The feeling was like being reborn 50 years into life.
Roderick Edwards had lived his entire life unsure of who he was as a person. Being adopted, he didn’t feel a connection to his adoptive family, and couldn’t even imagine who his birth family was.
But the moment he encountered a sister — someone he never knew existed until last year — unlocked something indescribable.
"When you’re given up for adoption, you’re out there in the world. Even if you’ve been adopted by a loving family, you’re kind of alone in the world. You’re the only person in the world, really. People can say they know you and love you, you still feel like the only person in the world," he said.
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"Now you have another person, somebody else in the world you know."
For the first time in more than 50 years, this brother and sister have reunited. Through extensive research, and with the help of an investigator, Edwards was able to find Lori Mullis, the sister he never knew he had.
Since first talking on the phone in March, they’ve traveled to visit one another numerous times. Their connection was so great, and their desire to make up for lost time so strong, that Edwards, 51, decided to move from Greenwood to Florida to be closer to 52-year-old Mullis.
“It’s almost like we’re doing it backwards. If we had the opportunity to grow up together, we’d have had our childhood together and went on our separate ways. We’d have still been a family, we’d have still seen each other,” Mullis said. “But we didn’t have that. So we’re having that bonding now.”
Finding his place
Edwards had been adopted when he was 4 years old, and lived in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis. His childhood was an unhappy one, punctuated by neglect and, at times, abuse. His self-esteem was non-existent; compounding those feelings was knowing that he was given up for adoption.
As he grew older, he wondered what kind of information he could find about his birth family. Who were his mother and father? Did he have any siblings?
He had done casual searches on message boards and tried to unearth any information at all about his birth parents. Unfortunately, Indiana law made it extremely difficult for adopted children to find out even the most basic information. Those records had been sealed previously, and the only way to get them was by petitioning the court.
But in May of 2018, that law was changed. People who were adopted before 1993 could file forms requesting that information. Adoption records would be opened, unless biological parents filed their own form restricting access.
Edwards, who had moved to Greenwood in 1984, filed his paperwork in May as soon as the law changed, expecting nothing would come of it.
But on Nov. 2, 2018, he received a letter from the state of Indiana. Ripping it open, he was finally presented with a lead in his search: his birth mother’s full name.
The birth certificate also confirmed that the day he’d always celebrated as his birthday, June 28, 1968, was indeed the day he was born. He had sometimes doubted that was the case after hearing stories of adoptive parents and adoption agencies changing those details to make it more difficult to locate the child.
In the space on the birth certificate where his name should have been, it only said, “male.” His birth mother had not given him a name, a bittersweet realization for him.
But another entry on the form gave Edwards hope. A note said his birth mother had given birth to another child in 1966. He had a sibling.
Starting the search
Edwards uncovered information from genealogy websites, which he had submitted his DNA to and provided a genetic trail to follow, and then took to social media. He was able to make contact with two older half-brothers and a younger half-sister, and he was able to meet with some of his half-siblings soon after.
They shared information about their pasts: what his mother was like, how the decision to give him up for adoption had weighed on her, the chaos and struggles that all of them faced growing up.
Edwards had been born premature, had an abnormally curved spine and a condition called gastroschisis, where the intestines grow outside of the abdomen. His half-sister informed him that the family had always been told that he had either died at the hospital, or was physically or mentally incapacitated in a facility somewhere.
Despite all the information shared, no one knew anything about the mysterious other sibling born in 1966.
“All we knew was that she existed. No one knew anything, even from the birth family,” Edwards said.
Edwards wasn’t going to give up knowing his sister was potentially out there somewhere. He works as a data analyst, and used those skills to dig into digital and other records looking for a lead.
Nothing bore fruit. Other adoptees on message boards and websites told him he would have to hire an investigator known as a confidential intermediary to find his lost sister. Edwards was hesitant at first, but realizing that courts would provide an intermediary more information than he was able to get himself, he eventually hired an Indianapolis service.
The investigator located his sister in about a month.
Coming together
Mullis, who had been adopted by a couple in Greenwood, had also been searching for her own adoption records. She had tried to search with whatever resources she had available. Her adoptive parents had told her what her name had been, and she would often make phone calls to people with that name to see if they were related.
