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"The past episode of ABC&amp;#x27;s Brothers and Sisters really hit home for me. [Spoiler alert:] Kitty&amp;#x27;s cancer is aggressive, and she needed a bone-marrow transplant. Since Kitty has three brothers and one sister, there was a pretty good chance one of them would be a bone-marrow match, right? Wrong! To the rescue: Ryan, Kitty&amp;#x27;s half-brother who is the product of her father&amp;#x27;s scandalous affair--ooooooh! The episode got me thinking about JD&amp;#x27;s father, his wife and the children they will have. Why?Because my son will share half the DNA of their kids. Nothing can divide the inevitable family tree--blood doesn&amp;#x27;t lie, so JD is likely to gain a few half-siblings in the near future whether or not it&amp;#x27;s formally acknowledged on their end (Yes, people, JD&amp;#x27;s father and his wife read this blog). You can call me cynical for thinking about things like this, but what if, God forbid, JD does get sick and does need bone marrow? Here&amp;#x27;s another BIG question: What if one of his half-siblings gets sick and needs bone marrow--from my JD? Will that be the reason his father finally shows up? Sure, people have one kid all the time, and if that child gets sick, they scramble to the blood bank or marrow bank, call a cousin and pray--but when time is of the essence, why scramble when there&amp;#x27;s a brother or sister across the country? No one can force someone to give bone marrow or participate in any medical procedure--but if your kid was sick, you&amp;#x27;d ask right? I WOULD. As I watched Brothers and Sisters alone while JD slept peacefully in the next room, I couldn&amp;#x27;t help but think these things considering the topic of the episode. (I also pondered dropping dead in my sleep. Who would make JD his waffle in the morning? How long would I lie there dead before someone realized? Single parents with small children who can&amp;#x27;t dial 911 think about this kind of stuff. We do.) As for the parent who chooses not to participate, moves away, gets married and starts a brand-new life? Regardless of emotionless child-support payments, it&amp;#x27;s almost like that parent is crossing his or her fingers for the rest of their life. I realized something on Sunday night: Absent parents don&amp;#x27;t realize that the child they leave, fail to support or see, could SAVE the child they put to sleep at night--there&amp;#x27;s a big, big, big picture. Because Ryan SAVED Kitty, and OK, it&amp;#x27;s just a show, but it&amp;#x27;s not a show about aliens attacking a grocery store--the situation was realistic and thought-provoking. It made me sick, actually. Lovely Storked! readers, sorry to get deep on you (darn TV!). I&amp;#x27;m curious: Do you have any half-siblings? What is your relationship like with them? Did a half-sibling you didn&amp;#x27;t know about randomly show up one day looking for your mom or dad? What was that like? Did you ever give bone marrow to a sick sibling or relative? Are you someone with a child you don&amp;#x27;t see yet have a new family of your own? Do you wonder about the day your long-lost child will come knocking on your door, if at all? Have you told your kids about their half-sibling who lives away from you? How did they respond? Let&amp;#x27;s talk this out--calmly and nicely, please. *** Do you get along with your siblings? How often do you talk to your siblings? How many siblings do you have? *** More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering for or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow us on Twitter."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/storked/2010/01/brothers-sisters-half-siblings>