As families gather around the Thanksgiving table, two women living more than 1,000 miles apart have perhaps more than most for which they are now grateful.
There is a deep human emotion invoked by family that is hard to quantify or describe. It was this very quest to find family that drove two women, who had lived more than 100 years between them, before they discovered they were bound by blood.
Exciting as it is, the story of how this human drama unfolded, and actually, how close it came to never unfolding at all, is a story perhaps capable of warming even the hardest Thanksgiving hearts.
Though each of the women involved are surrounded by loving families and leading very fulfilling lives, both had been adopted at birth and yearned for a deeper family connection.
Their immediate families were very supportive. In fact, it was partly at the urging of her children that Linda Song-Holt, 55, of Cypress, decided two years ago to cast a proverbial bottle in the DNA ocean. She has a son and a daughter.
“I wasn’t necessarily looking for my biological mother and father, I wanted to know more about my ethnicity and for any health reasons to pass on to my daughter,” she said.
So, although “it took a bit of courage,” she ordered a DNA test kit from 23andMe, and waited with nervous anticipation for the results. To say that she was disappointed with the results is no understatement.
According to a spokesperson for 23and Me, “human DNA is about 99.5% identical from person to person. However, there are small differences that make each person unique,” they explained.
Apparently, although we all share small segments of DNA with each other, we share “longer stretches of DNA with relatives than with unrelated individuals.” They appear as markings in our DNA, claims 23aneMe.
For instance, we share “longer’ stretches of DNA with our siblings that are generated from the same parent. We share DNA with first cousins that were shared by mutual grandparents, etc. Using algorithms and other technological assessments, they measure the “shared stretches of DNA” when attempting to determine relatives.
Therefore, each of these connections are indicated in DNA results with markings that are unique, yet also predict with scientific reliability the proximity to parents and family.
So, when Linda’s results came in, she was excited as she opened her profile with her daughter at her side. Sadly, after much searching, there was not much to smile about. Linda said she learned that “I was mostly Irish, with some German and Scottish, basically a European mix and we could find nothing closer than a rare third, fourth and fifth cousin” in the results. She also studied the health aspects of her ancestry.
Eventually, though, she stopped searching the file and went on with her life.
Earlier this year in April, she remembers one night when she lamented the lack of blood relatives to her husband as she fell asleep.
Imagine then, her “shock and awe,” when she, in the course of routinely checking her email the next day when she read a fateful message that began, “Hi Linda, my name is Kelly (Howell) and I believe I am your half-sister.
Stunned, Linda remembers that, at that point, she looked away from the screen and “could not read another word.”
“I couldn’t do or say anything,” said Linda. “I was overwhelmed. I started crying. I screamed for my husband (who was home) to come. I made him look at it,” said Linda. “I asked him, do you think it’s real?”
Meanwhile, her daughter started crying as well. “This could be life-altering, said Linda, “and I didn’t know how to react.”
A thousand miles away, Kelly, who sent the email, was also in shocked disbelief, and had no idea how Linda would react. Kelly is also married, with three adult daughters and a very fulfilling career as a para educator in Mill Creek Washington, just north of Seattle.
Kelly, 53, also knew she had been adopted at birth and after a conversation with her adoptive parents and her daughters, she ordered her DNA results from 23andMe at Christmas in 2018. She also was curious about ancestral health and wanted to leave a “legacy” with as much info as possible for her three daughters.
After sending in her DNA, Kelly got busy within her Washington state school district and basically, she said “I put it on a shelf for a few months” and very nearly forgot about it.
In April of this year, however, as Kelly was cleaning out her junk email box, she came very close to deleting an email from 23andMe before hitting the link to open her profile.
After logging into her profile, she screamed. “Holy cow,” she said, “I think I have a half-sister,” she yelled to her husband and daughters. “All I can say is wow.” Kelly said she was “stunned” when it appeared to show that there was a potential family match of a half-sister in Cypress.
Like Linda, Kelly was nearly disabled by the news. “I couldn’t do anything. I would lose my concentration, l couldn’t even drive.”
According to 23andMe, when there is a match of at least 25 percent common DNA markings, “we compare the reported ages of the users against an average calculated generation time of 10 years. If the two users are within 10 years of age, we predict they are half-siblings. If the age gap is more than 10 years, we predict they are aunt/uncle or nephew/niece.”
In Linda and Kelly’s case the half-sister match did not show up in Linda’s results because Kelly had not submitted her kit to the company (until a year after Linda) and so when Kelly submitted her DNA kit, it almost immediately found the connection to Linda’s DNA after Kelly’s submission. Kelly is amazed at how close she almost deleted the “junk mail” and losing her half-sister connection to the ages.
Even when there is a match, customers still are required to navigate a detailed permission system in order to communicate with your potential family members, and thankfully, both Linda and Kelly had opted in. So now, there it was, for the world to see, a potential blood relative she had never met.
Linda answered Kelly’s email and thus began a series of messages and letters through email, preparing the comfort level and groundwork required for a face-to-face meeting.Through the miracle of technology, Linda and Kelly now knew they shared the same mom, both born in Pomona to a mother who was 18 and 16 respectively when she had them. And although Linda thinks she knows her biological mom’s name, the adoption laws are still hard to penetrate and neither of them currently have plans to pursue any formal inquiry to learn more.
They do know their mom had made arrangements for their adoptions before they were born, and they are both amazed at how technology has now brought them together.
In October, when Linda’s son learned he was being transferred with his job to a location in Washington state within one hour’s drive from Kelly’s home, the half-sisters knew this was their big chance. Finally, agreed to meet face-to-face. As much as they yearned to meet, it was still a giant leap of faith to meet a sister by the same mother you’ve had lived your life without.
Kelly said everywhere they would go; her husband would tell the story and people would break out in tears or say “I need a hug. It’s a beautiful story,” she said.
In October, it finally happened. Arranging to meet in a small restaurant in Washington state, they both arrived with their husbands at the appointed time. When they first caught sight of each other, the love was so obvious to everyone in the restaurant that pure strangers were crying with them.
Even now, speaking to each of them about that first meeting, the emotions are still fresh. As they met in the restaurant for the first time, they almost involuntarily rushed toward each other once their eyes met.
“We embraced for such a long time,” said Kelly. Linda said it is “like a precious gift had just been handed to me.” For what seemed like an eternity, they embraced in the middle of a restaurant to tears, hugs and applause as both women’s lives, and their families, had been changed forever.
Quickly, they discovered they shared the same birthday and the same hairline. Both women learned they had lost their adoptive mothers at an early age and had tested with 23andMe to learn more about themselves for their daughters. Their similarities became unmistakable.
At first sight, they knew, both innately and proven by science, their yearning for a deeper connection had been fulfilled. After half a century, these two half-sisters had found each other, born to the same mother more than fifty years ago.
And in a final demonstration of sisterhood, they both had the same thought as Thanksgiving approached. “Actually,” they said in separate interviews, “we are blessed.”
Through the miracle of science and the power of human desire, aided by a slight twist of fate, Linda and Kelly are happily, and finally, reunited for life.
