Linda Burns' mother was still pregnant with her when she left her father, Bronis Yakovanis. All Linda knew was that her dad lived in Florida.
She tracked him down in the 1970s, and they were able to reconnect. She noticed her father had a photo of a little girl. Linda always believed it was her. Little did she know that her father took a secret to his grave: he had another family.
Then one day, Linda received a message from a strange woman who asked if Bronis Yakovanis was her father. That stranger turned out to be her long-lost niece, the daughter of Linda's half-sister Evamaria Kinner.
“Evamaria’s daughter took a DNA test and my father came up, so they searched,” Linda said. “She didn’t know that our father had passed away, and after a time, she had given up searching for him.”
Linda had to break the news to Evamaria that her father had died. Evamaria last saw her father when she was just 6.
“All I know is that I had two dolls and one coat and I got on a train and that was the last time I had seen him,” Evamaria said. “I remember crying and I actually did at the train museum yesterday. I bawled like a baby. I must have remembered something.”
It turns out that Linda's mother left Bronis over the affair with Evamaria's mother. However, when Linda rekindled her relationship with her dad, he never mentioned Evamaria or any other children. That photo Linda believed was of her actually showed Evamaria all along.
The sisters began chatting, and after 15 months, they reunited this March. Inexplicably, they have a ton in common: they both love of cars, are cancer survivor, have had back surgery on the exact same day, and enjoy being out in the water.
Ultimately, theirs was not a story of blame or resentment, but of unity. They found each other and in doing so, realized that they needed each other.
“It’s been a really good reunion. I can’t believe a lot of people don’t want to meet their siblings or parents,” Linda said. “It will either go your way or it won’t. You never really know if somebody really needs their family."
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