Tuesday morning, 16-year-old Megan Klindt and her 74-year-old bus driver Donald Hendricks were killed when a school bus caught fire in western Iowa. We've now learned that after being put up for adoption ten years earlier, Megan and her older sister Paige Hough had just been reunited.

Paige told KCCI,

Growing up, she wasn't my sister, she was my kid. I helped take care of her, I changed her, I took her to school, I taught her how to write her name, helped her do her homework. She was my life. She is my everything... I would always look for her and thought about her.

Ten years ago, six-year-old Megan was put up for adoption. Paige was 16 at the time. The court ruled that the sisters could reunite in 2019, when Megan turned 18. Thankfully, fate intervened.

After a family cousin saw Megan in a mall, she shot a photo text of her to Paige, who was working at the time. She left immediately to go see Megan for the first time in a decade.

Paige shared her feelings on reuniting:

I was so nervous. I just said, 'Megan' and she turned around and that was always my fear that she wouldn't know who I was or wouldn't recognize me since she was little... She turned around and said, 'Oh my God', we were crying and she hugged me and it was the best thing that ever happened.

After Megan's family gave the ok, they began to rediscover their sisterhood and love. Megan wrote Paige a letter of thanks and asked her to come to her birthday party on December 2. Paige wouldn't have missed that party for the world and said the 10 years they spent apart evaporated, almost instantly:

There was no missing beats and we all talked. We were so happy. I won't forget that day.

Paige and Megan talked for the final time Monday night, December 11, the evening before Megan was killed. Now, Paige must go on as she's had to so many times before. She has a wrist tattoo with Megan's initials that she got six years ago.

It was to help me get through struggles and to motivate me. Now it's more of a remembrance tattoo and I didn't think it would get to this point... I've had a rough life. I lost my dad at a young age. I lost my grandmother who raised me at a young age. Megan was always my happy ending that I waited for.

You'll see her again, Paige. You'll see her again. We're so very sorry for your loss.

[via KCCI]

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