Grab a box of Kleenex for this one — you're going to need it. A 65-year-old secret would haunt Tawana Jo Yaden for her entire life.
Thankfully, the now 83-year-old can get some closure. In 1945, Tawana gave birth to her baby boy. Like Callie Mitchell another young mother with a difficult choice, Tawana was just a teenager at the time and circumstances forced her to give her son up for adoption when he was just days old.
The little boy would grow up to be Fred Kiser. Fred was quickly adopted, he had a wonderful life and family of his own. Yet, he always wanted to know his birth mother.
Fred began searching for her in 1971, but he wouldn't meet her until 2010. It would be a chance reunion that would reveal 65 years of family secrets.
However, the revelation for them both would be completely cathartic. See Tawana and Fred's emotional story below!
In 1945, 17-year-old Tawana Jo Yaden gave birth to a baby boy in Oklahoma and gave him up for adoption.
"I couldn't fault her for it, I knew the times that this was happening, it was taboo, you didn't speak about it," says Fred Kiser, the now grown-up baby boy.
Fred has been searching for his birth mother since the 1970s. Although he was adopted and had a great life, knowing his mom would make it complete.
Tawana kept the secret from her entire family. She would soon marry and have two children that she would keep.
"It was a secret; no one in the family knew," says Tawana's daughter, Carolyn Haner. Carolyn's grandson was researching family history when he stumbled upon an adoption website.
On it there was a post by a man named Fred Kiser, he was looking for his birth mother named Tawana Jo Yaden.
"It listed his name and where he was from. Had to be my mother, there aren't, I cannot imagine, two Tawana Jo Yaden's on this planet," Carolyn said. "I called every aunt and uncle, they didn't have a clue, not a one of them."
Carolyn looked Fred up on Facebook. "Man, my heart stopped and I said, 'how many people in the world have that name, you know? Just one person, has to be and said that's got to be my mother, all these years I've looked for her and I said, this is my mother?" Fred recalls.
That's when Carolyn decided to confront Tawana. She asked if she ever gave up a baby boy for adoption.
"She said no, and she started making excuses about family and I said, 'no mom, isn't that the name you gave a little boy you had to give up for adoption?' and she said, 'Mama wouldn't let me keep him,' and she cried and cried and cried," Carolyn said.
The 65-year-old family secret? In 1944, Tawana had been raped. Her mother simply wouldn't allow her to keep the baby.
"My grandmother was very staunch Baptist and was very proud and I simply didn't think she could handle it," Caroyln says. When Fred found out the news, he understood it all completely.
"My heart just broke then because, after hearing the whole story, I knew just how strong she must have been," Fred says with pride.
"I knew that she loved me, that was never a question, it was just to be able to meet her and tell her myself one time, how much I loved her, and I got to do that," Fred says, tearfully. "I am the luckiest guy in the world."
Watch Fred and Tawana reunite for the first time in 65 years in the video below.
Please SHARE if you're glad Fred and Tawana finally have some much needed closure.
