Today I met my half-sister for the first time. Her name is Leala.
She’s three years younger than me and we have the same (absent, drunk) father. My mother was with him for a few years before leaving him once and for all when she was five months pregnant after he cheated on her with another woman- who just happens to be Leala’s mother. We laughed about that today, how weird it was that here we were, 25 years later, meeting for the first time.
I’ve known she’s existed for as long as I can remember, but she grew up in Germany and I don’t think she knew about me. There are about five kids with the same father, and this was the first one that I’ve met, though I have spoken to an older sister on the phone when I was a teenager.
When I was 18, my biological father called me and told me that Leala was visiting Nova Scotia and wanted me to call her. He gave me her number and I called. Turns out, it was a complete LIE and her grandmother, who answered the phone, told me that Leala didn’t know that I existed and that I should not call again.
To say the least, it was pretty upsetting. And that was that until 2005, when she googled me and found an article that I’d written for BME and contacted the then-owner, Shannon, and he gave her my contact information (thanks, Shannon!). We’ve been in touch ever since via email and then Facebook, and we’ve tried to meet up while we were both living in Ontario, but it didn’t work out.
Then recently she moved to Nova Scotia with her boyfriend, around the same town where my grandparents live. So I drove there today and we met at a park and it wasn’t at all awkward or weird. It was simply great.
We chatted for a little over an hour, about Ash, about our dad, a little about our own lives, and I really hope we can develop a strong relationship, especially now that we both live so close.
We have the same eyes and natural hair colour (except we both dye our hair, so it’s impossible to tell).
Love it.
