‘I gulp back feelings of regret’: how I found my long-lost sibling

Four years ago, I didn’t know my brother existed. Meeting him was like being reunited with an old friend and made me want to speak to other siblings who connected later in life

“I’d always wanted a brother,” says Declan Aumpu, the first time we meet. It’s April 2017, and I am 23 years old. Dec, 26, has arrived in the back of a friend’s van after a big night out. He is clearly nervous and has hardly slept. I’m anxious, too.

It’s strange that we have never met, especially since so many people know we are half-brothers, and I gulp back feelings of regret and shame. We don’t look much alike, beside our smiles, which curl up on the left-hand side of our mouths, but there is an instant connection; an immediate ease in each other’s company. As we embrace outside the Merlin’s Cave pub in Chalfont St Giles, south Buckinghamshire, it’s like being reunited with an old friend.

The onus is on the siblings who have grown up with both their parents to reach out to their half-siblings

I wouldn’t say we look like twins, but we are very similar. I felt driven to meet him because we clearly shared DNA

We’re brothers and sisters. It feels like we’ve known each other since birth. I couldn’t ask for anything better

I’d always thought I could be walking down the street past my sister or my brother. But this was for real and we fitted

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3c1CuMy