My Sister from Another Mother

I was raised as the oldest of five children. My mother did give birth to a boy that would be about 1-1/2 years younger than me, but he was put up for adoption. She married Ernest and gave birth to the siblings I was raised with. Although, technically they are my half-brothers and sisters, I've never felt that way about them.

As the oldest, I was there when they were born. Aware they were expected before their birth. I watched them learn to crawl, walk, talk, ride a bike. I got to feed them, clean up after them, and watch them -- a lot. What part of that sounds like I was ever only half their sister?

I was born illegitimate, which luckily is not a big of an issue these days as it was forty years ago. My father was in the process of divorcing his wife, or not, who really knows. But by the time of my birth, he was a single man. He left his wife and two children and went to Vietnam when I was about three months old. He died before I was six months old.

My mother -- whose sanity is questionable 70% of the time -- told me his parents came by to tell her of his death and tried to talk her into giving me up. Whether they did or not, I can never remember any interaction with them.

When I was about 13, I took all the information mom had given me and searched for my paternal grandparents. I found them living less than two hours away from me. I started writing them letters and we shared correspondence for about three months. Then I talked an aunt of mine into taking me by to see them. I truthfully remember very little about them. They were very sweet. The biggest thing I remember was there was a photo of a girl on their mantel. The girl was really close to my age and she LOOKED JUST LIKE ME.

You have to realize that I spent my entire life looking like no one. Never quite feeling like I fit in or belonged anywhere. It was amazing to know that not only did I have the blood of these nice NORMAL people in my veins, but that I looked just like someone. I thought the photo was of a cousin of mine or something. When I returned home after my visit my stepfather confronted me about contacting the other side of my family. He burned my only photo of my father I had, all my letters from my grandparents, slapped me around, and told me that if I ever contacted them again he'd throw me out on the street.

I never contacted them again. I left home at 15 and moved to the very city they lived in . . . and I never contacted them. Part of it was I didn't believe that I belonged in a normal family. But a part of it was that I had received what I needed from their letters, the visit, the photo. I didn't NEED them like I had earlier.

In my mid thirties, I got interested in setting up my genealogy. I was working for a company that had the feast or famine way of doing business. I would work 12-14 hours days, 6 or 7 days a week for a few weeks. Then I would play games on my computer 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Working on my genealogy was the perfect antidote.

During the time I was working on it, I became familiar with how to search for people and what public records you could access. I found my father's death certificate, which led me to his divorce certificate. I found his wife's name, the name of two children they had together, and their address at the time -- in Alabama.

I do a global search for all Terry Collin's (my half-brother's name) in Alabama, not really expecting to get a hit. I email all of them with email addresses, no hit. Then I mail out a standard form letter to all the other ones. I get an email a week later from my brother Terry. We wrote, talked on the phone, Steve even took me up to meet him sometime that first year. It was awesome.

Since then, he's started a new carrer where he moves around a bunch. I've only seen him one more time. But I like him. I know he's out there.

Within 24-hours of meeting Terry, his sister Laura called me on the phone. She's two years older than me, Terry is 4. That in it's self is a hoot; I've gone from being the oldest of siblings to being stuck in the middle. She phoned a lot for the first month or so, sent cool gifts for the girls. Then she sort of disappeared. I've never met her, although she lives in LA -- not that far away.

She's married and has two girls. At least one of which is now old enough to have supplied her with grand babies. :) She's also the girl that was in the photo; the one that looks just like me.

In fact, every time I've met Terry, he always points out how much we look alike. He was in Austin last year and stopped by. During his visit I said something about having never seen Laura, and his response was, "Sure you have. Look in the mirror." Brothers!

Any hoot . . .

Laura emailed me to let me know her family is vacationing in Arlington the end of this month. They will be there for three days. She wanted to know if I could drive up to meet them. As luck would have it, my sister Byjo lives in Benbrook, which is only about 30 minutes from Arlington. I've been hoping to make it up to see Byjo for months -- but I was waiting for her other company to move out. lol

So, it's set. At almost 43, I will meet my older sister for the first time in my life. The one person who looks just like me.

My sister from another mother.