Being separated from your biological parents is a unique experience to say the least.
No matter what lessons were taught, the same question always pops up in the mind: who are my parents?
An answer that could take a lifetime to get, or, as many as 45 years for this man.
Thatâs what happened to Wes Fenner who finally met up with his biological mother after 45 years of separation. A North Texas mother by the name of Brenda Van Sickle placed her son for adoption soon after delivering the baby boy in Fort Worth in 1975.
“I did see him for about 15 minutes before the nurse took him away,â Brenda said. “It was very hard. If I could have taken care of him, I would have. But it just wasn’t right to do that to him.”
Brenda said that as a teenager, her life was wildly unstable, and she was totally incapable of caring for the young baby.
She soon worked her way up and eventually got married, worked in the TV business, and now is employed in the public information office at the Arlington Police Department.
One fateful day, her phone rang with an unexpected caller.
She did not recognize who this was, but it was her son, Wes Fenner, calling from New Orleans.
“It was an awkward first conversation,â Fenner said. “She was not expecting a phone call at work saying, ‘Hi, did you put a child up for adoption in 1975?’ That was an odd phone call.”
The two kept talking until finally deciding to meet up at a hotel in Terrell.
Brenda waited in the parking lot as she stared off into a nearby pond. She suddenly heard a voice behind her saying, âMom, itâs me,â and thatâs when she realized she had come face to face with her son.
âIâm not a huge crier,â he said. âBut it was definitely one of those moments. It was kind of like looking at myself, a slightly older version of myself, in the mirror.”
The heartfelt moment showed the two hugging each other for about 20 minutes.
They couldnât contain the feelings that were evidently bursting with no hesitation.
As Fenner put it,
âHow do you describe meeting your birth mother for the first time in 45 years?â
Itâs a once in a lifetime experience for a lucky few, and these two are fortunate to have had time on their side.
Both Brenda and Wes did try to reach out to each other for quite some time, but both failed to make contact. The only info Brenda had to search with was a birth certificate and the simple fact that Wes was born in Tarrant County.
On the other hand, Wes had been trying to establish communication for about a decade now but has always gotten cold feet.
After 45 years, the two are making up for lost ground.
Brenda became more familiar with Wesâs life, who works at a major bank in New Orleans. She even got to meet her 9-year-old grandson, which added to all the thrill of rekindling the familial bond.
Brenda couldnât be more proud of the loving husband, father, and son that Wes has ultimately turned out to be.
“You know you wonder about nature versus nurture,â Van Sickle said. âWe send each other song lyrics back and forth and he listens to the same music I do. We like the same movies. We have the same snarky sense of humor. I’m going, ‘Yeah, this is my kid.'”
The heartwarming reunion definitely enriched the relationships in this family. As Brenda eloquently stated,
âMeeting him wasnât the end of the journey. Itâs an ongoing journey.â
Weâve no doubt that, for these two, an entire lifetime of uncharted memories awaits to be experienced together.
Catch their tear-jerking reunion in the video below.
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