An Oklahoma woman granted her father his dying wish by reuniting him with his biological father just days before he passed away.
Brandi Guicciardini, 33, reunited the pair on 7 May after nearly 60 years apart.
She tracked down her paternal grandfather after submitting her father’s pre-adoption birth certificate and ancestry test. Guicciardini said she still speaks to her 81-year-old grandfather everyday and her family are planning on visiting him at Christmas to spread her father’s ashes together.
“The one thing my father always wanted to know was who his biological parents were,” Guicciardini, from Oklahoma City, told Zenger News.
She explained her father had been sick since December 2021, and was hospitalised for Covid-19 and pneumonia earlier this year. He was also in remission for cancer after being diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma in 2009. In April, Guicciardini set up a GoFundMe to fundraise for her father’s memorial costs.
Now, the mother-of-one said she hopes that her father’s story will encourage other adopted children to “never give up in finding their roots.”
Guicciardini’s father – Robert “Bobby” Hadley Reinhart Jr – was born in 1964 as James Edward Odell before being placed for adoption at birth.
“It wasn’t until my dad got a bit older that he started to wonder where he came from but he was never able to find his biological parents,” Guicciardini, who works as a homeschool teacher, told Zenger News.
On 15 January 2020, a New York state law allowing adoptees to obtain their original birth certificate when they turn 18 went into effect. For the first time since 1935, adopted children were able to uncover the name of their birth parents after decades of sealed adoption records. However, New York is only the tenth state to allow adoptees with unrestricted access to their birth certificates.
Guicciardini described the process before the legislation as “almost impossible.”
“Nine out of ten times the state denies your request as an adopted child,” she said. “But opening pre-adopted records opens the doors for so many people to find out about their biological families.”
In 2021, Guicciardini was able to find her father’s pre-adopted birth certificate which contained his mother’s name – Barbara Hall – but not his father’s.
Guicciardini explained that they had tracked down her father’s half-brothers through Hall’s name, but she had unfortunately passed away in 1999. After years of searching, Guicciardini decided to submit her own ancestry test to find her paternal grandfather – Robert Stratton – who had been residing in Bennington, Vermont.
“I ended up speaking with him on FaceTime and told him about our genetic match and he said, ‘Well, DNA don’t lie - you’re my grandkid!’” Guicciardini said. “It was incredible - I was completely over the moon and immediately I wanted to get my dad on the phone with his real father.”
“I had to do it,” she added. “I wasn’t going to let him down.”
On 7 May, Guicciardini managed to get the pair on a video chat while her father was staying at Crossroads Hospice and Palliative Care in Pennsylvania. Although the call was “quite quick” because of her father’s breathing issues, she was still able to fulfill her father’s “last wish before he passed.”
“My grandfather started crying and told my dad, ‘I wish I would’ve met you 50 years ago,’” Guicciardini recalled. “He never knew about my dad, and I honestly believe if he did he wouldn’t have let him get adopted, he would have raised him himself.”
“My father replied saying, ‘Well, Dad, my lungs are only working at 5 percent and my kidneys are shutting down - my heart is dying. I’m not going to be able to come up and meet you but Brandi, Mom, and JoJo will visit,’” she said. “Grandad said it was okay and they would ‘meet one day.’”
Guicciardini’s father passed away just a few days later on 12 May at 57 years old. “If you are adopted and you want to know your roots, don’t give up. You never know unless you try,” she said. “Even on his death bed my daddy never gave up - so we fought to the end too.”
