A brother and sister reunited after 50 years
As journalists we want to make a difference. When an email came across my desk from Kathy Ahmad in looking to place a classified ad about her search for her brother, I knew there was a chance I could help.
Classified ads are a great way to garner attention, but I felt her search would be more easily resolved with an article posted online and in print.
So, I reached out to her and thankfully she was willing to tell me the full story of how she and her brother had been separated as children in Pictou – first placed in separate foster homes, then adopted into different families. Ahmad was living near Toledo, Ohio, but wanted to find the brother she had lost.
She tried DNA searches, a lawyer and even a private investigator, but had no luck. Her story told of a larger problem with the adoption system in Nova Scotia which is so clamped down, she could get no information about her brother or where he had gone, even though they were both now in their 60s.
It took a little over a week after the story was first published, but a man reached out via email saying, he thought perhaps he was Ahmad’s brother. I received the email from one of our other Saltwire newsrooms and forwarded it on to Ahmad. The next day – Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. – she got to speak to her brother for the first time in more than 50 years.
It felt good to have played a part in reuniting them after so much time.