“I actually found a family who claimed I was the child. I met the uncle and aunt and grandmother three or four times, and two supposed siblings,” she said. “But later, the grandmother told me I was causing a lot of problems in the family and to not contact them. So I stopped.”
For seven years, Mullis worked as a clerk in the attorney general’s office, often handling adoption history issues and directing people on the limited ways to get those records. She was able to secure records of her own that seemed to point to that family she had been speaking with.
“So I thought that was it, and gave up,” she said.
When the investigator Edwards had hired called her, she immediately closed up.
“I almost said no, I wasn’t going to go through this again,” she said. “Luckily, I threw out some names, and the intermediary didn’t think this was connected with those people. This was someone new.”
With both Mullis and Edwards consenting to exchange information, now it was up to them to make contact. Edwards reached out to her in March, calling during the day.
Their first interaction caught Mullis while she was at work.
“I still joke with her, you get all this big build-up, I went through all of this effort, I contacted this investigator, and they find her. It’s really her after all of this time, 50-some odd years,” Edwards said. “And then it’s ‘Can I call you back? I’m training someone.’”
But later that day, they were able to speak at length with one another. They started talking on the phone, then set up a video chat so they could see one another.
By April, Edwards flew to Ocala, Florida, where Mullis now lives. He was joined by two of his half-brothers.
“It was kind of weird. Here’s this stranger that you don’t really know at all. But when you see them, it’s like you’ve known them your entire life, you’ve just been away from them for a while,” Edwards said.
An immediate connection
Spending time together, they began to notice mannerisms that demonstrated their sibling bond. They speak in similar ways, and use idiosyncratic sayings. When Mullis was mad as a child, she’d bite her arm lightly. Edwards would bite his finger when he was angry.
“Maybe these things are coincidental, but then you really start to wonder. You haven’t been around this person all your life, but you’re doing the same things,” Mullis said.
Edwards made another trip down to Florida later, spending time with Mullis and meeting her adoptive father, who was very receptive to him, Mullis said. They went to the beach and collected shells, and took photographs of alligators.
The more they talked and spent time together, the more they wanted to be part of one anothers’ lives.
“Rod and I connect in a certain way. We speak in a certain way. We interact in a certain way that is the same to one another than any of our other siblings,” Mullis said. “That could be DNA, that could be the fact we were both put up for adoption. But that made the difference in the connection.”
Describing their bond is still difficult, Edwards said.
“Natural-born people who have siblings, it’s no big deal. They’ve gone through life with their siblings, grew up with them. It’s a feeling that it would be lost time if we tried to maintain a normal life so far apart,” he said.
So they made a decision: Edwards would move down to Florida to live with Mullis. The move has helped strengthen the bond between the two in the past few months, though it has been extremely disruptive to their lives. Edwards came to Florida without his wife, moving farther away from his daughter and her 3-year-old son, Edwards’ only grandchild.
Friends, relatives, even other biological siblings could not understand why he was leaving that behind, but Edwards couldn’t stand the thought of not being a major part of his sister’s life.
“Let’s say we live to be 70, 75. We may only have about 20 years left. Am I going to spend 20 years knowing her every few years, only visiting every few years? I just don’t get it,” Edwards said.
Making up for lost time
The siblings have been taking things slowly so far. Mullis has continued to work, while Edwards takes care of things around the house, such as mowing the yard and cleaning, in addition to doing some data analysis contract work. They’ve completed projects around Mullis’ property, such as trying to repair the chicken coop, which also served as important bonding time.
For two people who have struggled throughout their lives with feelings of self-worth, they’ve served as emotional balances for one another.
They purchased a recreational vehicle and they’re planning to take a trip together to further strengthen their bond.
“We’re trying to figure out so that we have more time to interact as human beings, instead of the daily grind that all of us do most of our lives from age 18 until they retire,” Edwards said. "The plan now is figure out some way to minimize our expenses and our necessity to constantly work, then travel in this RV."
Edwards has also written a book about his experience. The past 10 months has been chaotic and world-altering for both of them; the emotional repercussions, the anger, the sadness are all still felt.
But both Edwards and Mullis have, for the first time, someone they can lean on to weather the difficult times.
"There’s a destructive side to it, because making these decisions pulled me away from my constructed family, by their choice. They can’t wrap their heads around it," he said. "When I look back, we’re just trying to recapture something. We only have a short time left to be siblings."
