When Kathy Richards gave her daughter up for adoption in 1968, she gave the baby’s adoptive parents her high school photo. The photo was passed along to Amanda Broadus by her adoptive mom, along with her birth mom’s full name. Broadus, who grew up knowing she was adopted, eventually went looking for her birth mom, and it turned out her birth mom spent years searching for her, too. In 2016, thanks to Facebook, mother and daughter finally found each other and agreed to meet for the first time.
The journey of that fateful moment was documented on Facebook. Grab a tissue, because it’s going to bring tears to your eyes. Watch Richards and her younger daughter on the plane on the way to the meeting as they nervously anticipate how it will go, all the way through to the moment when they finally see each other:
The emotion is palpable when they embrace, and Richards says, “It’s been 48 years too long.”
How sweet!
Richards’ younger daughter, Heather, says she and her brother were excited to welcome Amanda into their family.
“The best gift my brother and I could have ever given to our mom, was to support her relationship with my sister and my brother,” she wrote in a Facebook post for Love What Matters. “We were both fortunate to be at a place in our lives to open our hearts to love, instead of the array of other emotions often felt by family members in similar situations. I wish everyone looking for their loved ones, luck in their journey. I also wish those that may be found (either expectedly or unexpectedly), luck in making the choices they have before them.”
In a comment on the post, Richards spoke about her gratitude for having the privilege to finally meet her daughter: “It took 48 years to finally meet my oldest daughter Amanda and her incredible family. It has been a truly amazing journey and every day a new page is written in our family story. My one wish would be that every birth mom out there that has not had the opportunity to find the child she gave up for adoption for whatever reason would have the incredible reunion I had been blessed with my first born daughter.”
It’s amazing seeing the two of them take part in each other’s lives after all this time:
Is anyone else crying right now?