A series of fortuitous and entirely coincidental events late last year led my father to the discovery of a sister he'd never known.
What began with an innocuous piece of registered mail in September culminated in a teary and joyful airport union last weekend.
The sister, who grew up in an orphanage and was kept uninformed about the existence of other siblings, flew here from Melbourne to see with her own eyes the brother who'd never had the chance to hide her dolls or give her a Chinese burn.
I half expected Jack Thompson to walk off the plane too. (And okay, yes, I'd applied extra make-up in case there was a piece-to-camera role in the offing.)
Discovering an unknown sibling late in life is fraught with risk because you not only inherit one more person for the Christmas card list but potentially 40.
There are children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren, weird uncles, old-soak aunts, divorces, stepfamilies and more baggage than Elizabeth Taylor's therapist. After a certain age it's probably best not to go digging for family ties, but I didn't want this to be the case for Dad's sister.
I was intent on putting on a good show, aware that on a bad day we can unwittingly present like a motley crew of beer-loving trouble-makers best worth avoiding. On a good day, well, same deal.
For four days we pulled out our best behavior, our most hospitable natures, and all the good china.
We would win this woman over; make her want to cleave herself to our sides, declare herself "home"!
We trotted out all the funniest family anecdotes (embellished beyond recognition in many cases), cooked gala meals and showed our special guest all the sights and delights of our region.
On the fifth day, we succumbed to exhaustion and gave up trying so hard.
And that's when the experience became enjoyable.
You can woo strangers and fool friends, but you can't maintain pretence with family. Not for long.
It's probably best to just be oneself from the start, let the chips fall where they may, and accept that even though you may be philosophically opposed on a host of levels, it doesn't matter because you're still going to have to cook rissoles for each other a few times each year.
You're going to bump into each other at every wedding and funeral.
One day you might have to donate an organ.
That's family. It's the strangest thing. It may well be the only thing.
If the old Spanish proverb is true, then an ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship. It's the sticky spider's web from which there is no escape, only surrender.
At any rate, two weeks ago my new aunt had no extended family to speak of. Now she has relatives up the wazoo.
She gave herself over to that uniquely human desire to connect, made a giant leap of faith and surrendered herself to a band of strangers with common DNA.
She may well be secretly regretting that decision after meeting uncle Ken, but there you go.
As writer and poet Robert Brault said: "Family is like a runny peach pie - not perfect, but who's complaining?"
carrieon@bigpo nd.com
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