My Sister

Sometimes in life, you pray for something to happen for years and years and when you least expect it - there it is! Something like this recently happened to my family. The beginning of this story goes back almost 50 years ago. My mother gave up a baby girl for adoption in 1968. The circumstances were not the best for her to raise a child and she made the best decision she felt she could at the time and placed her with a family that could raise her and hoped she would have a good life.

Mom went on to go to law school, get married and raise 4 children, but not a day went by that she did not think about and wonder where her little girl was. In 2000, someone from my mom's childhood questioned Nathan about the baby and wanted to know if she ever found her. Nathan had no idea what she was talking about so he asked me. I also had no idea so I asked mom and she told me the story and that she has been trying to find her for several years and registered online with search companies and really hoped we could find her someday. I then also did my best to look for her with what little information we could find for years with no luck.

On June 20, 2017, me, mom and Deborah (our co-worker) were on our way to Ft. Smith to celebrate my birthday. Mom's phone rang and it was my cousin Eric. I listened to her talk to him and knew EXACTLY what she was talking about! My cousin registered his DNA online with 23 & Me. He was contacted by a woman because it showed them to be first cousins! He was unaware of my moms story so he asked his dad about it. He told him to contact my mom about it. She told Eric to please give her contact information to her if she was open to talking to her. We then got to Ft. Smith and got out of the car. I will always remember this moment - standing in the parking garage and mom got a picture of her on her phone and we looked at it together and both gasped - she was beautiful and the resemblance to us both was undeniable! It was such an emotional moment! About 10 minutes later mom was on the phone with her and I was creeping her Facebook account :)

Her name is Jayla and she lives in Tulsa - so close this whole time! She has been looking for us for many years too and ran into the same issues we did - lack of information, closed records, destroyed records, etc. I was so relieved that she was open to being a part of each others lives. You never know how situations are going to go and there can be very valid feelings either way on it, so I was so happy that she was so open and eager to be in contact with us.

July 3, 2017, is a new holiday for us. It is the day that mom, grandma and I got to meet my sister and her husband face to face! Thanks to technology we already knew a lot about each other and had got to talk on the phone some too, so that really helped with the nerves and made for such a comfortable and easy meeting. It seriously, to me, felt like catching up with an old friend that I hadn't seen in a while. It was fun comparing likes and dislikes, allergies, similarities and differences. Before we knew it, hours had passed and we had to go, but we were already planning our next visit and really hope my other siblings get to meet her soon too!

Me and my SISTER!

3 Generations!

Mom and her oldest Daughter!

I am so glad that Jayla came into our lives! It wasn't as fast as either of us wanted, but it was perfect in God's timing. Now we have the rest of our lives full of possibilities to make the best memories together. This has given me a big reminder that if I am faithful and never give up, God will not either.