A twenty-nine year old woman was able to meet her biological father for the first time, thanks to the power of the social networking website called Facebook. The two met in person very recently, right before Christmas. One unexpected result of this reunion was that the biological parents of the twenty-nine year old woman were able to rekindle their romance with each other.
Twenty-nine year old Shaheen Schneider had never met her father. Shaheen’s mother, Lisa Ketting, said that she and Shaheen’s father were very young when they had a relationship with each other. When Lisa became pregnant, she decided to not let Shaheen’s father, Richard Elizondo, know about it. The two broke up before Shaheen was born, and Lisa never let Richard know that he had a daughter. This meant that Shaheen was not going to have an easy time trying to track down her biological father.
This is the part where Facebook comes into the picture. It always amazes me how many people have successfully used Facebook as the way to locate long lost family members. There was a story not long ago about two siblings who were able to find each other when someone did a search on Facebook, and this search resulted in having the two siblings reunite after more than fifty years spent apart. I’ve heard other stories where adopted children locate their birth parents through Facebook. It’s really astounding what Facebook can do for people who are doing some searching for long, lost, living relatives.
A friend of Shaheen’s mother, Lisa, found Richard on Facebook, and the friend let Lisa know about it. Lisa lived in Long Beach, Florida, and Richard lived in Portland, Oregon. For a while, Lisa was flying back and forth to Portland to meet Richard, but Shaheen wasn’t able to accompany her mother for those trips. The two former lovers were able to rekindle their romance. Recently, Shaheen was able to make the trip, and meet her biological father, Richard, for the first time. After nearly three decades apart, father and daughter were able to meet for the first time, right before Christmas. Richard has fully accepted Shaheen as his daughter, and loves her no matter what, and Shaheen holds no grudges about her father’s absence.