Doesn’t it feel surreal meeting your biological mother after years even when you’ve grown old? It seems a bit unrealistic, but yes, anything can happen in this big world. For over six decades, Joanne thought that her mother is dead, but at the age of 80-years, she met her 100-year-old mother.
How the journey started
Joanne Loewenstern always thought that her mother had died while giving her birth in the Bellevue Hospital in the Bronx in 1938. But in the back of her mind, she always believed that her mother could still be out there somewhere. Perhaps she was right. One fine Sunday, Joanne thought to travel to South Florida to meet Lillian Ciminieri, her biological mother. But little did she know that this much travel was not required, as Lillian and Joanne have shifted to Florida from New York and lived within 70 miles of each other. During their first meeting, it was discovered by both the families that they both thought that the other person was not alive.
Joanne is suffering from Dementia
At first, she was cautious if her mother could understand her as she had Dementia. When Joanne passed Lillian the mobile, Lillian thought it was her long-lost great-grandkid, but soon she realized it was her daughter.
Well, it had been a long road to this moment, when Joanne met her mother. She was just 16 when she realized she was an adopted child. At that time, Joanne was told that her mother died after two days of giving her birth.
It was a year before Joanne met her mother Lillian, Joanne’s daughter-in-law Shelley Loewenstein started digging up at the ancestry.com. She just knew what a long haul it was as Joanne knew very little about her mother. Shelley later informed all Joanne knew was the name of the mother. But luckily, that was enough.
A man named Samson Ciminieri had recently made an account on the same website ancestry.com Shelly automatically got an alert that revealed both Joanne and Samson were closely related.
Samson recalls that he was asked if he knew Lillian Feinsilver, to which he replied yes as she was his mother. Later it was discovered that Samson was Joanne’s half-brother. This incident called for the whole mystery to be solved.
Soon after, Joanne met her long-lost brother, and then he started making arrangements to meet with their mother. Now Lillian had met Joanne twice since Sunday as it was only a two-hour drive.
On Wednesday, they again spent time together. This time at Lillian’s nursing home, to color the picture. Eliot Loewenstern, Joanne’s son, later said they did not get a chance to color together when she was a little girl, but it is never too late to color with your mum.
In conclusion:
Joanne and Lillian met each other, and all their relatives were very supportive of the meeting. They made arrangements for both of them to meet and later keep hanging out. No doubt, Joanne was adopted and was away from her biological family for years, but her own family never betrayed her and helped her throughout.
