LilMtnCbn
08-27-2004, 06:29 AM
http://www.dailyherald.com/mchenry/main_story.asp?intID=38226225
Years lost, but sisters found
By Jack Komperda Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Friday, August 27, 2004
Tanit Jarusan/Daily Herald
You couldn't make up a better reunion story than the one Kris Metoyer has
lived.
The 37-year-old Carol Stream woman spent nearly four years searching for a
missing sister she knew only as "Joyce."
The search led her to a schizophrenic mother living in government-subsidized
housing and four sisters she didn't know she had.
And on Thursday afternoon at O'Hare International Airport, she was getting
ready to meet the sister whose first name sparked the search to find part of
her past. Part of herself.
The buildup
Metoyer, in her quest to find her missing siblings, already had hooked up with
a sister living in Florida, Victoria Jandran, 33.
They were the first of the five sisters, who were given up for adoption at a
young age, to be reunited. They met four years ago through Jandran's plea for
help on an obscure genealogical Web site.
They sat near the Hertz Rent-A-Car, waiting for the flight that would bring a
sister from California and into their lives. They talked seriously about what
it would be like - for them and for her.
"Sometimes when you first meet a person, you don't know what the boundaries are
with them," Metoyer said.
As the sisters chatted, finishing each others' sentences, one might easily
assume they had grown up together.
The other sister
And to think this meeting all began with a simple household chore and an
Internet search.
Earlier this month, Joyce Longyear, 39, was cleaning out the garage of her
Thousand Oaks, Calif., home when she came across a dusty old binder. It
chronicled her search for her birth mother - a search she had abandoned after
learning the woman had schizophrenia and was living in public housing on
Chicago's North Side.
A social worker told her there was a good chance the mother wouldn't remember
Longyear. It was more than Longyear was ready to deal with.
That was 15 years ago.
She's had time to come to terms with her search. If things didn't work out, she
figured, she now has a loving family she counts on for support.
Pausing at the documents, Longyear made a fateful decision: She sat down at her
computer and typed "justina wildova" - her birth mother's name - into an
Internet search engine.
The first link that appeared was to a Daily Herald article published in May
chronicling Metoyer's own success in meeting her birth mother and her sister.
"I just knew before I opened it that it was her," Longyear recalled. "I was
hysterical. I just started crying right there."
She had known since age 4 that she was adopted by a Skokie family who had
relocated to southern California.
"Who do I look like?" she often wondered as a teen.
The answer came Thursday.
She cried for much of the plane ride from California to Chicago but still had a
compulsion to spill her heart out to the stranger sitting next to her.
'She looks like us'
As Metoyer and Jandran scurried up to the arrival gate, casting anxious glances
about, they ran into a man.
"You looking for your long-lost sister?" he yelled.
"Yeah, how did you know that?" Metoyer shot back, stunned.
"I sat next to her on the plane," the man responded.
The three met near the baggage claim. Longyear stood on a lower level, bags in
tow. At the top of the escalator, Metoyer stood trembling and clasping her
hands together.
"She looks like us," Metoyer said through tears.
Almost immediately, the three women embraced and began pulling out childhood
pictures of themselves.
They had swapped photos in the weeks before the trip, but this was different.
They weren't sheltered behind computer screens hundreds of miles away.
When the sisters asked Longyear whether she was finally ready to meet her
mother, she didn't hesitate.
"Yes," she said.
The second reunion
The sisters chatted like schoolgirls during the hourlong drive to Oak Brook
Healthcare Centre. Metoyer moved her mother to the Oak Brook nursing home two
years ago so she could be closer and get the constant attention she needs not
only for her schizophrenia but also emphysema, diabetes and heart disease.
The women found their mother sitting patiently at the edge of her bed. Her hair
was dyed black and up in curls.
"Hi, Mom, I want to introduce you to somebody," Metoyer said, "Do you remember
Joyce?"
Longyear stepped forward, looking dazed by both the experience and lack of
sleep the night before.
"Hi Mom, how you doing?" she quietly said.
Wildova took a moment to look her daughter over.
"I'm glad you're doing fine," she said. "You got big, huh?"
After the daughters settled in, Wildova had to ask again which one was the
latest daughter to come forward.
"Which one's Joycey?" she asked. "That's you? That's for you."
Wildova slipped a bracelet onto Longyear's right wrist. She had made the gift a
few days earlier during an arts and crafts session.
The women talked for a while about long-lost family. Then they all went out to
dinner.
As the women walked out of the home, Wildova stopped several nurses along the
way to introduce her "California daughter."
Catching up
Metoyer and Jandran say they have a lot of holes to fill into Longyear's
personal history over her four-day stay, and they fear that Longyear won't be
able to cope with her newfound relatives. Two other sisters, though contacted
by Metoyer, chose not to renew their family ties.
But Thursday's meeting was far more than any of them could have ever expected.
"I couldn't have imagined we'd get to this point," Metoyer said. "As babies we
looked alike. Our grade school pictures, we both had really skinny legs. Just
really weird coincidences.
"It's something that's not explainable ... but it shows people what good things
can happen."
