Shine OnMother and daughter reunite after 71 years apart
For almost 70 years, 89-year-old Brooke Mayo lit a candle in her California home to commemorate the daughter she surrendered for adoption in 1942, and later discovered had died as an infant.
This summer, Mayo was able to extinguish that candle for good after receiving a curious parcel from a 71-year-old woman claiming to be Mayo's long-lost daughter. The parcel contained copies of her adoption documents and a letter saying that the woman, Patricia, wanted to meet her.
"I was in a daze," Mayo tells the San Luis Obispo Tribune about their reunion in July. "I'm still in a daze. I can't believe this. The people I talk to say it's like a book or a movie or something, it's just so amazing."
Mayo gave her infant daughter up for adoption in 1942, when she was just 17. Patricia, who was originally named Delphine, was conceived after Mayo was raped on her way home from a party in Los Angeles.
"In those days, having a baby as a single person, I just decided (adoption) was better for her," says Mayo, who later married and has two other children.
Three years later, Mayo could not stop thinking about the daughter she gave up for adoption. After returning to the U.S. after working overseas in World War II, she called the hospital where she'd given birth, only to learn that her baby had died.
What Mayo didn't realize was that her daughter was actually alive and had been searching for her birth mother since she discovered she was adopted 20 years ago. And in an even weirder twist of fate, her daughter Patricia lived just minutes away from Mayo up until she was 8 years old.
Since meeting this summer, Mayo and Patricia now talk on the phone at least twice a week and marvel at how much they look and act like each other.
"I've got fine hair just like she does," Patricia tells the San Luis Obispo Tribune. "I'm left-handed just like she is."
The story of Mayo and Patricia isn't the first touching reunion story to make headlines this summer.
Also this July, a Maine woman believed to be dead for more than 30 years reunited with her daughter and three sisters.
And last month, a California woman reunited with her estranged brother after 50 years when she discovered he was a patient at the nursing home she worked at.
