Reunion Post Reunion - 16 Years Later

Terry & Me in 1991

There is a raging storm coming up our way from New York. The weather reports gale winds of up to 80 miles per hour and in some places flooding and 2 to 3 feet of snow. Tomorrow I leave for Alabama; Birmingham to be more precise. The storm’s arriving as I leave to see my birth sister doesn’t surprise me. It’s been sixteen years since we’ve seen each other. The first time we were separated it was 25 years between face to face encounters. I am excited and nervous at the same time. We are so alike in many ways especially when it comes to laughter and entertaining each other with antidotes. She is a guitar player and singer and performing with these has peppered her life. She in many ways is an artist. I admire her ability to sing and play and perform. I simply admire her. There is no one like her in my life and I am flooded with the feeling of such joy at seeing her again and also with anger and frustration at the loss of her in my life. How can one hold these two conflicting emotions at the same time? It feels rather confusing.

I am flying down to see her, meet some more birth family members, and to scatter the ashes of our birth mother. Ohhhh…there go the butterflies in my stomach. It will be quite sad and perhaps it will be freeing as a last goodbye. I am not sure.

Does anyone ever have a sense of emptiness around their reunion experiences? It’s been 20 years since my first reunion experience. So many things got better inside of me as a result of the reunion process. What has never quite gelled is the relationship piece with my birth family. Sure we write letters and sometimes talk on the phone, but it often feels like the surreal connection that exists on some foreign planet that I will either never visit again or so rarely it feels almost easier to forget about them.

This trip to Alabama is a diving in again with all of the issues. Sometimes opening the door to all of this is a little intimidating. I don’t know how other triad members feel, but feelings and issues really have the ability to side swipe me when I least expect it. Not often, but when this happens it has a feeling of detestation that arrives with it. Often it will take me a week to move out of the feeling clouds. I think because of this I have a little bit of trepidation around visiting my sister.

I have high hopes that this trip will be wonderful and that I can at last, once again, embrace my big sister and share a moment of her life.

gwendolyn