I finally did it today.
I wrote the first draft of a letter to the half-sister I've never met. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know I exist.
I'm sure I will edit the draft at least a few times, turning the words over and over in my head and on the screen until they feel just right.
I will eventually print it. I will eventually send it. Perhaps, sometime soon.
I've had her address for the better part of a year, found almost accidentally as I did some genealogy research. I've seen a few of her pictures on Facebook. She looks like my Aunt Jennie, my grandma's sister. I wonder if she would see the resemblance if she saw a picture herself.
There have been many reasons not to write the letter. She might not want to meet me. She might want to avoid my dad, for reasons that always exist when a man is not involved in the life of his daughter, born to an ex-wife who told him to leave and never come back. (Knowing the man is he—or at least used to be—he might have deserved that and then some.) She might just feel too much pain. She might even think I'm making it all up to get money or a kidney from her.
Might.
But she might be thrilled to have the opportunity to know some family she never knew existed. She might be excited to get the opportunity to meet her grandfather who is still alive and mowing his own lawn at 95 years old. She might even find it in her heart to reach out and have a relationship with her father, though that is something I will certainly leave in her control; I've said nothing of this to him, and nor will I, unless at her behest.
So, it's time. Time to finish it and print it. Time to send it. Time to stop worrying about what the future might hold, and make the might the now.
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