I grew up in an orphanage. At eight years old, I was separated from my little sister, and for the next thirty-two years I kept wondering if she was even still alive. That changed on an ordinary business trip when a quick stop at the supermarket turned into something I still find hard to believe.
My name is Tish, and when I was eight I promised my little sister I would find her someday.
Then I spent thirty-two years unable to keep that promise.
She was always right by my side.
Babs and I grew up in that orphanage.
We knew nothing about our parents—no names, no pictures, no hope they might return one day. Just two small beds in a crowded room and a couple of short notes in some file.
We were stuck together like glue.
She followed me everywhere, holding my hand tight in the hallways, crying if she woke up and I wasn’t there.
I learned to braid her hair with just my fingers since combs were rare. I figured out ways to sneak extra bread rolls without getting caught. I realized that smiling nicely and answering questions politely made the adults kinder to both of us.
We didn’t have big dreams.
We simply wanted to leave that place together.
Then one day a couple came to look around.
They walked with the director, nodding and smiling—the sort of people who looked perfect for adoption posters.
They watched the kids playing.
They noticed me reading stories to Babs in a quiet corner.
A few days later, the director called me to her office.
“Tish,” she said with an overly bright smile, “a family wants to adopt you. This is wonderful news.”
“You need to be strong.”
“What about Babs?” I asked right away.
She sighed as if she’d practiced it.
“They aren’t ready for two children,” she explained. “She’s still very young. Other families will come for her. You’ll see each other again one day.”
“I won’t leave without her,” I said.
Her smile faded.
“You don’t have a choice,” she replied softly. “You have to be brave.”
Brave just meant obey.
The day they came for me, Babs wrapped her arms around my waist and cried out.
“Don’t go, Tish!” she sobbed. “Please don’t leave. I’ll be good—I promise!”
I hugged her as hard as I could until a worker gently pulled her away.
“I’ll find you,” I kept repeating. “I’ll come back. I promise, Babs. I promise.”
She was still shouting my name when the car drove off.
“We’re your family now.”
That cry stayed with me for decades.
My new family lived in a different state.
They weren’t mean. They gave me food, clothes, a bed to myself. They kept telling me how “lucky” I was.
But they hated hearing about my past.
“You don’t need to think about the orphanage anymore,” my adoptive mom would say. “We’re your family now. Focus on the present.”
I got better at English, learned to fit in at school, and quickly found out that mentioning my sister made conversations awkward.
So I stopped saying her name aloud.
In my mind, she remained real.
When I turned eighteen, I returned to the orphanage.
New staff. New kids. Same worn walls.
I gave them my old name, my new name, my sister’s name.
A woman checked the files and returned with a thin folder.
I tried again a few years later. Same response.
“Your sister was adopted shortly after you,” she said. “Her name changed, and her records are sealed. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Is she okay? Is she alive? Can you at least tell me that?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry. We’re not allowed.”
Sealed records. New name. No details.
I’d see sisters arguing or laughing in a store and it would hit me hard.
It felt like someone had erased her and written a completely different life in her place.
Life moved forward anyway.
I finished school, worked, married too early, divorced, moved around, got better jobs, switched from instant coffee to better brews.
From the outside, I looked like any normal adult woman with a steady, unexciting life.
Inside, thoughts of my sister never really stopped.
I’d spot a girl with brown pigtails holding her older sister’s hand and feel that old ache.
Some years I searched online or through agencies. Other years the dead ends hurt too much to try again.
She became a quiet ghost I couldn’t let go.
Last year my job sent me on a short three-day trip to another city. Nothing exciting—just an office park, a cheap hotel, and one decent coffee spot nearby.
That’s when everything changed.
On my first evening I walked to a nearby grocery store for dinner.
I was tired, thinking about work emails, annoyed at the early meeting ahead.
I turned into the cookie aisle.
A little girl, maybe nine or ten, stood there studying two cookie packages very seriously, like the choice mattered a lot.
As she reached up, her jacket sleeve slipped down.
That’s when I saw it.
I froze like I’d hit a wall.
