Have you ever read an article in the paper that you just can’t forget? I’ve been stuck on the story of these sisters for five years now.
That’s when I read a piece in Newsweek magazine in 2009 called the Power of Two, about the emotional reunion of Chinese fraternal twins who reunited after being adopted by two different American families. Their mother had abandoned them weeks apart in a Chinese park when they were newborns, so no one involved in their adoption knew that the girls were twins.Sure, I had an obvious attraction to the story. Both little girls, living states away from one another, had been named Meredith by their adoptive parents. In Illinois, Meredith Grace lives with her family. Meredith Ellen is being raised with her family in Alabama.
(My last name is Meredith, a name I reclaimed when I found my missing father at age 20, and then subsequently named my second daughter Meredith Eleni as my father died. Grace is also a name that runs through my family for generations.)
But it’s greater than that.
The moral of their story for me is boiled down to three lessons.
1) The longing for our missing family members is universal.
Both of these girls individually mentioned either wanting to be a sister, or to be with her sister. Meredith Ellen had said as a toddler, “I’m so lonely. I wish I had a sister.” And at three, Meredith Grace told her preschool teacher about her sister in China. A year later, upon hearing her sister’s voice on the phone, said, “I think we were born together.” This, well before their parents had told them of their suspected sisterhood, which DNA tests later confirmed.
2) Our shared DNA can translate into shared quirks.
These sisters had a distinctive tilt of the head. The tilt of the head led the father of Meredith Grace to recognize that Meredith Ellen was his daughter’s twin as he perused an adoption website online. Though the twins were non-identical, their mannerisms matched them together spot-on.
3) Connecting with family builds strength.
I know I’ve brought up the benefits of finding missing family members before. And I love The Locator Troy Dunn’s slogan, “You can’t find peace until you find the missing pieces.” But no one has stated this more eloquently than little Meredith Ellen, who at ten, journaled, “I feel close to Sissy because she has been with me since the beginning and when we were put in orphanages I knew that it was sort of hard but I knew that I would find the missing piece in my heart. I found the missing piece.”
Do yourself a favor. Read the story from Newsweek. Read updated information about the Tale of Two Meredith’s in Jim Rittenhouse’s online journal. And this week, celebrate your own family connections, however they’re defined.