How I Found My Sister:Part I

"I had always wished that I had a sibling; a little brother, a little sister, a big sister, anything at all. Life would have been so much more interesting if I'd had some one to mess with me or for me to be overprotective of or to give advice from time to time or just to share things with.

I remember I would often wonder at the way how my friends who had siblings would fuss and complain about having them around, some of them even wished them gone. I eventually came to the conclusion that saying 'I hate so and so' or 'I wish so and so would just disappear' was just a secret way of saying 'I don't know what I would do without them' and they didn't realize it. Little did I know that I had a sister some where that I would soon learn to love and hate at the same time as well."

Urei (yoo-ry) McConnell was separated from his twin sister Isabel at the young age of 15 months when their parents were tragically killed in a train-car collision. Who now took over custody of the children became a great issue.

Their maternal grandfather, Patrick, proposed to take over the care of the infant boy but refused to take them both on the basis that with out a female around the house, he being an old man wouldn't be able to successfully raise Isabel. Seeing the logic in this it was agreed that Patrick would only be responsible for Urei. However Isabel still needed a home and no females were found in the family willing to take her, eventually her lot fell to Matt, her father's identical twin brother. He reluctantly but not begrudgingly took the responsibility even though he was a single man with no temporary relationships either. He decided that although he was indeed unmarried, plenty of single dads had raised their daughters successfully without even girlfriend help, therefore there was no reason why he could not succeed as well. After everything was settled, the two men went their ways with their new charges.

Urei grew nicely and was found, at the age of 2 years, to be superbly gifted especially in the area of memory; it was impossible to allow the boy to hear or see anything and expect him to later forget it. "As soon as he could talk, I knew he subconsciously remembered his sister." Patrick told me once. "He would play games with his 'imaginary sister' all the time. All sorts of elaborate things and each time the sister's name would be Belle. I asked him about it one day and he said to me 'You know Granpapa I think I did have a sister name Belle one time, but I don't know were she went to.' He sighed then and said 'I think she just popped away like Mammy did. But you know Granpapa when I play with her, she is smart, she knows what I mean but the other kids at the place for blocks and painting don't.' I regret now that we ever decided to keep them separate from each other but under the circumstances it would have been unwise to tell him of a twin sister whom he would only be able to visit from time to time, maybe next year not this one etc. But he was such a bright child that he did not often find a playmate among his fellows two and three year olds or teachers for that matter, at daycare who could understand much less join his game."

But what Urei had said about his imaginary sister was true for the real one as well; she was nearly as smart as him and it was their superior intellects that eventually brought them together 16 years after their separation.

To be continued...