On December 23rd the mail man arrived and as I was going through the mail saw a card that I didn’t know who it was from. It was addressed to me with my maiden name and then in parenthesis my married name with another set of parenthesis that contained “sorry”. There was no return address on the card so of course the way the envelope was addressed peaked my curiosity and I opened it immediately. I was in a state of dismay when I saw that it was from my natural sister.

She addressed the inside of the card to my husband and me. The contents of the note was mostly questions about our life and a few pieces of her life such as that she and her boyfriend are planning to move back to western PA. The note also contained her email address and asked for me to email her.

For so many years I wanted that day to come and when it was upon me I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or how I wanted to respond. I needed time to think things through. After much soul searching, thinking through every conceivable scenario that I could think of, and the support of my husband and other family members I decided to email my sister. So, on Christmas Eve, I sent an email to my sister that was short and wished her a Merry Christmas. I answered a few of her questions that she asked in her Christmas card and left some unanswered as they just weren’t that easy to answer. They were rather personal and required a lengthy response with history included. For me, I wasn’t comfortable or ready to share that much of my personal life. In my own mind, I though that if the relationship moves forward I would be willing to share the answers to these personal questions.

Christmas Day, my husband and I traveled across the state to spend a few days with my family and returned just before New Years. While we were away I had no access to the internet or email so I had no idea if she had responded. When we returned one of the first things I did was check my email and there was a part of me that was disappointed that I had not received a response back from my sister. There was another part of me that thought that maybe her initiative was a one time deal as I have experienced with her in the past and the odds of hearing from her again were slim. However, after the holidays were past and shortly in to the New Year I received a long email from her telling me about her holiday and the things going on in her life. Our correspondence went on via email for about three months and she asked if we could talk on the phone. I gave her my phone numbers (home and cell) and told her she was welcome to call anytime she wanted.