I was the oldest child until I was fourteen, or at least so I thought. On the Halloween after my fourteenth birthday, my mom told me I have an older half-sister that she'd given up for adoption when she was nineteen years old. It sounds like a "Hallmark" movie or a page-turning novel, I know. My mom showed me a wallet-sized baby picture and she told me my sister’s given first name, but that's all I remember.
Meanwhile, I went on living as the all-too-typical oldest child, both setting an example for my younger brother and picking on him for fun. I thought about this sister every once in a while over the next few years, but I didn’t talk about her with my mom or ask any questions because I didn’t know how to. When I was sixteen, I opened a decorative chest and found a bigger version of the baby picture my mom showed me years earlier. I took a photo with my flip phone. Sometimes I would just stare at it, trying to imagine all her baby features advanced some twenty years.
I thought all the thoughts. I didn't know if I would ever be able to meet her. Aside from occasionally Googling her given first name paired with my mom's maiden name, I didn't know how to look for her, but I knew that I would try. I wondered how alike we were. I wondered if she had kids, if she was married, what her entire life was like. When people asked me how many siblings I had, I always said one, but I always wanted to say two. I refused to call my friends my sisters. I knew so little about my sister that saving that title was one of the only things that made her real to me.
In March of 2015, my mom shared an article on Facebook stating that a law would be passed in March of 2015 giving Ohioan adoptees born between 1964 and 1996 the legal right to obtain their original birth certificates. I shared it, too. About a month later, I got a call from my mom while I was writing an essay instead of attending the Clemson spring football game. She told me she had some big news for me, and I told her not to tell me if it was something bad (I was having an awful week). She said she thought it was good news, and then said, "Remember the article about adoption that I shared on Facebook?" I knew exactly where the conversation was going.
I am the middle child, my older sister's name is Jamie, and I love her.
A month after that phone call, my mom made the trip to meet her oldest daughter for the first time in thirty years.
When my brother and I met Jamie a few months later, I felt like I couldn't let her go.
Jamie is beautiful, intelligent, funny, and perfect. She and her husband adopted a twelve-year-old dog with no teeth. Jamie and I both like the shows "30 Rock" and "Broad City." We both played tennis in high school. We both love elephants. We both need glasses, and we picked out similar frames without realizing it. We think similarly, and she often tells me that I remind her of herself ten years ago. I don't get to see her as much as I'd like to because we live in different states, but we video-chat and talk on the phone when we can. One of the times she visited, Jamie, our mom, and I got matching tattoos.
When people ask how many siblings I have, I get to say two. I get to say I have a sister. I have the rest of my life and I get to make Jamie a part of it. I truly feel like the happiest middle child in the world.
