Air dicencang tak akan putus?

Out of the blue, I received this message attached to a friend request on FB:

“Assalamualaikum, kak A, I am B, son of Pak Teh C, whom is Pak D’s younger brother , of kampung XX, YY, If you don’t mind, please approve me, so that we can exchange ideas in a lot of subjects of mutual interest. I’m hoping that you are the one that I’m looking for. FYI I am now a Masscomm student in UITM ZZ campus,Wassalam…..”

So, A is me. B is this person requesting my friendship. C is his father. And D is my biological father. Which makes us cousins!

I had no idea how Pak Teh C looks like, until I checked B’s FB profile out and there happened to be a family photo. And then it really hit me – I actually have no idea how many siblings my father even has. I must’ve known, once upon a time, but not any longer. I also checked his birthday. 1992. Which means I must’ve known him for about 4 years before losing contact. But for the life of me, he is nowhere in my memory.

This is actually a bit freaky. I’ve approved him – I found the note very appropriate and quite sweet – but now I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve mentioned in one of the posts that I have no relationship with my paternal family – I don’t mean not to, but I just don’t after my parents’ divorce. I think the divorce was quite amiable, I have no hard feelings for any parties, but that’s just the way things have been. And now FB will be that vehicle to re-form the relationship?

How on earth did he find me? It sounded like he had been looking for me. Do they, during Eid celebrations, talk about their two missing cousins? Wish we were there? Or curse us because we never show up? And when my paternal grandfather died earlier this year – did they hope we were there or would they have turned us away had we shown up?

This is pretty scary. To be honest, I don’t not want a relationship with you guys. On the other hand, I dislike having to re-meet family I haven’t seen in ages and have forgotten. I just don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to see where it goes from here, eh?