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There were tears, smiles and hugs when three sisters were recently reunited with their baby sister, whom they hadn’t seen in 57 years.
"Once we hugged one another we didn’t want to let go," says Marietjie Jacobs (72) from East London in the Eastern Cape.
This was the joyous scene last week in Port Elizabeth when Loraine Dockerill (61) was finally reunited with her three biological sisters, Marietjie, Sylvia Wasserman (65) and Yvonne Snyman (67). Loraine and her husband, Robert, flew all the way from Canada – where they’ve been living for the past 20 years – for the momentous occasion. Marietjie, Sylvia and Yvonne came from East London, Kareedouw and Springs, Gauteng, respectively.
'Everyone cried with joy and we kept telling one another it’s a miracle'
"To think, the moment we’d been dreaming about for so many years has finally been realised!" Marietjie tells YOU. "Everyone cried with joy and we kept telling one another it’s a miracle."
After the initial meeting the four sisters had cake and tea and exchanged tales of their lives.
Loraine was four years old when their parents gave her up for adoption. She didn’t have any contact with her sisters or biological parents after that. Though she’d been told she was adopted, her adoptive father only told her she had sisters when she was a young adult.
Marietjie says they grew up in the Tsitsikamma area of the Western Cape. They were seven siblings but Loraine was adopted by a PE couple. She was too young to recall much about her biological family.
Loraine had to overcome several hurdles once she decided to try to find her biological family a few years ago. Among other issues, she struggled to find her adoption certificate. She also had no idea where her sisters lived or what their married surnames would be.
After years of searching by posting on several Facebook pages, she finally found them about a year ago.
"It was the biggest surprise when she called us," Marietjie says. "We’ve been chatting daily on WhatsApp ever since!"
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