Category: family

She thought she was Irish — until a DNA test opened a 100-year-old mystery – Washington Post

Five years ago, Alice Collins Plebuch made a decision that would alter her future — or really, her past.

She sent away for a “just-for-fun DNA test.” When the tube arrived, she spit and spit until she filled it up to the line, and then sent it off in the mail. She wanted to know what she was made of.

Plebuch, now 69, already had a rough idea of what she would find. Her parents, both deceased, were Irish American Catholics who raised her and her six siblings with church Sundays and ethnic pride. But Plebuch, who had a long-standing interest in science and DNA, wanted to know more about her dad’s side of the family. The son of Irish immigrants, Jim Collins had been raised in an orphanage from a young age, and his extended family tree was murky.

After a few weeks during which her saliva was analyzed, she got an email in the summer of 2012 with a link to her results. The report was confounding.

She thought she was Irish — until a DNA test opened a 100-year-old mystery – Washington Post

What Makes a Parent? – The New Yorker

The next day, Wednesday, a shipping company collected Hamilton’s belongings. She had what she thought would be her final photo shoot in New York: a portrait of Emma Forbes, a British TV presenter, for Hello! Gunn later sent her pictures of Abush having fun at the beach.

At one o’clock on Thursday, Hamilton was at home cleaning, expecting to leave for Fire Island in the evening, when she got a call from a woman who introduced herself as Nancy Chemtob. A New York family and matrimonial lawyer, Chemtob founded her own firm in her twenties; in the two and a half decades since, she has represented such clients as Bobby Flay, Star Jones, and Diandra Douglas, the ex-wife of Michael Douglas, in divorce proceedings. Her style is amused and unsentimental, and she has a strong Long Island accent. (Today, when Hamilton and Chemtob refer to each other, they use inexpert, mocking approximations of the other’s accent.)

Chemtob told Hamilton that she represented Kelly Gunn. Hamilton only half-registered what came next. Chemtob recalls telling Hamilton that Gunn had just asked a New York court to recognize her as one of Abush’s parents and award her joint legal and physical custody. As an interim measure, Gunn was seeking a restraining order that would stop Hamilton from taking him out of the country. Chemtob told Hamilton that, at 2:30 p.m., she must appear before a matrimonial judge on Centre Street. She should bring Abush’s American and British passports.

What Makes a Parent? – The New Yorker

The affair that saved our marriage

If any couple can be credited with pulling their marriage back from the brink, it’s surely Tal and Samara Araim. After 16 years and with two children together, Tal embarked on an all-consuming affair with one of Samara’s closest friends. It lasted two years, until Samara’s “oh-my-God moment” when suddenly, from nowhere, she knew. They separated immediately and didn’t speak for months. Samara wiped Tal’s number from her phone, changed her name on her email account and all communication was through lawyers. All the divorce papers were signed except one.

Fast-forward four years and here they are on a sofa talking openly, easily, lightly – and laughing a lot. Their journey has been so revelatory that Tal has not only written a book in an effort to share all he has learned, but also turned their former family home in Surbiton, south-west London, into a therapy centre, Compass4Couples. Downstairs is a lecture space that hosts free seminars and workshops. Upstairs, qualified counsellors provide individual therapy.

Tal is a man on a mission – his vision is a kind of “relationship gym”, not for couples in crisis but for those who are ticking along. “We have hospitals where you go when you’ve had a heart attack and gyms where you go to stay healthy,” he says. “With marriage, we only have the hospitals – we look for help when it’s almost too late. If Samara and I had gone somewhere like this at the beginning, the whole thing might never have happened – because, honestly, when I look at our ‘issues’, they weren’t that major.”

The Guardian

My son, the mass murderer: ‘What did I miss?’

Terri Roberts was at the theatre where she worked when the call came. It was her husband, Chuck. Terri should come straight away, he said, to their son Charlie’s house. Terri knew instantly, from the tone of Chuck’s voice, that it was serious. She didn’t ask questions, just ran to her car. And it was on the short drive that she turned on the radio and heard for the first time about a shooting incident that morning at a school in a nearby town.

Several children were dead, the report said, and the perpetrator was a man named Roy. Terri suspected immediately that the killings were connected with Chuck’s call. “I knew straight away that the school they were talking about was very near the place where our son Charlie used to park the milk van he drove,” she says. “I was imagining all sorts of dreadful things, like that he had been killed while helping to rescue some of the children. I knew he’d have helped them if he possibly could.”

 

The Guardian

My wife died recently. Here’s what this first Mother’s Day will look like without her.

As Mother’s Day approached this year, I felt a great sense of dread and loss. Forty-nine days ago my wife, the mother of my four young children, died after a two-and-a-half year battle with cancer. I have been initiated into a club for whom this day causes more hurt than joy. It is not just the day itself, the actual 24 hours, but also the days leading up to it.

NYTimes