Got an email from an Alex Hodge yesterday morning. He said he knew I was Ken's daughter and Tracy's sister and that he'd been looking for me and Tracy for 7 years. Said his mom was Ann Hodge and she and my dad dated before my mom and my dad did. And he's Ken's son. My first instinct--like yours--might be to scream "STALKER!" and block him from every method of contact. However, my dad was well-known for his womanizing ways. So I called my mom and asked if it were possible, and as soon as I said, "Could Alex be my--" she stopped me and said "I ALWAYS SUSPECTED!" I went online, looked at his pictures. He's a fucking spitting image of my dad at 19. Like, if I didn't know better, I would have thought I was looking at a picture of my dad.
Talked to him on my lunch yesterday. He's very smart. Super excited to meet me and Tracy. Tracy's all over an LA trip soon. As much as I don't want to give up any hours or leave Grass Valley (ok, mostly I don't want to leave Jake), I really think Tracy and I should meet Alex together. He didn't know that my dad had died until he talked to Tracy. I just...cannot fathom. He's known about me and Tracy since he was 5. He's been looking for us for the past 7 years. I assumed that the 7 years correlated to when my dad died (he died in December of 2001, and I figured maybe Alex didn't know until a few months later), but no. he just got old enough to wonder who his family was. I guess that makes me pretty lucky. The only reason I found out about my dad dying--and thus meeting Tracy--was because my mom filed for child support. CPS contacted us to let us know we qualified for Social Security payout for survivors. But because Alex's mom never filed for child support, Alex wasn't in the system as Ken's son, and nobody knew to contact him or his mother. Tracy only found out about me when CPS contacted her for a copy of the death certificate. And she jumped on contacting me.
You know, I've always joked that I'm probably related to half the blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids in my county. Totally different when you find out you actually are related to one of them. I'm a little mind-blown.
