first son.

But it would be wrong to blame my father for my own lack of action. After all, I had never even asked him why he had stopped talking to his son Mel. Nor had it registered with me that no explanation by my father could possibly justify his decision to forfeit a son, especially one of such a tender age.

It took my own daughter, Alexis, aged 24, to correct this situation. Just a few months ago she probed me about my failure to have any contact with my father's son by his first (and second) marriage. (He married his first wife twice!) She wanted to know how I, at age 62, could be so lacking in curiosity and compassion. She literally took the bull (shit) by the horns. She Googled Mel Fabrikant, called him, and put in motion the steps necessary to bring about the first meeting between long-lost brothers.

I am extraordinarily proud that my daughter Alexis was persistent and passionate enough to enable me to meet my brother Mel. Though Mel and I do not share the same mother, we have dispensed with the "fraction." We treat each other as full brothers. I want to give Mel the love that I have shared with my other brothers, and help him reach closure on the tragedy which dominates his memory of our father. I want to thank Alexis not only for helping all of us reach closure on this ugly family chapter, but for opening up new horizons of love for our extended families.