A long lost connection was restored during what seemed to be an ordinary family dinner when my daughter revealed that her dad had a picture of her new teacher in his drawer.
The new town where we moved recently is a picturesque place; the one you believe only exists in the movies. We bought a nice home and our children seemed to settle in perfectly.
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Our seven-year-old daughter Lily, who wouldn’t stop talking about her new school, shared plenty of stories about her newly-made friends. One night, during dinner time, she mentioned her mathematics teacher, Mrs. Willis. “She’s great,” Lily said, “and dad has a picture of her in his office’s drawer.”
Lily then continued eating her ice-cream with a delight on her face, but her words filled the place with awkward silence. Not wanting to ruin the dessert, I turned to my husband, Jim, and asked him if he would be kind enough to show me that picture.
He was as confused as I was and asked Lily about the picture. She said she would show it to us herself once she finished with her favorite dessert.
Jim barely spoke a word.
Following dinner, the three of us went to Jim’s home office and Lily pulled the framed photo of a woman I had never seen before. She handed it to Jim and he asked, “Is this your teacher!?”
Lily said, yes. That was Mrs. Willis, but why did Jim have a picture of her?
I didn’t say anything, letting him start a conversation. Once Lily was asleep, he broke down in tears and asked me if I remember that he was adopted and that he and his little sister were separated when they were just five and four.
I said sure. How could I forget.
Jim then told me that he had been doing a research on his sister’s adoption, trying to find her all those years, and he believed the woman on the photo was her. He found the picture in a magazine, when he stumbled upon an article about mathematics competition. There were similarities in his and that woman’s life stories.
I encouraged him to talk to her, and although Jim was hesitant because he was afraid of heartbreak, he still decided that we go to the school.
Once there, we asked to talk to Mrs. Willis. She was a kind woman who greeted us and asked if there was something she could do for us, reminding us that her next class was starting in a matter of minutes.
“I think you are my sister,” Jim said out of the blue. “Are you adopted?” he asked.
Mrs. Willis was confused. She said she was adopted, but she didn’t remember having a brother. The only thing she remembered from the time she was four was a raggedy teddy bear and her birth certificate.
“When were you born,” Jim asked, hoping the date would ring a bell.
Mrs. Willis shared her birth date and her place of birth, and Jim knew she was his long-lost sister.
Our conversation was interrupted by the school bell. Confused and lost for words, Mrs. Willis excused herself and entered one of the classrooms.
The following day, she contacted Jim and apologized for leaving. She talked to her adoptive parents and they told her that she indeed had a brother, giving her a picture of the two when they were still very young. Jim had the same picture. It was among his belongings when he was welcomed into the new family.
It was the start of a restored connection, a bond that has been growing stronger and stronger with each passing day.
When we told Lily that her new teacher was her aunt, she was over the moon. In the days to come, she met her cousins and our family grew bigger in the most unexpected way possible.