Everything Is Possible by Jen Bricker

Author:Jen Bricker [Bricker, Jen with Sheryl Berk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SEL021000, BIO018000, BIO016000, People with disabilities—Religious life, Jen Bricker (1987D ), Women gymnasts—United States—Biography, Success—Religious aspects—Christianity
ISBN: 9781493405299
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Secret Sisters

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A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

—John 13:34 (ESV)

A lot has been made of the story of how I reached out to my sister, Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu, and told her I was her long-lost sister. She wrote about it in her memoir. We talked about it in newspapers and magazines and TV interviews. But it’s really just half the story. To me, the most important half is what came after that initial meeting: how my relationship with both my sisters and my biological mother has evolved. The story isn’t over, because we’re just finding our way in one another’s lives.

I always knew I was adopted, and that fact didn’t trouble me much. My parents knew eventually one day I’d get curious and start digging, but they hoped it would come later rather than sooner. My adoption was supposed to be closed; I wasn’t even supposed to know who my birth parents were. But God was working overtime. He made sure that the social worker made a clerical error and gave my parents all that information. He knew one day I would need to reach out to Dominique.

That day came when I was sixteen. My friend Kassi was adopted and had found out her biological last name. It seemed so cool and mysterious—a piece to a puzzle. Could I find out mine? What would that reveal about me? I had never been curious about it before, never had any reason to think my parents were holding anything back. But God put the idea in my mind. It was time.

“So,” I said to begin the conversation with my mom. “Do you know what my last name was when I was born? Do you know anything about my birth parents?”

Her reaction was kind of like Hold that thought! as she went to call my dad and ask him what to tell me. Should she wait until he got home from work? Should they tell me at all when I was still so young? He told her not to keep me waiting any longer—so she didn’t. She pulled out a manila envelope filled with papers.

“Now, Jennifer,” she began. “You’re never gonna believe this.” She laid out on the table all the documents she’d kept. “Your biological last name is Moceanu.”

I knew. I just knew. On some level, I had always known. I think she was waiting for me to have a reaction but I didn’t. On the outside I must have seemed eerily calm, but inside I was freaking out. “Dominique’s my sister.” It was a statement, not a question. It all made sense now. My parents, of course, had put two and two together several years ago. While watching the Olympics with me, they saw the fourteen-year-old gymnast I was fixated on—and the names of her parents, who were watching in the audience. My mom had seen their signatures on my adoption papers.

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