Brothers reunite after 80 years
Bernice Hickey, 82, stood on the sidewalk outside her Butler Township home with her flip-phone in hand. Bernice's husband, Donald, 83, waited nearby.
She spoke to her new sister-in-law, Nancy Krizen and her husband Bill who were en route to the family's home, but Thursday's torrential rain slowed the Krizens' trip from Ohio.
Minutes later, a black, Honda Civic pulled into their driveway.
The rain didn't deter Donald from greeting his brother, Bill, 84, as he exited the car.
“It's my brother, it's my brother,” Bill said as the two embraced.
After 80 years apart, the brothers, who were both adopted, reunited at Donald Hickey's home after they learned months earlier they shared the same father.
The two talked about and shared pictures of the lives they have lived over the past 80 years.
“Now you have a brother,” said Bernice.
“A big brother,” quickly quipped, Donald.
Donald Hickey learned he was adopted during his junior year at Sharpsville High School when he tried to buy an automobile at 16.
Papers he found with his father's war bonds detailed that he would be known and called “Hickey” instead of “Burkholder.”
Hickey took that paper to school the next day to ask what it meant. His instructors told him he was adopted.
At lunch, he returned home to question his mother, who told him she did not know. Hickey then asked his brother-in-law who told him to meet at his house.
Tears flowed from his mother and father as they explained to him that he was adopted, Hickey said.
“What is the difference?” he said his parents told him. “We wanted you.”
The story goes that Hickey's four sisters came home with a baby they adopted for $2, he said. The girls hid the baby until their mother found it crying.
With the help of his family, Hickey found four additional older siblings, he said.He was able to visit his brother Jack in Arizona where the two panned for gold and visited Old Tucson, Hickey said.“Even though it was a short period, we have memories,” he said. Several of his siblings have died.Seven years after he married Bernice, they adopted a son of their own, the couple said.“We always told our son he was a special baby,” Bernice said.Krizen of Florida learned he was adopted when he joined the Marine Corps during the Korean War. His cousin, who was an attorney, found a birth certificate that listed Krizen's real father.However, life continued for Krizen as he entered the Marines and married.One day he got a call to meet a woman who said she was his sister Ruth Ann, he said.“That was a real shock,” Krizen said, adding that is the moment that solidified the thought that he was adopted. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” he said.Over his lifetime, Krizen located his other siblings.However, Donald's name never came up in his research, he said.“This is amazing,” Krizen said. “To not even know you have a family much less a brother who is alive.”When Krizen received an email that he had another brother, he called the person immediately to introduce himself, he said.That call led to several others of catching up and a face-to-face meeting.The two said they plan to continue to develop their relationship.Bernice and Donald plan to take a trip to Florida in the future to visit Krizen, they said.“We will get back every chance we get,” Krizen said. “This is my family.”
Around 7 million Americans are adopted.Around 140,000 children are adopted by American families each year.Nearly 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate family, whether this includes adopting, placing or being adopted. Six in 10 Americans have had personal experience with adoption, meaning that they themselves, a family member, or a close friend was adopted, had adopted a child, or had placed a child for adoption.There are about 1.5 million adopted children in the United States, which is 2 percent of the population, or one out of 50 children.— Adoptionnetwork.com
