Issue 147: #WeAreRemarkable

This week I'm spending time in Madrid, Spain. It's not my first time here. That was way back in 1984 (I was in high school). My father and mother decided a trip to Spain was the perfect way to honor my grandpa (my father's dad) who was born in Spain. After his parents died, my parents discussed one of his father's wishes which was to come back to visit Spain. We landed in Madrid, took in some of the sights and made a couple souvenir purchases. We then took a train to A Coru?a. Once we got there, through my father's story of his dad and any records (letters, photos, stories) we worked towards the small town that my grandpa was born in. What's so amazing about this is he was born in the late 1800s and moved to the United States at a young age (probably early 1900s). He hadn't been in touch with his family since the 1950s (saying it was too painful to write or speak with them!) - we had little hope of finding anyone, but were interested in family history, maybe birth records and finding out more about my grandfather's family.

We ended our journey on a bus to a VERY small town on the northwest coast of Spain. This city had one bar and several houses. We went into the bar and my father told the (at this point) well rehearsed story in Spanish to the owner of the bar. The bar owner asked us to go across the street and tell our story to the people living there. My dad proceeds to tell the story again and my mom asks him to show them the photo of his dad's parents. The people in the house bring down a painting of the SAME THREE PEOPLE! My mom said "these must be close relatives John!" and I thought "unless these photos came with the frames, yes we are!"

We had about a half hour until our bus ride back was scheduled in this small town. The family connection we had just made was so unexpected, we had not planned to spend much time on this bus ride out to a very small town. The family we had just met offered to drive us to the bus so that we could visit a little longer.

My dad learned of the relationship and met his father's family for the first time at probably 40 years old! My second or third cousin here in Spain encourages me to tell this story saying "this is incredible!" I've spent most of my time this trip with her, but on previous trips have returned to the small town, met my cousins family and probably over 20 relatives of my father.

In 2000 and 2003 my parents returned to Spain to visit the family properly (spending time up north, getting tours of where his father met his wife, seeing where family was buried, learning about the town and surrounding area, visiting the one church (iglesia) in town and taking lots of photos.

In 2004 I made it with my family to Madrid for work, however we didn't have time to make the trip up to the northwest town where my family lived.

I returned in 2018 to visit family. I made another trip in 2022 and then in 2023 returned with my father and son (so we had three generations here in Spain!)

My cousin is correct - this story needs to be told and shows the power of connection and that it's never too late to connect with others that you haven't seen, spoken or written to in years. #WeAreRemarkable and I thank my cousin for encouraging me to share this story here on LinkedIn (and I'll likely share it on Facebook as well).

I just finished a book about 365 ideas for posts for every day of the year. This is my post scheduled for today #FollowFriday but could also be for #FlashbackFriday #FBF #FF

Hashtags are still a thing on LinkedIn - they allow you to find content in the future - follow #LinkedIn365 and the #LinkedIn365 company page for more information about my book, our families journey and how I've come up with at least one (sometimes more) ideas to post about on LinkedIn for several years now (it becomes easy once you start doing it!).