‘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.