Yesterday was the 29th February - an extra day in my life - and I did something extraordinary.
I picked up the phone and spoke to my half sister. We have never met, or even spoken, before - she didnt know I exist. She comes from my father's first marriage but they never kept in touch.
Finding her was extraordinarily easy. After years and years of thinking "I would so love to find her" - and never doing anything about it for all sorts of complicated reasons, I just did it. There were some clues in a little envelope which lurked on my desk over the years, and which contains a couple of old newspaper cuttings - her marriage, and her mother's funeral notice.
My friend Google supplied me with the name of an organisation that finds people. At around 8am yesterday I pushed the button to initiate the search and 4 hours later they emailed me to say she was found.
We share an interesting and unusual middle name which made the search easy.
So I rang her. Just like that, out of the blue. It was awesome. And scary. After all she might not want to know me. Might not want past memories awakened. I know nothing of her or who she is or how she feels. I was worried she would feel her privacy had been invaded. Would she hate this call out of the blue? Would it be better to write?
And why now? Because I am very nearly 60 and planning a party to celebrate and bring all sorts of people in my life together. If only she will come!
And if she doesnt? Well in some ways that will be OK too. She sounded great, we have spoken, I've done it and can now get on with my life without always having that lurking regret for not having found her, at least tried. It feels like putting something right. Which has to be good!
I picked up the phone and spoke to my half sister. We have never met, or even spoken, before - she didnt know I exist. She comes from my father's first marriage but they never kept in touch.
Finding her was extraordinarily easy. After years and years of thinking "I would so love to find her" - and never doing anything about it for all sorts of complicated reasons, I just did it. There were some clues in a little envelope which lurked on my desk over the years, and which contains a couple of old newspaper cuttings - her marriage, and her mother's funeral notice.
My friend Google supplied me with the name of an organisation that finds people. At around 8am yesterday I pushed the button to initiate the search and 4 hours later they emailed me to say she was found.
We share an interesting and unusual middle name which made the search easy.
So I rang her. Just like that, out of the blue. It was awesome. And scary. After all she might not want to know me. Might not want past memories awakened. I know nothing of her or who she is or how she feels. I was worried she would feel her privacy had been invaded. Would she hate this call out of the blue? Would it be better to write?
And why now? Because I am very nearly 60 and planning a party to celebrate and bring all sorts of people in my life together. If only she will come!
And if she doesnt? Well in some ways that will be OK too. She sounded great, we have spoken, I've done it and can now get on with my life without always having that lurking regret for not having found her, at least tried. It feels like putting something right. Which has to be good!
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