Brenda Van Sickle gave up her infant baby boy for adoption shortly after his birth in 1975. She saw him for about 15 minutes before the nurse took him away. It was the ultimate act of unconditional love.
She was 16 and knew she would not be able to care for him. He was blessed to be adopted by a loving family. She forged on with her life but never forgot.
Then, 45 years later, through curiosity and perseverance, they were reunited.
Wes Fenner called Van Sickle after finding his mother through DNA testing. He reached her at work. Understandably, it was awkward. But they would break the ice and would chat on the phone several times before he agreed to fly to West Texas to meet her alongside a pond.
“Mom, it’s me,” he said as he approached her from behind. They hugged and wiped away each other’s tears for 20 minutes.
“I’m not a huge crier, but it was definitely one of those moments,” he told NBC-5 News in Dallas-Fort Worth. “It was kind of like looking at myself, a slightly older version of myself, in the mirror.”
She found out he works for a major bank in New Orleans and has started his own family.
He found out they share the same love of music, movies and snarky sense of humor.
“You know you wonder about nature versus nurture,” Van Sickle said. “We send each other song lyrics back and forth and he listens to the same music I do. We like the same movies. We have the same snarky sense of humor. I’m going, ‘Yeah, this is my kid.’
“I’m looking forward to the next stage because meeting him wasn’t the ending of the journey. It’s an ongoing journey.”
