'I've missed him since I was 10 years old': Woman finds long-lost brother

A woman's long search for her little brother after the two were separated by adoption more than 50 years ago came to a happy ending when she reached him by phone Thursday.

"I am very lucky, so lucky," Kathy Ahmad told CBC's Maritime Noon, which aired a story about the long-lost siblings earlier this week.

The story and other coverage brought in a tip that led Ahmad, who lives in Toledo, Ohio, to John Tanner of Richibucto, N.B. 

"I said, 'Hello, I'm your sister, Kathleen,' and he kept saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,'" Ahmad, 66, said Friday. She said she "knew immediately" she had the right man, because he sounded just like her other brother, Peter Leopold.  

All three siblings were born in Pictou, N.S., and went into foster care as preschoolers. Ahmad was adopted by an Ohio family at age 10 in 1962. She and Tanner, who was nine when she last saw him, had previously been in the same foster home.

She began her search as an adult, hiring a lawyer and private investigator, and posting her DNA on a genealogical website.

She's unhappy they were kept apart for so many years, something she blames on the Nova Scotia government's steadfast refusal to unseal adoption records. The province is one of the last in the country to maintain such a policy.

Tanner was also adopted and went to live in Halifax. He now lives in Richibucto, a town of some 1,200 people on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with his wife and family.

He said hearing from his sister was the greatest thing he could ever imagine, and that during the call he cried for the first time in 50 years. 

"Last night, for the first time, I actually felt like a brother," he told CBC News. 

They talked for hours.

"I asked him what he remembered of me," said Ahmad. "He said, 'I remember I always wanted to stand beside you because I felt you would take care of me.'"

Following the media coverage, Ahmad heard from people all over Nova Scotia who didn't have much information, but still wished her well. 

"They were so heartfelt. It was so kind of those people to reach out. But it just goes back to why can't Nova Scotia let 60-year-old siblings get to know each other? That still just breaks my heart."

She wants others to experience the same joy she's feeling right now.

"Especially if they remember their siblings, if they remember growing up for part of their life with the siblings, like we did."

That bond compelled her not to give up.

"I've missed him since I was 10 years old and I just wanted him back so desperately and it was so frustrating not being able to have any information."

Ahmad told Tanner her adoptive parents wanted to make him part of their family. But the adoption agency said he was happy with his new family and didn't want to leave.

But he says that information was never passed on to him. 

'You'll never find her'

Similarly, his adoptive mother, who thought the two were twins, also tried to reunite them.

"She went to the adoption agency in Halifax and said, 'How can you separate twins? I want this girl, too,'" Ahmad said Friday.

"And she was told, 'No, she's in the States and you'll never find her.' So he remembered those words 'you'll never find her.'"

Ahmad is one of many adoptees who have criticized the Nova Scotia government for its refusal to open its adoption records. 

The province has said it stands by its policy, which it describes as "a balance between people's right to privacy and the opportunity for contact." The government has not signalled any plans for change.

Right now, birth parents and adult adoptees can apply for more information through the province's Adoption Disclosure Service Program.

In that program, a provincial worker makes contact with the other party to find out if they are interested in knowing their biological relative. If there's no interest, the worker will attempt to provide non-identifying information about the relative, including medical history. There is a wait-list of adoptees looking for information and some have been told there is no time frame for when their case would be reviewed.

Now that Ahmad has finally found her brother, she said she's checking flights and weather forecasts in order to plan a trip to the Maritimes.

"I was planning to come in June but I can't wait that long to see John."