I had a loving family. My life changed at 46 when my birth sister revealed I was adopted

This First Person column is the experience of Kathy Jourdain, who lives in Bedford, N.S. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

As a child, I used to love looking at our family photos. They sat in a drawer under the large TV console in the family room. Among them was a small white album with a red spine. Inside were 10 square black and white photos of me when I was a toddler in the 1960s — in a bathtub or happily posing in a restaurant booth among others.  

At some point, that album disappeared. No matter how often I looked for it, I couldn't find it. My parents provided no answers to my questions about where it might be. It remained a disappointing mystery.

Several decades later, I received a disturbing message on Facebook Messenger. 

"You don't know me and I don't mean to upset you, but I have reason to believe you might be my sister." 

Confused, I shared this message with my equally shocked brother. My first thought was: "Who are these people and what do they want with me?" 

And yet, there were clues in my life that suggested something was amiss. My birth certificate said I was born in Halifax although I always thought I was born in Digby, N.S., where my family lived when I was a baby. And I remembered this mysterious girl who was always at a friend of my family's house when we went to visit.

Clearly there was more to this story. I eventually determined it wasn't a hoax and the woman on the other side was indeed my sister. I had been adopted and was never told. 

I was in my mid-40s with children of my own. I never felt like anything was missing in my life. So, I had to ask myself: Was it worth disrupting my life and my family relationships to engage with this biological family? 

After some soul-searching, I decided the answer was yes. I went to meet my birth father, who was living in Yarmouth, N.S., and my younger half-sister who was also living in Nova Scotia. Then I flew to Alberta to meet my older sister. We had an instant connection — almost as if the 40 years of separation had never happened. 

From these relatives, I learned my birth mother had disappeared when my sister was three and I was a baby. 

Our birth father took us to live with his parents in Digby. At the time, the couple who adopted me lived nearby. They were newly married and having fertility challenges. When they were asked if they could help out with my sister and me, they readily said yes. Although they wanted to adopt us both, my sister was inconsolable and stayed with our birth family. 

Nanny Hanson wanted me to know her as my grandmother, so there were frequent visits between our families, including with my sister — until Nanny died when I was about six. After that, the families drifted apart. 

When I confronted my father a few weeks after being contacted, he said three things that have stuck with me. 

The first, after a long pause, was: "That is another long story." The second was: "If you want to change your name…." A generous offer and yet the two times I married, I did not change my name. My last name, Jourdain, was and is part of my identity. 

The third thing he said was: "It was love at first sight." 

It's true, my dad and I had a soul connection. As our family began to cope with my mother's dementia, I became dad's go-to person for everything. While our relationship had been rocky at times, I knew without a doubt his love for me was deep.

On the eve of my mother moving into long-term care in June 2008, months after our conversation about me being adopted, Dad handed me the "lost" photo album. It had been hidden because my mother was afraid of how I would react if I found out the truth. Those pictures of me as a toddler? My sister is in seven of 10 of them — something I had never realized as a child.

Someone asked me: "Wasn't I angry that my parents had lied to me my whole life?" 

It was an interesting question. 

I never thought about it in that way. I was rocked to discover there was a whole part of myself I had no idea existed, but I knew my parents loved me and would not act out of malice. They wanted to wait to tell me until I was old enough to understand. But as the years went by, it was harder and harder for them to speak up about our family secret. 

Learning the truth has helped me make sense of some parts of my life — why my birth certificate didn't match what I had been told and the missing photo album. Other things also clicked into place. For example, my parents and most of their friends were married forever. But I had been married twice — just like my birth father and my sister. In some ways, this made me feel more "normal," or at least not like some outlier in my family. 

This isn't just a story about reconnecting with my birth family. It is also a story about how I made peace with my family's secret and with all of who I am.

Dad and I became each other's strength because of my mom's illness, but she and I had never talked about my adoption or biological family because of the extent of her dementia by the time I learned the truth. 

One day, out of the blue, my mother surprised me by asking me how my sister was.

Did she know at some subconscious level that we had reconnected? I can't think of any other explanation for such a seemingly random question. 

It was such a brief moment. I was both disappointed that it could not become a full conversation and in awe at how deeply we may be connected at levels we cannot see. 

My parents have both passed since then, and I'm still learning more about my biological family and myself. I'm learning to embrace and flow with all that life throws my way.

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