Sistas!

Here is the post I eluded to yesterday...
A couple of days ago I got an email - the message subject was "long lost sister". My first thought sadly was to wonder what new angle the spammers were taking with this one. But when the email came up in my preview pane - I saw that it was from someone named Alisha. I have two (step) sisters named Alisha and Renae. We haven't talked since 1995. It is a long story - but let's just suffice to say that we were not encouraged to have a relationship with each other, and the parents who should have helped us stay in contact no longer have an active part in any of our lives.
Renae had been searching the internet to reconnect with some friends from high school, and somehow was routed to my blog! She is a homeschool mom of 4 - and it appears we have so much in common from movies and books, to homeschooling, to a love of history, to our faith. Alisha is the mother of two gorgeous boys. We may not have quite as much obvious in common, but we were always thicker than thieves when we were younger. I remember listening to our 80s music together, late night talks about french kissing and boys. Because I know how much these girls have overcome to become the tremendously special women that they are today, I am so incredibly proud of them.
I am so terribly sad at the years we have lost. But I am not going to waste one single moment grieving over that when we could spend it getting to know each other again. It's been too long. I love them. I am so thankful. I am so glad that they had the courage to make contact. I have made fruitless efforts to find them online. I guess that blogging has a lot of benefits we can't even imagine - and I am glad that I didn't blog so incognito that they couldn't find me. The last couple of days have been a flurry of emails about our lives, and sharing pictures of our children. It has been terrific.
We don't have a "family" picture of us together - although through the years we were able to share a few holidays together. I took some pictures of the three of us and made this little "Christmas" picture out of some snippets from Thanksgiving 1989. I was 19, Alisha 16 and Renae 14. It was totally the 80s! Can you dig that hair? Geesh. How did I hold my dang head up!
I hope you two are reading this and know how glad I am that we have found our way to each other again.