A 98-year-old woman received the greatest gift for Mother’s Day: a reunion with her daughter, whom she had not seen for 80 years.
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As a young Jewish girl, Gerda Cole escaped persecution in her native Vienna, Austria in 1939 at the height of World War II when her parents sent her on a children’s transport to England.
Three years later, in 1942, when she was 18 years old, Gerda Cole gave birth to a daughter, Sonya Grist. Given his economic situation, the refugee committee in England suggested that he put the child up for adoption. After the adoption, she was reportedly told not to contact her daughter anymore.
The mother and her daughter have therefore been separated for the past 80 years.
It is in caresses and joy that the two women met on Saturday just before Mother’s Day. According to CTV News, which was present during this touching meeting, the 98-year-old woman repeated “80 years” after giving a cry of joy.
“Don’t insist on my age,” retorted Sonya Grist amusedly.
“Thank you all for coming to share this wonderful experience with me. I’m so happy to be able to say “my daughter”. It means a lot to me to be able to live these moments,” said Ms. Cole.
Little Son to the rescue
This reunion was possible, in part, thanks to Sonya Grist’s son Stephen Grist, who helped his mother track down Gerda Cole. The latter, having discovered that she was living in a long-term care home in Toronto, decided to contact her.
“I expected to find a death certificate. Eventually I tracked down Gerda’s son-in-law and he told me she was alive and living in Canada. It was a shock. It changed everything,” explained Stephen Grist.
The first thing his mom said when she heard the news, he said, was, “I want to fly to Canada and give my mom a hug.” The pandemic having decided otherwise, the two women then began to correspond by email.
The mother and her daughter spent the rest of the day talking and dancing to celebrate this reunion.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com