I have a sister. You know when you get those "To Get To Know You" forwards and you have to fill out your strangest moment? Mine would positively be about my sister. Not that it’s strange to have a sibling. The strange thing would be finding out you have a sister when you are 25 years old. To stop by your parents house to have your car fixed and find out your mother gave a child up for adoption 32 years ago. And you never knew. It’s exactly what happened to me. I stopped by my parents’ house to get the mirror fixed on my car. In retrospect, my mother was acting a bit strange since she kept trying to call my brother every ten minutes. "Mom, I can just talk to Kris on MSN! It’s no big deal!" So we sat down to watch my Dad glue my car mirror. And my mom says, "Well, I wanted to tell both you and Kris this at the same time….." And I knew. Something was up. "Are you sick?" "No." "Did you get laid off?" "No, Kari, just listen!!!!" She began to tell the story of how she got pregnant when she was was 19. And how no one in the sixties had babies unless they were married. And how I have a sister. She brought out the letter that my sister had written. She showed me the picture. She told me that everyone knew except for my brother and I. I was in complete and utter shock. We talked for a couple hours. To be honest, I really felt nothing. I was numb and bewildered. It didn’t make sense to me – how could I have not known? And I kept thinking about how I am not the oldest. Now I am the middle child. I drove home. I told Erik. I’m not sure if I cried or not. I called my mom a couple times with questions. I told Kristen since she happened to call. I didn’t tell anyone for a day because I needed to figure out how I felt about it. It started to sink in. I spent a week just feeling strange. I was so very excited to have a sister! I had a whole new respect for my mother. I also felt embarrassed since everyone knew but Kris and me. I thought about how it was going to change out lives. I randomly cried. I started to wonder if she was like me. I started to think about how neat it would be if she wanted to be close and how maybe I could go visit on Easter and we could bring a casserole and take pictures and laugh and tell secrets. You know, sister stuff. I decided to write her an email. It took about a month before I finally got up the courage and another month of many proof readings. I was nervous to send it. I was so paranoid that she wouldn’t like me and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. She wrote me back that night. Her letter was absolutely perfect. We had some amazing similarities. She’s a vegetarian. She went through an angry feminist stage, but now she’s a happy feminist. Her husband really wanted a kitty so she got one even though she’s more of a dog person. She loves reading. She has fair skin that burns after ten minutes in the sun. She loves Ani Difranco. She’s funny and random. Her writing style was even like mine. Or wait, was mine like hers? We spent the next two months sending emails back and forth with questions about each other. She was also still writing back and forth to our mom. They set up a time to actually meet. The meeting was scheduled this last Wednesday. I can’t tell you how nervous I was. And excited. My mom was ten times more nervous. What happens if we have nothing to talk about? What if we hate each other or she turns out to be mean? What if she decides she doesn’t want to meet? You know what? It was fabulous. We had dinner and talked all afternoon long. We spent the next day shopping and eating sushi and talking more. And now I am really super duper excited. She's totally wonderful. Everything’s going to be okay …no, make that fantastic. Because I have a sister. Click here to see pictures