Separated siblings get joyful news of each other
By Jane Clifford
Union Tribune Staff Writer
June 19 2004

Crystle Anne Peters laughed and cried at the same time. Finally, she had the proof. She does have a brother.

The facts were right there in the package taped to the door of her Santee apartment Thursday night. "I thought, 'Oh, God, what happened, what did I do?' when I saw the envelope," she said yesterday.

Inside was all the information the 22-year-old had searched for in vain. All the details since she and Allen Buckner had been separated when she was a year old and he was 2.

"I almost had a heart attack," she said, her dark brown eyes wide and moist.

"I could hardly even read the whole paper. I called right away."

The letter was from Toby Hanft, of Adoption Search and Reunion California, who had done the search for Peters, on behalf of her brother, a specialist in the Army. Renewing his mission to find her took on an urgency after he got orders in January for Iraq.

"That's me!" she said yesterday, looking at a copy of her baby picture, which Buckner has carried around with him since he was 12.

They both knew of each other and were growing up only miles apart, she in Santee, he in Oceanside. They just couldn't find each other. Legal stuff, Peters said, kept them from looking until they were 18. But her adoptive parents had told her everything they knew.

"I was blessed to have such a great family," she said.

And Buckner?

"He stayed with my birth parents, I think. I heard it was very tough for him."

There's much Peters didn't know, including that Buckner had married. And it was his wife who contacted Hanft, through this e-mail:

"Hello, my husband is a soldier in Iraq. He has a sister that was given away for adoption. He tried to look for her before but she was not 18 yet. She should be 22 now. She was born in Oceanside CA Tri-City Hospital. What kind of info do you need to help us find her? Once he comes back home I think it would be a very nice encounter with the sister he has never met before. Hope you can help us or put us in the right direction. Yadira J. Buckner"

Hanft got started immediately, calling on what's she's learned since she started her organization 20 years ago after searching for the daughter she had at 16 and was forced to give up. Hanft recognized the longing in the e-mail. And the urgency.

"Because he is in Iraq . . . " Hanft said, her voice trailing off. "I have been seeing things on TV on my local news in San Francisco, of women and men home alone, needing help while loved ones are over there. When she wrote to me, I said 'Oh, OK, I have a chance.' "

Hanft waived her costs, and this week, the job was done. She tracked Peters to her apartment complex, then learned she had moved into a different unit. Meantime, Hanft got word that Camp Anaconda, where Buckner is stationed with the Army's 512th Maintenance Co., had been attacked. There were deaths and injuries, but Buckner was OK.

Hanft moved into high gear. She located the new apartment unit, but there was no phone number. She contacted a friend who had a friend in Santee, told her the whole story, e-mailed all the background information and begged her to make printouts, package it up and get it to Peters' door.

"It's a miracle," Peters said yesterday afternoon, her dimples growing deeper as the smile spread across her face.

Standing at the glass counter in the small gift shop where she works in La Mesa, she couldn't stop grinning. Customers listening as she told her story couldn't either.

Peters shook her head as she looked at printouts of photos e-mailed from Iraq to Germany, to San Francisco, to San Diego.

There's a lot more to sort through, and she can't wait, can't wait until she and Buckner can have their long-overdue reunion.

For now, e-mail will have to do. She'll use the computer at work, with her boss's blessing, since she doesn't have one at home.

So she sat down and, hesitantly, typed his e-mail address, with "Guess who?" in the subject line, and began that first conversation:

"Finally!!! Is it really you? I can't believe after all this time you found me. I have wondered about you my whole life. There is so much to say and learn about you that I will never know where to start."

Her hand paused in midair, shaking.

"I can't wait to hear from you and most of all see you. Please stay safe. I am here for you and I'll be waiting for you to come home."

She lifted her hands again before typing, "Love, your lil sister."

After a few minutes, she pressed the Send button.

"Now, I'll have to wait another whole day to see if he writes back. I probably won't sleep for the second night in a row."

But after 21 years, she can handle it. Her adoptive mother, who died when Peters was 17, taught her that people do what they have to do. And Peters has a feeling she knew it would work out this way.

"My mother has been looking at me from up above."