Peter discovers sense of belonging with new-found family
“My eldest brother, when he first met me, he said: ‘long time no see!’ I have a real sense of belonging with the whole crew… I don’t think I would have ever found my family if I didn’t have the Salvos.” – Peter Rub, Salvation Army Family Tracing client.
Peter Rub always knew he was adopted and he lived with a niggling sense of curiosity about his birth parents and family. However, for some reason he kept putting off officially searching for them.
“It was probably something that I thought about for about 25 years and I got close a couple of times [to searching],” he says. “But then I’d think things like: ‘life’s too busy’ and ‘everything’s fine’ and all excuses like that not to do it.”
But two years ago he decided to go for it and, while researching how to locate family members, he came across The Salvation Army’s Family Tracing Service.
“Allyson was just amazing,” he says of Allyson Sutherland, the Family Tracing Service post adoption case worker who took on his search.
Within six months, Peter received a call to say that information about his mother had been found. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news – Peter’s mother had passed away a few years previously.
“But then she [the caller] said, ‘however, we’ve found your brother’ or something along those lines, and, ‘would you like me to continue the process [for family reunification]?’” recalls Peter.
Peter was keen to pursue a meeting with his brother and within days was “receiving calls left, right and centre” from a family that was ecstatic to have found him.
“From a person who wasn’t too emotional about the whole thing to start with … it all became very overwhelming,” Peter remembers.
They organised a dinner at one of Peter’s aunt’s houses in Sydney and family members travelled all the way from Melbourne for the reunion.
“The 17th of May 2011,” Peter says. “Some dates just stick in your mind. We all got together for the first time… I thought it might be just a quiet little night but it went on until the wee hours of the morning!”
The reunion exceeded all of Peter’s expectations. “When starting the search I had no expectations so in one way I was never going to be disappointed,” he says. Instead, he’s been delighted at the level of involvement he now has with his birth family.
Since that first meeting, Peter and his family have travelled to Melbourne, been on family holidays with his new-found siblings and their families and, last year, spent Christmas with his extended birth family.
“That was awesome. Basically we’ve got no family at all so my kids had what they say was their best-ever Christmas because they had nieces, cousins, uncles and aunties – there was probably 30 people in the room!
“It feels really good,” Peter says of finding his family. “We have a real sense of belonging with the whole crew. Everyone in the whole family has been so accepting. It’s really a whole new beginning!”
If you would like to find your birth family go to our website at salvos.org.au/familytracing
By Lauren Martin
Comments
Well done!