“Hi, I think I’m your sister…” these words stare at me expectantly. Do I send? Or continue to stare? This will change everything. I push the back button on the bright screen of my phone and go back to over analyzing his Facebook page. On it his profile name, Bryant Crabtree, no other information in his about me section, no pictures of the rest of his family. There are several pictures of his trucks; covered in mud or disassembled in what looks like a clustered garage. My eyes drift between pictures of him in a heavy oil stained jagged cut orange shirt goofing off with his buddies and one of him and a blonde girl kissing at a fair. As I stare at this stranger’s face, I see myself. It’s the same haunting look of someone searching for something just beyond reach; something unknown. I have waited over a decade to say these words, to find him. With my fear of rejection slowly melting away, I press back to the message I had prepared, and press send.
As I wait for a response, I drift back to painful memories. I had just moved back to my dad’s house, the first day of 7th grade looming on the horizon of my adolescence. My sisters are with me, riding our bikes up and down St. Eric Street. Some of their friends join us, ready to confirm one of my deepest fears. They spitefully jab, “How come you don’t look like Kristin or Cara? Are you adopted or something?” Acid laced words burn through me leaving a lifetime worth of damage. I tear down the hilly street my father lived on; ready to confront this horrifying development. Not even bothering to come to a complete stop, my bike slices my leg as I jump off. For so many years, I contemplated this strange reality that I did not belong or like a piece of my puzzle was missing. I was pale, tall, and lanky with dishwater blonde hair, while my sisters were tan and curvy with ruler straight jet black hair.
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I barrel into the house straight into my dad’s office and breathlessly demand, “Am I adopted?” His head drops a little bit, pain and guilt written on his face, the final confirmation sets in. We call my mother and I spend the next eternity, hours in actuality, listening to the story of how my biological father wasn’t the man I grew up loving and whom I looked up to. My mother and biological father, I would come to find out his name was Terry, could not work things out to be together. She described the living conditions she had to endure: verbal abuse, physical altercations and Terry’s lack of desire to help support me. The day my mother and I met the man who would eventually adopt me, George, there was an instant connection between him and I; like he was always meant to be my dad. He was the man who taught me to ride a bike, took me to my first middle school dance, and best of all, actually wanted to be my dad.
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My whole life was a lie, and over the next ten years I would endure countless stories about what a horrible person my biological father was. Every so often I would ask for help finding him, or for any other family members. I had more questions than could ever be answered; that I feared would always remain unanswered. What did he look like? Did I look like him? Did we have any of the same interests? This newfound fear would become a reality when I turned sixteen and discovered that he died. I discovered this when I accidently found his obituary, which stated he left behind a sister, Heather Cline, a daughter, Brittany, and a son, Bryant Pierce. My heart soared. I had a brother! Not to diminish the love I had for the siblings I grew up with, but this was the exact thing I had always felt like I was searching for. I would find the answers I was looking for, or would I? He had Terry’s last name so he must have lived with him and possibly been raised by him. With refreshed determination, I doubled my efforts to find Bryant.
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The messenger pop notification brought me back to my phone. It read, “Yeah, so I guess that makes me your brother.” All I heard was my heart pounding through my ears.
“I’ve been searching for you for over eight years.” Was the immediate follow up message from him, my brother. I had really found him! He had searched for me too: he wanted to know me too! That haunting look I saw in his pictures really was a reflection of me. We talked for hours. I called into work, and we continued to talk. We share the same favorite color: pale blue after a daytime rain storm. We listen to the same song when we are sad, “Come On Get Higher” by Matt Nathanson. We both got walking pneumonia when we were four, and both snuck our first cigarette from our mothers at 12. So many similarities between us, and yet we are so different. He was a mechanic, and I a math nerd. He only had two sisters from his mom and stepdad, while I had a dad, step mom, mom, step dad, five sisters and two brothers. I wanted to meet him but was terrified; I wouldn’t live up to the image he had painted of me in his head from our texts.
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After a handful of days, I grasped the courage to ask him if he would be willing to Skype with me. While I was content with being able to learn about Bryant through our messaging
conversation, he still wasn’t completely real to me. I wanted to hear his actual laugh behind his ‘LOL’. Fear nagged at me in the back of my mind again, what if he didn’t want more than a pen-pal relationship? The dots on my phone screen began to bounce, indicating a response, “Sure, I am dying to hear your voice.” A smile spread across my face. After exchanging our Skype usernames, I sat anxiously for him to sign on and accept my video chat request. Finally in living color, there I was face to face with my brother, only a phone screen and several hundred miles separated us. Tears rolled down both of our faces as we heard the other’s voice for the first time. We sat on video chat for six hours that night, never wanting this to end. We made plans to find a way to one day meet in person. Never in my dreams had I imagined how quickly that day would come.
February 1st, just two days before my birthday, began like any other day. I woke up, texted Bryant, worked a stressful 10 hour shift, and picked my daughter up from the babysitters’. You know, just a regular normal day in the life of a mother. I went out to an early birthday dinner and drinks with a friend. Afterwards I came home to an empty house. I changed out of black slacks and a purple button up shirt into a pair of sweats and a Harley Quinn tank top. Once changed, I walked back to the living room. The stack of laundry needing to be folded on the couch called my unfortunate name, but something caught my eye as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Hey baby, where wer-,” the rest of the sentence faded from my lips as I fell to the floor in shock. I had assumed the footsteps belonged to my husband and daughter. Instead, there stood a six-foot-two all too familiar stranger staring at me with tears in his eyes. I stuttered trying to form words, but I was speechless. Bryant stood before me mirroring the same shock I felt. He was a real person; he was standing in front of me just an arm reach away. Seconds turn into minutes as we just stared at each other until a soft innocent voice breaks the silence. “Mommy! Bryant came to meet us! He’s really, really tall!” Keira said as she began to run circles around us. I take a step towards Bryant, to confirm this wasn’t a dream. One small step was all we needed before we both reached for our missing piece. Bryant wrapped me into a bear hug that needed no words said aloud but silently spoke volumes. This is real, and I will never let you go.
