Another Facebook Reunion Story
Kudos to the pastor for funding the travel so the mother and son could meet!
“Like any mother, Lynette Carlson lights up when she talks about her son. Their relationship, however, is anything but typical.
The 53-year-old Austin woman gave birth to her only child on Dec. 24, 1981. He was given up for adoption within minutes so she could continue her battle with alcohol dependence.
Due to a closed adoption policy, limited help from the adoption agency and a filing fee that her son opposed on principle, the two didn’t communicate for 28 years — except for two heavily redacted letters postmarked from Slayton, Minn., and Rossville, Kansas — until the connected on Facebook on Jan. 27, 2010.
Ben Nagel found 44 women named “Lynette Carlson” registered on Facebook a sent one of them a hopeful message from Grand Rapids, Mich. It prompted immediate tears at the Twin Towers apartment complex in downtown in Austin.
“My goosebumps were stacked on top of each other before I opened it,” said Carlson, who didn’t learn her son’s name until he was 13 years old.
When the two spoke on the phone hours later, the connection was instant: Carlson was eating Cap’n Crunch, which also happens to be Ben’s favorite cereal.
Carlson proudly told her church, Austin Christian Fellowship, of her discovery shortly afterward. The tearful message had a much different ending when she shared it at Alcoholics Anonymous years earlier, though she’s now been sober for more than 28 years.
Austin Christian Fellowship pastor Paul Sunde and his wife, Susan, paid for Carlson’s visit to Michigan in the fall of 2010 so the mother could finally meet her son, who had just lost his job and was unable to travel west. The week-long stay began with more tears.
“Ben came over to the SUV and we hugged right away,” Carlson said. “He was crying, I was crying and everyone else was crying, too, I’m sure.”
Nagel added: “When she finally pulled in front of my house … it was amazing.”
The moment was captured live by two news stations who had been tipped off to the impending reunion. That footage is their earliest documented time together. Nurses didn’t allow photos prior to the child being taken away for adoption, and photos sent to Carlson from the adoption agency of Nagle at the age of “three or four months” have been misplaced over the years.
The two added a second chapter to their story last weekend when Nagel trekked west to pick up his mother for a family reunion in Slayton, Minn. He was welcomed into the “Carlson clan” with hugs, and fit in “like two peas in a pod,” Carlson said.
“It was really cool to see more than just one person where I’ve got most of my me-ness from,” Nagel said. “It definitely felt like a family, somewhere where I belonged.”
Though the adoption process and Carlson’s reasons for giving her son up remain a taboo topic, the two are well on their way to establishing a more typical mother-son relationship. Nagel might visit again over Christmas and is planning to attend a cousin’s wedding next summer.
“You hear of something like this happening, but you don’t often hear about positive results like this on both sides,” Carlson said.”
Austin woman reunites with son given up for adoption in 1981
[Post Bulletin 7/20/13 by Brett Boese]
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