Unknown waters

Had two things hit recently that are leaving me in unknown waters.

Not exactly lost. The distant coastline hovers as a mirage above the water. I hope.

Definitely not floundering. The ship is solid and we will get there. But in the meantime, great care must be taken when navigating through this.

So, to de-obfuscate-

A while back I wrote stories about Ancestry.com, one of the commercial DNA sites. In exchange, the company ran my DNA. To my great surprise, my recent ancestry is exclusively west European. The Irish and the German I knew. Grandma Morgan was from Austria. Her ex-husband and my maternal grandfather also German, but an early arrival. That side of the family got here in time for the Revolutionary War. Grandma and Grandpa were of recent Irish stock.

Ennyhoo, I agreed to let Ancestry use the results to match up potential relatives.

If the website is right and this is not a scammer, I have a formerly unknown first cousin in Wisconsin. The lady said she was put up for adoption through the Catholic church. At the time, I had a relative living up there. Said relative has quite a list of arrests for scammer type crimes.

When Mom asked said relative about that time in Wisconsin and whether or not said relative had a child, the subject got changed in a hurry.

Been emailing back and forth with this lady through the Ancestry website. She is now quite irate because I will not give her contact info for her possible parent.

I do not share anyone's personal information with that person's explicit permission.

UPDATE - This woman, who definitely is a first cousin confirmed if she's not lying, went off on me and insulted me and this side of her entire family because I would not share information. So be it.

Ah so.

ISSUE 2

A friend called. Wants me to preach the dad's funeral. The dad and I met once, about an hour or more, and talked once or twice more.

This left me floundering. How can I bring comfort to the family? How can I give this man the send-off he truly deserves? What if I really make a mess of this?

I turned to two people whom I trust implicitly for advice. I asked what I should do under the circumstances.

They delivered. Fully armed with The Word and advice, I'm ready.

UPDATE - Was the service perfect? Nope. Was it well received? Family members said it was the best funeral they ever heard.

THE TAKEAWAY

Depending on whom you speak with, we get one ride on this merry go round OR we get a ride here and then maybe have to go to one of the crappier rides for a while or get bounced up to the ultimate ride.

Regardless of that, we're here. Do what you can to make this a better place while yer here.

If you are doing this right, you will make plenty of mistakes. That is not a contradiction nor an oxymoron. To repeat, to get things right, you've got to screw up.

If you never make a mistake, you are not doing anything.

So, go forward. Make mistakes. Screw up. You have my permission, not that you need it, to walk through this life with disasters behind you.

That's the key - Behind You.

Learn, adapt, be better.