Omar’s World comic book store helps young adults with disabilities find independence!

Vicki Regis had always believed in her heart that she’d done the right thing giving her baby boy up for adoption. But did he know that? she often wondered. Was he loved? Happy? It took five decades, but finally she got her answers . . .

Hearing the doctor’s words—“you’re pregnant”—vicki Regis had never been more terrified. It was 1965. These things weren’t supposed to happen to “good girls” like Vicki, who was living with her mother in New Rochelle, New York, and working hard at an airline to pay off her dad’s medical bills after he died.

She had mistakenly thought, when the handsome and charming pilot had showered her with attention, that it had been love. But now their romance had ended, and Vicki was alone—and ashamed.

This baby deserves more than I can give him, Vicki realized. And, in that moment, she believed she had just one choice . . .

Across the years and miles

Not telling a soul about her pregnancy, Vicki applied for a job transfer to Boston. And when she was seven months along, she checked into St. Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers.

It was a warm August day when the baby boy she named Kevin Michael came into the world. “Can I hold him?” Vicki asked. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve every seen,” Vicki whispered tearfully.

But at the end of her baby’s first week, she had to say goodbye.

When a social worker took him, “It was devastating,” Vicki recalls.

As the years passed, Vicki never stopped thinking about her son. Please let him be happy and loved! she prayed.

Eventually, Vicki married Steve Kirschner and had two daughters. Once, seeing an ad for an adoption reunion service, she called—but was told that the child would have to initiate contact.

Time passed. Her girls even made her a grandma. But her son was still somewhere out there. I just hope you understand . . .

Meanwhile, Michael Zizza had known that he was adopted his whole life.

“Sometimes I’d wonder, ‘What’s the story behind my adoption?’ But I never wondered what could have been,” he admits. He was too busy enjoying Little League and soccer, waterskiing and vacations to Disney.

He had always felt loved—by his family and then by his wife, Lorna, and their three children.

Then one day, Michael’s friend posted on Facebook that she was writing about her adoption. Curious about his own story, the Wenman, Massachusetts, 50-year-old decided to get a copy of his birth certificate.

When it arrived, there it was in black-andwhite: his birth mother’s name. Vicki Regis.

And she gave me a name, too—kevin Michael! he marveled.

With help from the Internet, he was able to track Vicki down.

Letters from the heart

Vicki and Steve had been away, and returned to a stack of mail at their Ormond Beach, Florida, home—including an envelope Where with a handwritten Massathere is love, there chusetts address. may be distance Confused, Vicki opened but no lasting it—and photos poured out. separation” Taking one look at the tall, handsome man, she knew AUTHOR UNKNOWN immediately: He’s my son! I recently got a copy of my original birth certificate, and I find I am your son. If this is our only communication, I want you to know: I was raised in a loving, happy home. Reading those words, Vicki’s heart nearly burst with joy. I just wanted you to have a better life than I could give you, she wrote back. Once Michael received his letter, Vicki’s phone rang—and they talked for two and a half hours! “I’m taking my daughter back to the University of South Carolina. You aren’t much farther. How about we visit?” he offered.

The moment he pulled into the driveway, Vicki rushed to him.

“I can’t believe you’re standing here!” she beamed, wrapping her arms around him for the first time in over five decades.

Soon after, Vicki wrote Michael’s adoptive mother. I gave him life, but you gave him everything else. Thank you.

I got to love him all of his life. Now it’s time we share our love for him! Michael’s mom replied, including a DVD of pictures.

It’s like seeing Michael grow up in front of my eyes! she thought.

Today, Vicki and Michael talk and text often. They spent his birthday together, and Vicki has even met her “new” grandkids!

“The hole in my heart has finally been repaired. And to let go of all of the anguish is amazing,” she says. “My heart is so full!” Hearing that makes Michael smile. “Vicki made a selfless, difficult decision. She deserved to know it was the right decision. To give her that gift . . . I can’t think of a better way to say ‘thank you!”