Tonight I spent several hours using the internet to figure out the current name, address, and phone number of my half sister, whom I have never met. She is the daughter of my father and his first wife.  That marriage ended in divorce within a couple of years; my father re-married as did his ex-wife.

The reason that I never grew up knowing this half sister is that my father signed away his parental rights, including visitation, because he was unable to make child support payments, some time before I was even born. His regret at doing this has eaten away at him for a long, long time.

My half sister, whom I’ll call “Jennifer,” was born in 1964.  My dad gave me her date of birth, and, using her date of birth and first name, along with a guess as to which state she resides in, I was able to find out her married name, her maiden name (which is not the name she was born with), where she works, what educational degrees she holds, and the fact that she has a daughter, “Alexis”.

I am astounded at the sudden windfall of information. I’d wondered my whole life about this mystery Jennifer. What she was like (is she like me??), how does she look, would she like to have a little sister?

Tomorrow, I think I will give her a call. What will I say? She might hate my dad, for having agreed to not contact her all these years. He was required to stay away until she reached eighteen years, but what about when she was 19… surely he could have gotten in touch at that time?

Well, I cannot make excuses or explanations for Dad. He has lived and decided and made choices of his own; his regrets or mistakes are solely his own emotional property. He seems very excited and pleased that I may be able to contact Jennifer tomorrow, or someday soon.  I imagine he would like to know more about her, although this evening I gave him a lot more information than he’d previously possessed.  I am sure he went to bed with a full mind.

I wonder if I should think more about how to approach this phone call; what I should say to her, and how to put it.

“Hi, last night I  spent 3 hours stalking you online using your date of birth and found you by being weirdly obsessive and reading your grandmother’s obituary which mentions your maiden name, and married name, and has your mother’s name, and using each bit of information I systematically tracked you down like some kind of psychopath.”  No, that does not seem like the right approach.

But I am sure she would eventually be curious to know how I found her; I don’t want her to think me a stalker.

“Hello, my name is Pann and I’m your half sister. I was wondering if you are at all interested in talking to me.”

I need to think this through. This is pretty surreal.