A good kind of family problem

My neighbor has a family problem.

“Who doesn’t?” I hear you chuckle, thinking back to your recent Thanksgiving gathering or dreading your other upcoming parties.

Which is why I thought it so wonderful to share Neighbor’s problem.

It’s more of a challenge, really. His family, the one he now has, is one he never imagined.

There have been the devastating times, like his divorce.

Was that really more than 15 years ago?

It seems like yesterday when he was on my doorstep sobbing that his wife had left him for another man, devastated he wasn’t going to live in the same house as his young daughter.

For Neighbor, becoming a dad in his late 40’s has been the great joy of his life.

Now, it was going to be an every-other-weekend kind of thing.

Things calmed down over the years. He got into a rhythm of making the most of every moment with his daughter. He found a long-time girlfriend who is really perfect for him.

Life was in a groove.

And then, the phone call. It was a cousin informing him that he had a daughter. Of course, Neighbor knew that. But this wasn’t about his daughter with his former wife.

This was a whole other daughter.

A person he never knew existed.

Thanks to at-home DNA tests, these stories have become common.

That’s how the new daughter found her way to Neighbor.

He’d never taken one of those tests, but a nephew and this second cousin had.

There was enough of a match for this woman to reach out and ask, “Do you have a relative who might have happened to be in Key West in the late ’80s?” There was only one answer. Neighbor.

He lived in Key West for many years.

Neighbor has a faint recollection of having broken up with a girlfriend and in his sorrow having a one-night stand with a woman he can’t remember.

He has since done his one DNA test to confirm what looking at a photo instantly told him.

He has another daughter.

For all the tangles and troubles a new revelation like this can bring, these two have been nothing but value added to each other’s lives.

No one pushes too much. No one asks anything of the other. They have simply allowed their relationship to evolve.

This leads to the problem, the challenge.

I found Neighbor lost in thought as he worked in his yard this weekend. “I need to figure out how to introduce her to the world,” he said. “I want to celebrate my daughter.”

Can you throw a baby shower for a 40-year-old?

Neighbor hasn’t figured it out. I just wanted to share.

In case you had any ideas. In case, you, too, Dear Reader, find yourself celebrating a family you didn’t imagine.

Here’s to family that works. To value added.

To the best kind of family problem.

How do you celebrate joy?