When I wrote my story and created this web site, the intent was to share my experience. I had no idea the response I would get. People from all over the world came and read my story and were captivated with its contents. The whole experience of finding my biological family has been a blessing. My heart felt thanks to all of you for taking the time to sign my guest book with your kind comments.
Over the years, a relationship was developed with my Osborne Cousins who are my 2nd Cousins on my father's side of my family. Jim and I made it a point to try and visit every 2-3 years. Although I didn't see my mother again until 2006, she is always in my thoughts. My dream was fulfilled by having the opportunity of meeting her.
My Cousin Peter Osborne, wanted to fulfill my dreams and tried to contact my father’s family trying to locate my half sister & brother.
He was able to contact my father’s wife but unable to find his children.
Life went on for me, but what happened a few months ago, created another change in my life. In June 2004, I received a call from my friend Barbara in Pennsylvania saying she received an e-mail from someone who was trying to contact me regarding a picture of my father. She did not want to answer the e-mail so forwarded it to me.
Indeed it was from an undisclosed recipient saying they had pictures of my father and would like to send them to me. My joy was overwhelming and I immediately returned my reply. The following day I received my first pictures of my father. I was thrilled. He was so handsome. We exchanged many e-mails and I received more pictures.
I was full of questions and this person seemed to know all the answers. At first I thought it might be a close friend, perhaps a fraternity brother. Then one e-mail asked that I not publish any pictures on my web site out of respect for their privacy. Then my thoughts were of an old girl friend.
I assured them I would respect their privacy. I wanted to know everything about my father and carefully worded my questions as not to pry.
Several days after this correspondence started, I received an e-mail from my cousin Peter Osborne saying he thought my half-sister was trying to contact me for the e-mail sent to him was signed “AEO” and thought this may be my father’s daughter, Anne Everard Osborne. I began to think and realized that is why so many of my questions were being answered.
I immediately called Cousin Peter. He offered to find out exactly what the sender’s intentions were. Now my mind started to go in fast mode, and
I wanted to ask if this was indeed my half-sister, but left it up to him to intercede for me.
The next few days seemed like an eternity before I received another e-mail from Cousin Peter saying this was indeed my father’s daughter and my half-sister. He said he spoke with Anne and she would be sending me her phone number. Now that I knew this was my half-sister I was anxious to hear from her. I realized how she felt and can relate to the difficulty of what to say. That long-awaited e-mail finally arrived.
This is what it said:
Dear Sally,
“Last night I rewrote this paragraph several times and then sent it to the wrong address. My message is that I am your half sister, Anne. I would love to talk with you and share pictures and information about our father, Julian. It's taken me almost a full week to gain back my equilibrium, but talking with Peter last night helped immensely.
Please call me as soon as you get this. I will be in and out but will call you back if I am not here. I live in Connecticut".
I could not wait and immediately called and left a message. Later that day I received her call and we talked over an hour. Once the initial contact was made, it was easy to talk to her. We both had so many questions and felt like we have known one another all our lives.
My immediate question was, “How did you find my web site?” Anne said for some reason, she was going through some old boxes of her father’s and started to looked at some pictures. Her mother told her about the phone call from Peter five years ago and often wondered if she would ever find me. She took two pictures and decided to see if she could find any information on the internet.
At first, Anne was disappointed she could not find anything but kept on searching and finally founda listing for a Forum message asking for information on the Julian Mead Osborne family of Virginia Beach, VA.
She tried to send a reply to the e-mail address but it was returned and
felt lost. She did not give up and again viewed the forum and was able to get my web site address. She wanted this to be her father's daughter.
The first chapter of my web site told the story of finding my biological family five years ago. It also contained several pages of pictures from that trip. When Anne first viewed my site, she did not know I wrote a story for the first page to load were pictures of my trip to Virginia. At the bottom of each page I included a directory. On the third page she viewed, were the pictures from Arlington National Cemetery where she found the picture of her father's grave site. The picture was of me putting flowers on his grave with the caption "Hi Daddy, I'm your daughter".
Anne said the strangest feeling came over her and she felt like she could not breathe. Once she came down to earth, again looked at the directory and found my story. She then tried to e-mail me but the e-mail again came back “Undeliverable”. She felt lost and then decided to check my guest book entries to see if she could find a friend. She came across one from Barbara who mentioned she enjoyed her visit with us, and another from my Cousin Peter Osborne. Anne sent an e-mail to both. When she finally received a reply from me and one from Cousin Peter, she knew she finally found me.
For the next month, my whole life evolved around my newly found sister Anne. There were daily e-mails and phone calls. I had a lifetime of questions to ask. Many more pictures were exchanged and my thought was, “When am I going to meet her”.
DON'T GO AWAY... THE EXCITMENT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN
