Donald Hefke was just over a year old when he was separated from his baby sister, Marian. It was 1946, in Chicago, and their mother had just been institutionalized for post-traumatic stress she could no longer manage. Their father, alone, was unable to care for the children. So Donald and Marian, just eight months old, ended up in different foster homes, unaware that the other existed.
Marian grew up adopted by a Lutheran minister and his family. Donald stayed with a foster family until he joined the United States Air Force. In 1963, as an adult, he did what few would do: he wrote to the child welfare agency asking about his origins. That was when he learned he had a sister named Marian. He wrote a letter to her adoptive parents. They never showed it to her.
Decades passed. Donald never stopped asking, insisting, or holding on to the hope of finding her. Today, at 81 and 80 years old, Marian and Donald finally sat face to face. Eight decades of waiting summed up in a hug neither of them thought they would live to experience.
