All along, Genevieve Purinton thought her baby passed away, but all of that was about to change because of a Christmas present.
Losing a child is one of the greatest pains a parent could experience. And when a child is lost at birth, there’s no chance to give the love and affection you’ve been holding on to in the months spent carrying your baby.
It was 1949. Purinton gave birth to her daughter in Gary, Indiana. But when she asked to see the baby, she was given tragic news instead.
“I asked to see the baby, and they said she died — that’s all I remember.” She said to NBC.
Years later, in Santa Barbara, California, Connie Moultroup lost her adoptive mother when she was about 4 or 5 years old. Her father quickly remarried and Moultroup’s life changed as quickly. When her father passed away during her teen years, she was left to be raised by her stepmother.
Her relationship with her was not as warm as she had hoped, so much so that she dreamt of her biological mom taking her away from that place.
“I dreamt of meeting my real mom — a beautiful woman who swooped in and rescued me,” she said, as mentioned by Yahoo Lifestyle.
None of that would ever happen, however, and Moultroup moved on with her life. She got married and had kids, still wondering if she would ever see her mother especially when she herself was getting older.
One Christmas, Bonnie Chase, Moultroup’s daughter, bought her an unexpected gift.
It was a DNA kit that would enable her to find her true origins.
“I never met my own biological father, and growing up, it was just me and my mom,” Chase tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I remember mom trying to find her birth mother, and it was hard to see her go through that.”
None of them knew the gift would change their lives forever.
As Chase’s results turned into leads, the leads turned into cousins. Cousins became threads to connect the dots together until one day, Moultroup received a phone call.
The voice on the other line began asking questions like “Where were you born? What year?”
Then the woman on the other line said something that made Moultroup hear a pin drop.
“I think, I’m your mother.”
They immediately planned to see each other, with them agreeing on reuniting at Purinton’s assisted living home. In the months in between those, they regularly have phone chats.
And finally, after decades of being apart, the two of them shared a hug that made up for all the hugs they missed through the years.
69 years later, mother and daughter cried in each other’s arms.
“She couldn’t deny me if she wanted to — we look exactly alike,” Moultroup joked to Yahoo Lifestyle. “We have the same facial features, bad knees, and we’ve both had heart attacks and strokes.”
But this time, their DNA is not the only thing they’ll be sharing. Purinton, who had no one, now has a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren in college.
There would be a lot of things to catch up on, but we’re sure that Purinton and Moultroup wouldn’t have it any other way.
Turns out the DNA kit was not the gift, but who Moultroup found after years of longing.
You can watch the mother and daughter reunite in the FOX 13 news story below!
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