An Unsolved Mystery of Life

It must have been July of 1992.
I was either this side or that of 18, and it was a lazy, thrilling summer after the measely book of high school snapped shut, thank God, and the next stop on the train of my life was set to leave the station: college.
I'm guilty of already dating myself, and I'm not talking about my frequent -- or infrequent of late -- fits of masturbation. Basically I'm no spring chicken. I have a growing bald spot, actually three, the ratio of body hair to man skin is appallingly becoming unfavorable, and I actually remember the TV series "Unsolved Mysteries." When I was even younger, I liked to turn off all the lights in my house and freak myself out with the theme music.
There was indeed a strong pulse of life beyond daytime reruns on A&E as it was a very popular show throughout the 1980s and into the early grunge era.
I want to say it was a Wednesday night, because that's when "Unsolved" aired in prime time. And don't even ask I how can forget deadlines at work but I've held on to that little nugget of useless info. Narrator Richard Stack, perhaps best known to my generation and subsequent ones for his deadpan character Rex Kramer in the 1980 farce cum cult classic Airplane!
The specifics escape me, but one of the vignets that evening centered on a young, single expectant mother in 1950s or 60s Los Angeles. It was a story that has played itself out millions of times ever since. A middle class woman out in the real world for the first time got knocked up, the father split and now she didn't know what the fuck to do.
Back then such ill-conceived inconveniences were swept under the rug. Many of the young women were sent by their embarrassed and disappointed families to convents. There they'd live out their final trimesters along side an order of nuns. The sisters would care for the woman, she'd work for the church to pay her way and then once the kid was pushed out it would be put up for adoption. The mother would go back to her "normal" life, the child would be raised by others and everything would fall back into honkydoryville.
My mom was in and out of the family room doing something, and the show broke for commercial. In the blink of an eye, she was kneeling on our brown shag carpet next to me as I lay in my favorite cranny of our L-shaped, beige 1970s plush sofa.
Tears were in her eyes.
She proceeded to tell me how much she loved me and if I was disappointed in her.
"What the fuck?" I thought. Here comes some pre-college gush session.
But no, the next thing out of her mouth fell onto my lap and left me in a vacuum of incredulousness. Somewhere out there, she said, I had a brother. My very own mother, Ms. Catholic Woman of the Year and that lady who everyone she meets instantly loves to death, admitted to me she was hardly the saint she was made out to be. She had found herself in a very similar predicament as the woman on "Unsolved." She, too, had been sent to a convent to wait out her very own D Day. She wondered aloud where her first little boy was. I think she told me he is seven years my senior.
That would make him now about 40.
At that moment, I viewed my mom as a human for the very first time.
She loves movies. She's the kind of person who kept scrapbooks of stars when she grew up. She still has them. They're really quite amazing, and a bit creepy if you ask me.
But for this reason I'm going to insist she watch a movie. She's the kind of person each year as the Golden Globes and the Oscars roll around who tries to catch up on the year's best. For that reason she must see "Juno."
If you haven't yet seen it, see it. If there's one thing religious to me it's not spoiling the plot of films, especially very good ones. But I think it's no secret by now that Diablo Cody's screenplay deals with teen pregnancy. While my mom was in her mid-20s when she had my brother -- that still seems so frickin' weird for me to say -- I think it would resonate with her so many other women.
I tend to dislike sappy, happy endings because it's so the antithesis of the plethora of crap, hate and shitty things in our world, but "Juno" is funny, thoughtful and dorky. It makes sense.
And it makes me wonder who my brother is. Where is he? Is he married with kids? Does he have the same male-pattern baldness I have? My big ears? Is he also a big dork?
I hope so, but to this point it all remains unsolved.