Meeting My Long Lost Brother

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I got the most wonderful news today. Even know, as I sit here and try to type, my eyes are blurry as my heart swells and tears spring to my eyes.

After 34 years, I'm finally going to meet the brother I always knew I had, but never knew where to find.

I have social media to thank for this moment. When the Internet went mainstream, I sent emails to every one I could find on yahoo or hotmail that bore his name. I would ask each one if their father was named as mine and each time, I would get a no or silence. Those that did reply always crushed me, as my heart would flutter when I would see the reply, hope building inside me that I had found the right one.

In 2007, with the advent of My Space, my search continued, sending message after message to no avail. Then Facebook got big and My Space kind of fell to the wayside.

Months later, in a moment of boredom due to a bout of insomnia, I decided to revisit My Space. There was a message waiting for me. A response to one of my search messages.

I steeled myself for another disappointment and opened it. There it was. His full name, my father's and his mother's full names, and his date of birth.

He hadn't written much else, so I sat there in shock, disbelieving what I was seeing, confused as to whether I had written that or he had. Then I realized I'd never know his mom's full name, so it was clearly him. My brother. My father's son.

Tears instantly sprung to my eyes as full comprehension hit me. My close to ten year search was finally successful. My heart sank when I clicked on his page and saw that he hadn't been active in three whole months, that his message had gone unanswered all this time.

I responded anyway, and that whole week I checked my page every day, several times a day. I sent him silent messages, willing him to visit the site. I prayed to God to ask him to whisper in his ear.

I think it took about 7 days, but he finally responded.

The first time we spoke, we spoke for hours. Telling each other stories about our childhood. He was so excited, couldn't wait to speak to my our dad.

It's been five years since then, but I haven't spoken to him often enough, and though my parents have been to visit several times, we have still not met in person.

I am so excited to finally get to hug him. I can't to meet his wife Sarah, whom I get along great with on Facebook, and their two beautiful sons.

They are probably coming here in twenty some odd days, and that day will definitely rank highly as one of the happiest of my life.

I can't wait!

Much love,
Felicia