Tomorrow Is My Sister’s Birthday!

Who starts a message with that?  Well, I am.

We were raised in foster homes.  I, being the oldest, bailed when I turned 18 and didn’t look back.  I saw her a couple times after that but I didn’t keep in contact with her.  I was one angry person for a lot of years.

I’ve been blessed over the years to have people come into my life to chisel away at my anger and set me free.  My husband of 19+ years, and his children as well as mine, have all whacked at my barriers and I have benefited from them in so many ways.  Not the least is to finally learn what unconditional love really is.  I am truly blessed and thankful.

I’ve been looking for my sister for the past 5 years when I was at home in the winter months.  Not having any success at my attempts.  I knew she was married so in January of this year I decided to look for her husband’s name.  If they were no longer married maybe he would be able to give me a hint of where to look.

Finding an email address – the internet is full of information – I sent a message telling who I am and why I was contacting him.  The email address was at a business so I kept it brief and to the point.

The “Gate Keeper” at the business saw the email and was trying to decide to trash it or pass it on.  Thankfully she passed it on.

I received a message with three words in it.  “Talk to me”.

Can you imagine the fear that shot through me?  Those three words held 34 years of regret and shame for me.  Regret that I had just left her there with the last family we lived with.  Shame that I had not tried to help her get out of there.  Regret that our “family bond” was non existent and she was always a total stranger to me.  Shame because of the same.  She is my SISTER and I should have not bailed on her.

Not knowing if this message came from her husband or from my sister I decided to just keep it short and to the point.  I said I was looking for my Sister.  I gave her birth date and full birth name, said I knew she had been married to – and I gave the name of the person I knew to be her husband – then just ended it with “I’m trying to find her so I can apologize for the things I had done”.

After I sent that message I went to my husband and told him that I may have found my Sister.  He didn’t know I had been looking.  I didn’t tell anyone because I was truly afraid of what I would find.  If it turned out that she totally  hated my guts then only I would know.

All of the old memories and ghosts of the past were around me and I was in desperate need of some help to deal with backlash.  I didn’t know what I was up against and it was only fair to let my husband know that a storm was brewing with a possibility of turning into a nightmare.

I am so thankful to say that the storm was all in my head and heart.  My sister and I began a daily email campaign to catch up on our lives and to work through the hurts.  I found out things about her that I was oblivious to and she found things about me she was not aware of.  It has been so good.  Cleansing would be a better word for it.

Maybe the passage of time and the way life has matured us helped, but I firmly believe that we have been blessed with Rock Steady men that love us for who we are and flow with the catastrophes we create from time to time.

I’ve always been outgoing and sometimes brash.  My sister has been introverted and quiet.  Hearing about her anger issues surprised me because I always thought, being the bad one,  my mouth got me the beatings and locked away in closets while she was always the good one and could keep her mouth shut and stay out of trouble.  Seems she had her share of trouble that I was totally unaware of.

I am so thankful to have her in my life now.  We are so alike.  More so now than we were as children.

My Sister and our Husbands

August 7th, 2009 I got to see her for the first time in over 30 years.  What a great time we had.

When the last foster parents we had would travel they would ask my sister if they could stay with her instead of getting a hotel room.  It seems that my sister’s husband was in damage control mode for weeks after their visit.  My sister was judged on her housekeeping skills, meal preparation, and the way she cared for (or lack of it as far at the foster mother was concerned) of my sister’s husband and children.

Needless to say I was being watched and my sister was being guarded just in case my visit caused all kinds of mayhem when I left.  Was I offended by my brother-in-law’s cool detachment?  Not in the least.  I was thankful for it.  Lest you get the wrong idea, my sister is no push over.  Like me the anger spills over into the family and it is our families that have to deal with the volcanic explosions.  He was prepared to tell me to “Hit the road” if I turned out to be as I used to be.

Me and my Sister with her Husband

So, here we are.  Two long lost sisters finally reunited and FINALLY bonding.

Better late than never is all I have to say.

So Sis, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!

Oh, and by the way.  My husband and I stayed at a local hotel and didn’t intrude on my Sister’s space.