A thin red-and-blue braided bracelet on her wrist.
It wasn’t just similar.
Same colors. Same uneven tightness. Same awkward knot.
When I was eight the orphanage got a box of craft supplies. I took some red and blue thread and spent hours trying to make two friendship bracelets like the older girls wore.
I stared at the bracelet on this girl’s wrist.
Mine turned out crooked and too tight.
I tied one on my wrist.
I tied the other on Babs’s.
“So you won’t forget me,” I told her. “Even if we end up in different homes.”
She still had hers on the day I left.
My fingers tingled looking at it, like my hands remembered making it.
I stepped closer.
“Hi,” I said softly. “That’s a really cool bracelet.”
She looked up, curious but not scared.
“Thanks,” she said, holding it out proudly. “My mom gave it to me.”
“Did she make it?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
The girl shook her head.
A woman approached with a box of cereal in her hands.
“She said someone special made it for her when she was little,” the girl explained. “Now it’s mine. I can’t lose it or she’ll be upset.”
I gave a small laugh despite the tightness in my throat.
“Is your mom here?”
“Yeah,” she said, pointing. “She’s right there.”
I looked.
The woman smiled at her daughter, then at me.
Dark hair tied back. No heavy makeup. Jeans and sneakers. Mid-thirties or so.
Something inside me shifted.
Her eyes. Her walk. The way her brows lifted when she read labels.
The girl ran to her.
“Mom, can we get the chocolate kind?” she asked.
The woman smiled down, then met my eyes.
She glanced at her daughter’s wrist and smiled wider.
Up close, all doubts vanished.
Her nose. Her hands. That little nervous laugh. All Babs, grown up.
“What happened after they took you?” she asked quietly. “They told me you went to a good family and… that was it.”
“I got adopted,” I said. “They moved me to another state. They didn’t want to talk about the orphanage or you. At eighteen I went back. They said you’d been adopted, name changed, file sealed. I tried again later—same thing. I thought maybe you didn’t want to be found.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I got adopted a few months after you,” she said. “They changed my last name. We moved often. Whenever I asked about my sister they said that part of my life was over. When I was older I tried searching for you, but I didn’t know your new name or where you went. I thought you forgot me.”
“Never,” I said. “I thought you forgot me.”
We both laughed—the painful kind of laugh when something hurts but finally makes sense.
“What about the bracelet?” I asked.
She looked at her daughter’s wrist.
“I kept it in a box for years,” she said. “It was the only thing left from before. I couldn’t wear it anymore, but I couldn’t throw it out. When she turned eight I gave it to her. I told her it came from someone very important. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, but I wanted it to keep going.”
The girl—her name was Bren—stretched her arm out proudly.
“I take really good care of it,” she said. “See? Still perfect.”
“You did a great job,” I said, my voice breaking a little.
We talked until the café staff started closing up.
About work. About kids. About past relationships. About small memories that matched perfectly:
The chipped blue mug everyone fought over.
The hiding spot under the stairs.
The volunteer who always smelled like oranges.
Before we left, Babs looked at me and said, “You kept your promise.”
“What promise?” I asked.
“You said you’d find me,” she answered. “And you did.”
I hugged her tightly.
It felt strange—two grown women with shared blood and thirty-two lost years—yet it also felt completely right, more right than anything since I was eight.
We exchanged numbers and addresses.
We didn’t pretend the years apart hadn’t happened.
We started small.
Texts. Calls. Photos. Visits when we could manage time and flights.
We’re still working on it. We’ve each built full lives without the other, and now we’re slowly connecting them without breaking anything.
After searching for so long, I never imagined this would be how I found her.
But now when I remember that last day at the orphanage—the gravel under my feet, Babs screaming my name—another image overlays it:
Two sisters in a grocery store café, laughing through tears over bad coffee, while a little girl swings her legs and protects a crooked red-and-blue bracelet like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
My sister and I were separated in an orphanage.
Thirty-two years later I saw the bracelet I made for her on a little girl’s wrist.
After all that time, I never thought reunion would happen this way.