Unexpected Sister

About three years ago we got this letter in the mail addressed to my dad. It was handwritten and signed by this person named Debi. We knew of some Debi’s but not with the same last name. So right away my mom started to research stuff about her to see if it was legit…everything was. What was said in the letter is what shocked all of us.

In the letter, she said who she was and that she was possibly my dad’s half sister. She explained how she was adopted and has kept in touch with her birth mother and that’s how she was able to justify how she is related through my grandfather. Her childhood was spent in Sanford, Maine until she got married and moved to Norfolk, Virginia where her husband was stationed. She has two kids named Nick who is 26 and Jack who is 21. What’s really cool is Jack and I share the same birthday.

She waited 25 years to send this letter because she didn’t know how we would respond to it. The reason that she reached out was initially not for the relationship, but to learn about her medical history. She was worried that she wouldn’t be accepted into the family under the circumstances. That is why she waited so long to send the letter. She left her phone number in case we wanted to call and get clarification which my dad did. He called her the night we got the letter and they talked for two hours! The next day my dad went over to my uncle’s house and told him and he was shocked as well. The only thing is, they didn’t know how to tell my grandmother or how she would react to this news. When they finally told her she apparently already knew a little bit about it but not the whole thing so she wasn’t very surprised by it. In 1991, my dad’s father died so we didn’t really know for sure if this was 100% real or not.

My dad and uncle kept in touch with her up until the day we all met her in person. We were all so excited to meet her. We decided to go out to eat, then go back to my grandmothers house and really get to know her, which we did. She brought my brother and I stuff from Virginia and it was so cool. We only got to spend one day with her when she came down that time but it was well spent. Some people in my family didn’t believe that she was actually related so they made her take a DNA test to really find out through Ancestry.com. We found out a few weeks later that she truly is my dad’s half sister. She is the oldest of the three. I remember the day we found out and I was so happy. The second time she came up everyone came with her, her husband and her two sons. The second I met one of my  cousins we clicked instantly. We both have the same personality. I love whenever they come up because it is always a fun time. In 2012 my uncle’s son died in a car accident. The weird thing is, her youngest son looks like him. They compared pictures of when they were younger and they could be siblings because of how identical they look.

Now they come up every couple of month to see us and her adopted parents. I get so excited when I hear that they are coming up because I don’t get to see them as much as I would like to. They recently just moved into a camper at the KOA in Virginia. She has wanted us to come and visit her but it’s hard for my family to all get time off. She wants us to go down so bad that for Christmas she got us a gift card to the KOA to stay in a cabin that they rent out. Hopefully if everyone can get time off that we can go see them for April break. They would absolutely love that and so would I.

This news really affected me, but in a good way. I got another aunt and uncle and two more cousins.It was really a different experience because you would never think that this sort of thing can happen to you, but anything can happen. This time it was a good surprise. This entire situation is almost like a Hallmark movie, everything works out good in the end.

Photo on Foter.com