The beautiful woman on the left is my daughter...
At least I'm 99% sure it is...
It's like this...I haven't seen my daughter since she was 6 years old. Even those first six years I had very little contact with her. Long story behind that, but I'll spare you.
Oh, and a couple of photographs my dad took of her and my son. That must have been around 1997...10 years ago. So I have a pretty good idea what she might look like now, at 22. I would bet a hefty sum that the woman in this picture is indeed her. She was allowed to visit her grandparents, but not me, but once while she was at their house they decided to bring her to my house for what turned out to be an awkward visit, unplanned as it was. I think she was 12, so I guess I have seen her since she was 6...once...
Last Thursday I found in the local newspaper an obituary for my ex-mother-in-law. That came as a surprise. Of course I hadn't seen her in awhile, either. There, among the list of surviving family, was my daughter's name...and her husband's name.
Oh, I already knew that she had married. But also listed there were the names of two children with the same last name as my daughter...which can only mean one thing...I AM A GRANDFATHER!!!
But it was that "same last name" that was key to what happened next.
I entered her name into a MySpace search (I'd tried it before but I guess I was entering an incorrect last name).
And there she was. It had to be her. She looked just like I envisioned she would. Her stated age was 22. Her skimpy profile said that she lived in "Somewhere, Oklahoma". I say "skimpy" because she has it set to "private", and obviously I don't have her added as a friend. At least not yet.
So, the obvious next step was to send an invitation to join my friends. I gave it a try, but the add page says that she only takes friend requests from people she knows. You had to know either her full name or her e-mail addy. If I wasn't totally sure that this was my daughter, I would have been convinced when I entered her name and the friend request went through.
Of course, there's always the chance that there are two people, both 22 years old and living in Oklahoma, in the entire MySpace network. But I somehow doubt it. This is the real deal, I'm sure of it.
The only thing to do now is wait...
...and I've heard it said that the waiting is the hardest part. I don't think it will be a long one, whether in my favor or not. She was last there on the 27, I didn't send the invite until I saw the profile on the 28th, now it's the 29th and her last log-in is still at 10/27. So it's very likely that she hasn't seen it yet. I look down at my "friends" section, I've got 47 of them...a good number, I'm happy with it. Most all of them are people or bands I know. 47 is okay, but lately I've been checking in every few hours in hopes that I'll see 48.
At which point many prayers will have been answered.
