If it’s a first-time reunion, is it a union?

Chew on that one for a while.

Anyway, I ask that question because I saw a first-time reunion last night for a story that I am writing about for next week’s Journal. Here’s an abbreviated version of the story that will run Thursday (we all know that for me, abbreviated versions are impossible, so just consider this an informal version).

***

A 25-year-old Nicholasville man, Michael Gingras, was born in Quebec, went to south Florida at an early age and moved to Nicholasville seven months ago with his wife, Carol, to raise their newborn son, DJ, in what Michael says is a much better environment then the one he grew up in.

Michael hasn’t spoken to his father in eight years. He says his dad didn’t care about family much. After he and his mother left, Michael made his life in Florida. It’s where he grew up, went to school, met his wife, got married. He had no memory of Canada or what might be back there.

***

Carol Poynter, Michael’s mother, was married to Claude Gingras in Quebec 27 years ago. Claude’s daughters from a previous marriage were in the wedding. The family moved to Florida shortly after Michael was born, but Carol and Claude split up. She raised Michael herself amidst the violence and pressures of south Florida. Michael would ask Claude about family back in Canada, but Claude wanted nothing to do with it. He just shrugged the issue off.

***

Marlene Gingras, Claude’s daughter, grew up in Florida but moved back to her home in Quebec 20 years ago. She has tried to get in contact with her father, but he keeps changing his phone number and eventually stopped listing it. Marlene remembered that Carol was pregnant, and she was dying to know what happened to her brother. She tried desperately to find Carol, but over the years, her memory had faded, and she couldn’t even remember Carol’s last name.

***

One of Carol’s friends from work told her that she HAS to get on Facebook so the two of them can play Scrabble online together. Carol thought it was kind of funny for a woman her age to be on Facebook, but she does love Scrabble…

After about a month, Carol figures out that you can search for any name in the world through Facebook. On a whim, she types in “Marlene Gingras.” To her surprise, there were two of them listed, and one was a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair from Quebec City. She sent this Marlene woman an e-mail, asking if she had two sisters, Chantal and Michelle.

“Yes, it’s me,” Marlene responded.

“I’m Cheryl — I’m Mike’s mother,” Cheryl e-mailed back.

Marlene couldn’t believe what she was reading. “Oh my God — my brother,” is all she could mutter.

***

This wasn’t Cheryl’s first rodeo. In 1995, Cheryl found her birth family in Minnesota.

“I know how important it is to find your siblings,” she said. “Family is the most important thing.”

Cheryl knew that Michael needed to experience that, too. She and Marlene began discussing how to tell him, and they decided that this warranted a surprise.

“It kept me from sleeping for the past month,” Marlene said.

***

January 15, Michael walked into his house in Nicholasville after a day at work and was surprised to find his Mom in the living room. Then, in from the bedroom walks his sister, Dawn. This sure is a strange way to drop in on me, he thinks.

Then out comes this other lady, middle-aged with dyed red hair.

“I knew instantly,” Michael said. “I knew the second that I saw her that this was my sister that I had never seen — ever.”

“Just the look he had before I said that, the look on his face — I knew he recognized me somehow,” Marlene said.

“We had to take the baby so he wouldn’t drop him,” Dawn said.

The estranged siblings embraced for the first time.

“I went into tears,” Michael said. “I gave her a big hug and didn’t want to let go.”

***

The family is together now, catching up on lost time — 25 years worth. Marlene said having a half-brother is a dream come true. Actually, forget the “half.”

“There is no half with me,” she said. “Believe me — he’s my brother. I didn’t have a brother. I just had sisters, and I just wanted that brother so much. A brother for me was really important. And he’s the only one that has blue eyes like me. The blue eyes, and he’s smooth, and he’s nice. He’s not a mean person; he’s a tender person. That’s mostly like me.”

Michael and Marlene are finding more and more that they have in common. When she does finally have to leave, she knows it won’t be the last time they get together.

“I want him to come to Quebec because he likes lots of stuff like me — the woods and being outside and all that,” Marlene said. “I want him to come up and Cheryl too, and everybody else too. I want them to come and see. And I’ll come back for sure. It’s not going to take 25 years, believe me.”

“It’s a definite goal to be able to go up there and see where I was born and meet the rest of my family that I’ve never been in contact with,” he said.

Speaking of contact, Michael understands that Facebook was the catalyst for this reunion.

“I’ll probably have to start up an account now,” he said, grinning.

***

That really was a fun story to cover. I was a little afraid that there was going to be some awkwardness coming from this new person walking into Michael’s living room and telling him that she was his sister. Instead, the two made an instant connection, and you could really feel the warmth coming from the famliy that was finally together after 25 years. And the best part was I got to take the first family photo:

From left to right, Michael, DJ, Cheryl, Carol, Marlene, Dawn