Think about a reunion you've either attended or are planning to attend... Write about the emotions it evokes in you.

Meeting my long-lost family members. Back row: Hazel and Paul.

Front row:  Sharon, Iva, James, Laverne, Imelda, D'Wayne.

I started researching my family tree in 1996 and two years later I had the opportunity to attend my first large family reunion. It was held in Nacogdoches, Texas and was organized by a lady named Reba, a very outgoing person who did a fantastic job of rounding up family members from across the United States. At the time, I was living in California and Reba kept us all informed about who would be attending and a little bit about their backgrounds.

From Reba's emails, I knew that a Texas sheriff was scheduled to attend. "A law enforcer in our midst will make sure that we don't get too carried away with the festivities!" she kidded. But what I didn't know until right before the reunion was that Sheriff D'Wayne was a long-lost member of my own branch of the family. Our grandfathers were brothers two years apart in age, both born in the 1890s. They had been close as boys and young men, growing up in Texas and then moving to New Mexico with their parents and other siblings. It wasn't until they were adults in Portales, New Mexico, that the split occurred in the family. My grandfather, Tom, was the sheriff of Portales and his brother, Frank, was accused and convicted of incest with one of his daughters.

As you can imagine, the chasm created within the family was wide and deep. Portales was a very small town back in those days and the scandalous headline was splashed across the front page of the newspaper. It was a shameful and embarrassing time for the whole family. Frank's wife divorced him and isolated herself and their seven children from the rest of the family. My dad was a little boy at the time and didn't understand what had happened. My grandfather was under constant pressure from his parents, who also lived in Portales and didn't believe that their son was guilty, to "do something" about getting Frank out of prison. They refused to believe that there was nothing he could do--that Frank had been tried and convicted and had to serve his entire sentence. When my grandfather's term in office was up, he moved his family to Santa Fe, leaving his parents, the ex-sister-in-law, and the estranged cousins behind. Frank served his prison term and was remarried. Both brothers died in the 1970s.

So that was the sad story of a relationship that ended on a bad note between the two brothers and two sets of cousins. The older family members never did explain what had happened to my dad, and he got the definite feeling that it was better not to ask. He only knew that Frank had gotten into a great deal of trouble and had spent time in prison. It wasn't until I started researching the family and dug up the old newspaper articles about exactly what had occurred that we were able to put the pieces together.

Flash forward 65 years to the Nacogdoches reunion. I was excited and yet at the same time I had some trepidation about representing my side of the family and bringing together the two "factions" after so many years. I had no idea what D'Wayne would know about the past events, or what he had heard about my grandfather. D'Wayne brought his wife, his mother, his sister and brother-in-law, and his aunt and uncle to the reunion.

I needn't have worried. We all hugged and felt an immediate kinship. The close ties of so many years ago when our grandfathers were brothers were somehow carried forward to the current generations. The tender feelings I had upon meeting them still puts an inexplicable lump in my throat. I was astounded when I first laid eyes on D'Wayne; he has an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather, which is even more ironic considering the fact that they both were sheriffs. Then I met his Uncle Paul, Frank's son, who, with the exception of his gray hair and mustache,  is a shorter version of my dad right down to the cleft in the middle of his chin. We all had photo albums and shared pictures; of course D'Wayne was especially interested in the photos of his look-alike, my grandfather.

It turned out that they all knew the story about what had occurred so many years ago. D'Wayne had shown some interest in his family tree, and his aunt (the girl who had been molested) told him that there was something he should know if he was going to start researching. It wasn't a secret in their family. Paul told me the story of living way out in the country with his mother and siblings after the divorce; they all almost starved to death out there. His mother was a strong woman who stubbornly refused charity from others, and somehow they managed to scrape by. She later learned to speak fluent Spanish at the age of 40, became a missionary in Mexico for 35 years, and started a church there. She was known far and wide as "Hermana Mabel."

I couldn't wait to tell my dad about meeting his long-lost cousins, and he was excited and anxious to get together with all of them at a future reunion. Unfortunately, he passed away before that ever happened. D'Wayne and I have stayed in touch ever since. It was really a remarkable feeling to connect with that side of the family again after so many years. I think my grandfather was pleased and was smiling down on me that day.