The week of February 5th I finally met my younger sister, Angi and her two children, Kori and Korbin via FaceTime. They were like Tony, so incredibly nice and easy to speak with! Kori is working toward getting a degree in speech pathology and Korbin is in high school playing baseball and football. Angi works for the school district and she also really enjoys working with people teaching them about skin care with Mary Kay products. Sherry remarked to me before we video chat how good Angi’s skin is and she definitely has a youthful appearance on camera! Kori told me about her focus in softball when she was in high school – I told her about the time we were invited to the Daytona 500 by a good friend of my husband. His daughters also played softball for Florida State and we had a chance to go to one of their games. We were quite impressed and I believe they won their games that day. Korbin and I talked about our favorite football, hockey teams – some the same (Dallas Cowboys) and some different (Dallas Stars vs Chicago Blackhawks). He was funny – every so often peering into the camera, picking on his older sister while trying to be serious but with a hint of a smile. 🙂 You can tell that Kori is quite tolerant of her little brother at times and she is beautiful inside and out! Our 2 hour video call seemed to fly by concluding that we were looking forward to seeing each other in a couple weeks.
Flying into Dallas – My original birthplace… St. Paul Hospital Dallas, TX
I spoke with Sherry and Gary a couple more times before flying out to Texas. Sherry and I decided it would be good to spend a couple days with just the two of us in Dallas and then go to Waco to see the family. She was very open to meeting someplace for the entire time but hearing from the family how excited they were to meet me, we chose to stay local instead.
I flew into Dallas Fort Worth airport on Thursday night, Feb 15 with luggage that I had checked through. I can pack small in a carry-on bag for work but for vacation when the weather may fluctuate I don’t even try. I stepped off the plane and walked the hallways to get to the baggage claim area. It was around 8:15 as we arrived a few minutes early having a gate open right away. Getting in early is one thing but getting into the gate when you are early sometimes is a miracle! As I walked up to the entrance there was my birth mother so adorable and grinning from ear to ear. We hugged a couple times and then talked about the clothes and jewelry we were wearing, the amazing weather, where she found parking, etc. chatting just like we were using FaceTime. No tears were shed at this point as I later learn that we are pretty similar in this regard where are emotions generally come at unexpected times. There was no loss of words between the two extroverted women, mother and daughter as we waited for my luggage. Her Texas accent and my typical non committal accent that is slowly beginning to evolve into a Texas twang. Yee haw! Finally they announced that the luggage was arriving on the carousel next to the one we were waiting at and as I looked left I saw my blue bag. I mentioned to Sherry that I saw it and started walking fast to grab it before it moved too far down the belt. She caught up to me saying ‘I was walking too fast’ but she understood why I darted so quickly to grab it. So we began the nice walk in 75 degree temperature outside to her car. I left 27 degree temperatures in Chicago so this felt lovely!