When Lisa Wright’s parents told her she was adopted, they explained it in a way that made her realize she had all the family she would ever need.
As a result, she never felt the need to look for her birth mother.
“My (adoptive) mom told me, ‘Your mommy loved you, but she was really young, and she knew she couldn’t take care of you. I wanted the baby so bad, and that’s why your mom let me take care of you. You weren’t abandoned. This was just the best thing for you,'” Wright explained to TODAY.
A closed matter
Wright’s adoption was closed, so there was no information readily available about her birth parents anyway. Her parents didn’t know anything about her birth mother or father either.
Of course, even people who are content with not knowing their birth parents have practical concerns, such as wanting to know about any health issues that run in the family. That’s why Wright took her own son’s advice to take a genetic test at age 54.
Genetic testing changes everything
We can’t hide from our genes. And with the rise of genetic testing, more “closed” adoptions have had their doors flung wide open. Even if a birth parent doesn’t take a test, anyone they are related to (and therefore share genes) may receive a message that they’ve matched with a blood relative online.
Sites such as 23andMe have changed families forever as a result.
Finding an uncle
When Lisa Wright’s genetic test results came back, she was informed that her genes matched with someone likely to be her uncle.
She decided to reach out and see if he would be open to communicating with her. And it turns out he was happy to oblige.
Their first phone call was fraught with anxiety. But she told TODAY that she ended up pleasantly surprised:
“So then I’m thinking, ‘OK, here it comes. He’s going to say don’t ever call me again.’ And so he goes, ‘Lisa, you’re my niece. We’ve been looking for you. We’ve all been looking for you.'”
Wright soon realized she had another family out there who had always wanted to meet her.
A mother’s love
Wright’s uncle told her that her biological mother was not only still alive and eager to find her, but she actually lived nearby in LA.
Once she had a name, Wright looked her up online, and things somehow fell into place in a way she never expected.
“I just could not believe it,” Wright told TODAY. “For the first time ever, other than looking at my son, for the first time I’m looking at somebody who looks like me.”
Not long after, Wright’s phone rang, and she heard her biological mother’s voice for the first time, which she said was “an indescribable feeling.”
A mother-daughter reunion
Wright’s adoptive parents had passed away by this time, so they never saw the heartwarming reunion that happened the next day.
Wright met her mother, actress Lynn Moody, and learned about her emotional story.
“When she was born, they covered my face, my eyes, so that I couldn’t see her,” Moody explained to TODAY about the day she gave birth. “But I could hear her cry. All I could say was ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.’ As a mother, you never, ever, ever forget. During those 50 years, all I did was try to learn how to live with it. I didn’t know if she was hungry, if she was alive, if she was happy, if she was adopted.”
Neither woman could have imagined their profoundly emotional reaction to being reunited.
Wright also found out that day that she had 4 sisters!
A final surprise
Not only did Wright and Moody get a happy ending, but they discovered that Wright had actually seen her mother before – on television.
“I grew up watching my mother on TV and didn’t even know it,” Wright said. “‘That’s My Mama’ — that was our must-see TV. We all sat down and watched ‘That’s My Mama’ every week, and who knew? No idea. … And that’s my mama!”
It turns out that she grew up with her biological mother after all, but not in a way anyone could have anticipated.
Be sure to scroll down below to see more of the emotional interview with the reunited mother and daughter.
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