And proof, perhaps, that blood is thicker than water.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Years lost, but sisters found
By Jack Komperda Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Friday, August 27, 2004
Tanit Jarusan/Daily Herald
You couldn't make up a better reunion story than the one Kris Metoyer has
lived.
The 37-year-old Carol Stream woman spent nearly four years searching for a
missing sister she knew only as "Joyce."
The search led her to a schizophrenic mother living in government-subsidized
housing and four sisters she didn't know she had.
And on Thursday afternoon at O'Hare International Airport, she was getting
ready to meet the sister whose first name sparked the search to find part of
her past. Part of herself.
The buildup
Metoyer, in her quest to find her missing siblings, already had hooked up with
a sister living in Florida, Victoria Jandran, 33.
They were the first of the five sisters, who were given up for adoption at a
young age, to be reunited. They met four years ago through Jandran's plea for
help on an obscure genealogical Web site.
They sat near the Hertz Rent-A-Car, waiting for the flight that would bring a
sister from California and into their lives. They talked seriously about what
it would be like - for them and for her.
"Sometimes when you first meet a person, you don't know what the boundaries are
with them," Metoyer said.
As the sisters chatted, finishing each others' sentences, one might easily
assume they had grown up together.
The other sister
And to think this meeting all began with a simple household chore and an
Internet search.
Earlier this month, Joyce Longyear, 39, was cleaning out the garage of her
Thousand Oaks, Calif., home when she came across a dusty old binder. It
chronicled her search for her birth mother - a search she had abandoned after
learning the woman had schizophrenia and was living in public housing on
Chicago's North Side.
A social worker told her there was a good chance the mother wouldn't remember
Longyear. It was more than Longyear was ready to deal with.
That was 15 years ago.
She's had time to come to terms with her search. If things didn't work out, she
figured, she now has a loving family she counts on for support.
Pausing at the documents, Longyear made a fateful decision: She sat down at her
computer and typed "justina wildova" - her birth mother's name - into an
Internet search engine.
The first link that appeared was to a Daily Herald article published in May
chronicling Metoyer's own success in meeting her birth mother and her sister.
"I just knew before I opened it that it was her," Longyear recalled. "I was
hysterical. I just started crying right there."
She had known since age 4 that she was adopted by a Skokie family who had
relocated to southern California.
"Who do I look like?" she often wondered as a teen.
The answer came Thursday.
She cried for much of the plane ride from California to Chicago but still had a
compulsion to spill her heart out to the stranger sitting next to her.
'She looks like us'
As Metoyer and Jandran scurried up to the arrival gate, casting anxious glances
about, they ran into a man.
"You looking for your long-lost sister?" he yelled.
"Yeah, how did you know that?" Metoyer shot back, stunned.
"I sat next to her on the plane," the man responded.
The three met near the baggage claim. Longyear stood on a lower level, bags in
tow. At the top of the escalator, Metoyer stood trembling and clasping her
hands together.
"She looks like us," Metoyer said through tears.
Almost immediately, the three women embraced and began pulling out childhood
pictures of themselves.
They had swapped photos in the weeks before the trip, but this was different.
They weren't sheltered behind computer screens hundreds of miles away.
When the sisters asked Longyear whether she was finally ready to meet her
mother, she didn't hesitate.
"Yes," she said.
The second reunion
The sisters chatted like schoolgirls during the hourlong drive to Oak Brook
Healthcare Centre. Metoyer moved her mother to the Oak Brook nursing home two
years ago so she could be closer and get the constant attention she needs not
only for her schizophrenia but also emphysema, diabetes and heart disease.
The women found their mother sitting patiently at the edge of her bed. Her hair
was dyed black and up in curls.
"Hi, Mom, I want to introduce you to somebody," Metoyer said, "Do you remember
Joyce?"
Longyear stepped forward, looking dazed by both the experience and lack of
sleep the night before.
"Hi Mom, how you doing?" she quietly said.
Wildova took a moment to look her daughter over.
"I'm glad you're doing fine," she said. "You got big, huh?"
After the daughters settled in, Wildova had to ask again which one was the
latest daughter to come forward.
"Which one's Joycey?" she asked. "That's you? That's for you."
Wildova slipped a bracelet onto Longyear's right wrist. She had made the gift a
few days earlier during an arts and crafts session.
The women talked for a while about long-lost family. Then they all went out to
dinner.
As the women walked out of the home, Wildova stopped several nurses along the
way to introduce her "California daughter."
Catching up
Metoyer and Jandran say they have a lot of holes to fill into Longyear's
personal history over her four-day stay, and they fear that Longyear won't be
able to cope with her newfound relatives. Two other sisters, though contacted
by Metoyer, chose not to renew their family ties.
But Thursday's meeting was far more than any of them could have ever expected.
"I couldn't have imagined we'd get to this point," Metoyer said. "As babies we
looked alike. Our grade school pictures, we both had really skinny legs. Just
really weird coincidences.
"It's something that's not explainable ... but it shows people what good things
can happen."
And proof, perhaps, that blood is thicker than water.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
