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She walked
out of the Jetway, pushing a double stroller carrying
small, tow-headed and groggy identical twin girls, with
their older sister, brother and father trailing behind.
Except for the blonde hair, she looked every inch my
mother—more so than either my sister or I ever have or
ever will I suspect. We had written letters, exchanged
pictures and a few phone calls, but just like when you
read all the books and attend all the classes in
preparation for having a baby, no amount of groundwork
could have prepared any of us for what this newest
arrival would mean to our family, least of all
me.
I was sixteen when I learned I had an older
sister. My mom had been involved with a married man in
her mid-twenties when she found herself pregnant. Being
in no position to raise a child on her own, she gave the
baby girl up for adoption. A few years later, she met
and married my dad and had three more children —me, my
sister and brother. She told my dad about the baby
before they were married, but opted not to tell us when
we were young.
When I first learned of my
half-sister’s existence, I hated her. In my mind, she
had ruined my perfect family and usurped my esteemed
role as oldest child. I knew my mother’s decisions both
to give up the baby and finally to tell us about her had
been exceedingly painful, but I felt no compassion, only
anger. Instead of thinking my mom had marveled at all
the newness and excitement of being pregnant with me, I
believed she grieved over the child she had given away
with each of my kicks. I felt the special connection my
mom and I should share because of my birth order had
been severed by a person with whom I could never
possibly share any kind of bond. It was a good thing
that we would probably never meet. What could I, would
I, possibly say?
Six years passed. I had
graduated from college, gotten a job and was living a
more or less normal post-college life. Somewhat out of
the blue one early fall day, my mom asked if it would be
okay if she opened the adoption files that had been
locked by the courts for over twenty years. She didn’t
want to search herself, but she didn’t want to prevent
anyone from searching for her. Fortunately, I had
matured enough in those years to take this news much
more in stride than I had the initial information, and I
agreed to her opening the documents. Still, I was
tentative.
Just before Mother’s Day in 1992, my
mom got a call from the Bureau of Vital Statistics that
they had a match to her information, and her biological
child might contact her. The day after Mother’s Day, a
letter arrived. It had been just over six months since
she had opened the records. My sister’s search had been
even shorter. She had only filed her papers at the end
of April and was informed two weeks later that they had
a match. A scurry of exchanges via mail and phone
followed that first letter (this was before e-mail) as
we learned more about my sister, her adoptive family,
and her husband and children, who consisted at the time
of one daughter and son. She sent each of us our own
letter, introducing herself. How I wish I had kept mine!
But the fear I was feeling over what welcoming this
person into our lives might mean—not to mention my own
fastidiousness, a trait that I would later find I share
with her—did not allow me to. I figured the novelty of
the situation would soon wear thin, and once the major
questions were answered as to how everything transpired,
we would all go back to life as we knew it. Well, maybe
we would exchange Christmas cards.
It came as a
huge relief to my mother that my sister had not ended up
in foster care and that she had grown up healthy and
happy. We learned that she had been adopted at three
months by a couple who had a biological son eleven years
older than she. They had moved from our city to a small
town in the Midwest when she was fairly young, and that
is where she grew up. She got married right out of
college and had started a family soon
thereafter.
It came as a huge shock to me that
although my mother did not name her, her first name,
Jolee, is almost the same as my middle name, Jolie.
Moreover, she chose my birthday as her wedding date, and
it is in April, not June or anything as predictable as
that. We both like to cross-stitch, a hobby not
practiced by any of the other members of our families of
origin. We share the same love of the color purple and
have a flair for decorating. No longer able to ignore
the miracles of similarity, my heart was softened, and I
finally met my sister.
Originally, Jolee had
planned to travel with her family to meet us soon after
first making contact, but then discovered she was
pregnant . . . with twins. So it wasn’t until the summer
of 1994 that they finally were able to make the trip.
The connection between all of us was amazing—magical
even. We had gotten to know each other somewhat through
the letters and phone calls, but when we finally saw
each other in person, it was like reconnecting with that
friend that you don’t see for years, but when you do,
it’s like no time has passed.
They came for the
fourth of July. It seemed like no small coincidence that
the fireworks display that my family had always gone to
when we were growing up—but hadn’t been scheduled for
years before and hasn’t happened since—was on that year.
We had a blast watching them, eating fried chicken and
ice cream, running through the sprinkler and taking
scads of pictures. It was a family reunion for a family
really meeting for the first time.
In the years
since meeting the sister I thought I didn’t want, Jolee
and I have grown close enough for me to ask her to be
one of only three bridesmaids in my wedding. We have
shared war stories of marriage and childrearing over
phone calls, in old-fashioned letters and now mostly via
e-mail. Occasionally, the fact that we weren’t raised in
the same household or place is evident in our exchanges,
but more often, I continue to discover our similarities.
Just recently, I found out that we have the same
favorite flowers—pink roses with periwinkle
wildflowers.
The word “sister” is rife with
meaning. She is someone with whom we share biology
and/or life experience; to whom we tell our secrets and
with whom (and sometimes about whom) we gossip; for whom
we will go to the ends of the Earth. Growing up, I felt
lucky to have one sister to share these experiences
with. I didn’t think I was missing anything. But when
Jolee walked off that plane, I let her walk into my
heart, and my life is all the richer for
it.
© 2006 from Chicken Soup for
the Sister's Soul
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