A story to make you say "Wow!"

In the last few days, we've had some interesting developments in my husband's family.

I'll begin at the beginning.

My father-in-law's parents divorced when he was nine. Sadly, it was one of those situations that dad just picked up and left. For the next twelve years, no one heard from him. Shortly after my husband was born, he suddenly showed up out of nowhere. It's never been said what happened, but he stayed around for about three weeks and then disappeared again. He wasn't heard from or seen again. Sometime in the years following my husbands birth, my father-in-law received a call from his mother saying that his father had an aneurysm, dies, and had already been buried. Obviously, since no one ever had a relationship with him, no questions were really asked and life went on. For the last twenty eight years, this is the story that has been known.

On Tuesday, my father-in-law received a call from a hospital in Florida saying that his father was in the hospital and they were looking for his next of kin. His response "um, he's dead, he's been dead for over twenty years." The first thought was the lady had the man confused with his older brother, since he shared the same name of his father. The social worker informed him that no, the man she had in the hospital was a Sr. and he wasn't dead but in fact had been living in a nursing home for over 20 years.

Obviously it's a shock when you find out someone you thought had been dead for almost thirty years is in fact alive, but that's not even the crazy part of the story.

Why did it take over twenty eight years to find his family?

We found out that he did in fact have a aneurysm almost thirty years ago that caused him to lose his memory. He was fine and alive, but he didn't know who he was. He's been living in a VA nursing home ever since. Last weekend, he had a stroke. When he I guess you say woke up from the stroke, his memory had returned. The social worker said he believes he is the age he was when the aneurysm occurred and he didn't realize he's missed almost the last thirty years of his life. When he regained his memory, he remembered his children's names, his ex-wife's name, and even the name of the woman he was dating at the time. They said they called her, but she has evidently moved on in her life. They then looked to get in contact with the children or ex-wife. For some crazy reason, Wayne was the only one they could find contact information for.

He got to talk to him for a short time on the phone. Obviously, he remembered all five of his children, but he didn't even know he had grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. This man has missed the last thirty years of his life.

Wayne had decided to travel down to Florida this weekend to see the dad he thought was dead. What will come of this, who knows? It's one of those situations I'm sure will be a wait and see. Needless to say, we're all still in shock about grandpa coming back from the dead.

Crazy, huh?