Do you know those old movies you would watch on some channel, about the girl that finds her long lost sister, brother or parent? The movie that things start out a little awkward and a little weird, but in the end they all live happily ever after? I’m currently living a variation of that story.

No, I don’t have a long lost sister that I never knew about, but my mom does. An hour before I started writing this article, my mom, grandma, her sister Katie, Katie’s parents and myself were all sitting down eating Italian food. It was such a surreal experience. I didn’t even know things like this happened in real life? My mom, at 50 years old, was meeting her sister, 36 years old, for the first time.

This is how this unbelievable story goes is. My grandma had my mom at 18 years old. She married a man named Michael who was 19 and was couple weeks pregnant at the time of the wedding. My mother was born the following June. Shortly after my mom’s birth, four months after to be exact, my grandma decided to end her marriage and leave my mom’s biological father.

Life goes on from there for my mom. My grandma remarried, had two more sons, and life continued on from there. Michael, my mother’s father, went on with his life down a different path, getting into some trouble and fathering another daughter. That’s where Katie come’s into this story.

Katie, was put up for adoption by her biological parents and ended up in the care of two loving individuals. I got to meet her adoptive parents at lunch, one of which is an ASU alum (go Devils). Katie’s adoptive parents also adopted another girl later on and had one biological daughter as well. From what I know, my mom’s sister grew up in a nice home with a nice family.

Flash forward a couple decades and Katie decided to hire a private investigator to find her biological parents. She had no success with her mother and it turns out her father was deceased. The only living relative on Michael’s side was his sister, Lynn. Lynn was the one who told Katie about her half-sister, my mother. When Katie’s PI finally tracked down my mother, it was my mom’s choice on whether or not she would allow the PI to give Katie a way to communicate with my mom (via email, phone number, etc.). And so she did. My mom decided she too was curious about this sister she knew nothing about or even that this sister existed.

After weeks of emailing back and forth, my mom was able to find out quite a bit about her half-sister. Katie grew up in a part of Arizona not far from my great grandma’s house, where my mom spent every summer. Isn’t that crazy? Two sisters were within miles of each other, and had no idea. Everything seemed to fall in place to arrange a meeting. My mom had already booked flights to come down and move me out of ASU for the summer, which is not too far from where Katie currently lives. What are the odds that they grew up relatively close, and that I go to school near where Katie currently lives?

It’s crazy how life works out sometimes. As soon as you think you have it figured out, it veers off into the unexpected. I still am processing the whole ordeal, I can even imagine how Katie and my mom must feel. Today was a great day and honestly, a big relief. It’s not every day you meet your long lost sister, or in my case a long lost Aunt. I’m thankful for another caring individual that has been brought into my life and into my mom’s. I’m excited to see how this story continues, and if we’ll all live happily ever after like in the movies.