We Love You, Sis; a Reunion Story
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This is a story of how siblings will find each other at all cost. It starts with a mother, a father, one daughter from a previous marriage and three children from the reunion (at the start, that is; will get to that later). The story has taken many years in the making to piece together as we seem to have been a big secret in the both families.
My parents separated when I was very young, about 2 or 3. I remember the last day that I saw my mother and older half sister. Our father took 2 brothers and myself away because, from what we can piece together, she could not afford to keep us all.
Any way, through many unfortunate events, we were put in a children's home and from there into separate foster care homes. My 2 brothers were placed together in a home that was abusive. The older brother reported the abuse and both were taken as wards of the state and adopted into separate homes from there. As I was not taken as a ward of the state, my father was able to get me.
Here's where another brother comes into the picture. Apparently even after the separation my parents hadn't gotten enough of each other, and we ended up with another brother that none of us knew about until recently.
The eldest of the brothers found our mother and reunited with her, my sister, and the new brother. My sister is a pretty relentless cookie! When she finally got it into her head she needed to find the last two remaining siblings, she spared no cost or time. She bought software to help teach her to search. She posted on every Internet page she could find. She made many contacts to help her.
While going through our mother's things before putting her in a nursing home, she came across a picture of my son with his name on the back of it. With this information, she found my son and of course from there me. We had been talking relentlessly every night on the Internet to get information to find the last brother. We finally managed to get our mother to tell us from what county he was adopted, and that's when Sherry went to town again. She mailed us all the forms to sign to release information for contact if he was found and paid the almost $300 fee for the state's help in opening his records and locating him.
Bingo. We got the phone call first telling us his records had been located, so the search could go forward. At this time our concern was "had he been told" he was adopted, as he was the youngest of us all and would not have remembered much if anything. We spoke of nothing else. Our main concern was no hurt come to him through us! Well, we had the best of luck, and he was located and knew he was adopted from the age of 11.
We all received a call from him. He was soooo excited he wouldn't let the adoption agency contact us. He wanted the pleasure of doing it himself, and it was wonderful for all of us! We have since found out at one time the oldest brother lived so close he went into a store and recognized the younger brother so the family moved away to keep their secret. We found out he had been searching for us for many years. Even though we found out we were posted on many of the same internet sites, because he didn't have the correct spelling of our last name and his first name had been changed, there had never been any connection.
The best part of the story is all but one of us will be getting together this week. My sister is flying in from California, and we are going to see 2 of the brothers that live in the same state! What a wonderful reunion we have planned.
I have heard so many adoptees say they always felt something was missing. Well, it's true even if you haven't been adopted. I was raised as an only child but only now feel complete to have found my missing pieces. We all thank our wonderful persistent sister who wouldn't give up until she had the whole family together again. We love you, Sis.
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