Fathers Be Good to Your Daughters

Since I was about ten years old I’ve been aware of the fact that I have a half sister. Shortly before my dad met my mom, my father was with a woman and she accidentally got pregnant. I am almost 100% sure that my father has never contacted her. I only know a few scattered facts about her. I know her first name was Georgiana and her last name some variation of Lassidor. Georgiana was born on May 13th, 1985, making her almost exactly one year older than me and the last thing we knew was that she was living in North Carolina.

My father has never told me about my sister, and I would have never known about her if my mother had not shared this with me. At such a young age, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that my father had another daughter. It was even more shocking to realize I had a sister that I had never met. Mostly because I have had a lot of stepsiblings over the years, and they were never kept from me. This was supposed to be a secret between my mother and me. I did not tell anyone about this for many years. But one day I let it slip to my cousins on my dad’s side but made them promise not tell anyone else, especially my father. But the truth came out when I wasn’t around, and it became obvious to everyone that I did know.

But still no one else has ever mentioned her in that household, and I never ask. When I went to visit my father over Christmas, he was teasing me about how I used to sign all my letters to him, “Your Daughter.” Saying that I was his ONLY daughter, but he tripped over this statement and retracted it. That was an uncomfortable moment. I don’t think of Georgiana that often, but every once in a while I can’t get her out of my head. I have a lot of questions that race through my head. “Does she know about me?” “What has her life been like?” “What does she look like?” “Does she look like me?” “Is she even interested in knowing me?”

A few years ago, we thought we had tracked her down. We sent her a letter, but we got a reply saying that we had the wrong person. I was really, really disappointed. And we haven’t made any more attempts at contacting her since then. Last night I was laying down and just had a light bulb go off in my head. There is so much wealth of information available on the internet now. I thought I might be able to find her on facebook or myspace.

There are a lot of Georgiana’s, but I’m slowly sorting through the results. Unfortunately facebook only allows you to send about ten messages a day. So it could take a while. But I’ll keep trying. I don’t know why this is so important to me. We only share some DNA. She may not care to know me. When it comes down to it we are just strangers. I do think she will ask me about our dad, and I will tell her the truth. I won’t make excuses or defend him. He was very, very wrong and she needs the whole truth to make any choices. I do wonder what it was like for her growing up without a father. Although I’m sure it was just as hard for me growing up with our father. I hope I can find her. I hope she will be just as interested in me as I am her, and that maybe we could be friends. But this could be all for not. But you can’t succeed if you never try.