Texas mother, son were separated for 50 years. They finally met, but virus altered visit.
George Hays got to meet his biological mother on Saturday for the first time in 50 years, but COVID-19 altered his visit.
After being adopted at birth and then finding his mother through AncestryDNA a few weeks ago, Hays and his family were scheduled to take his mother, Rhonda Duffin, out of an Arlington nursing home on Saturday and spend about seven hours with her at his uncle’s home in Mansfield.
But last week, three staff workers at Arlington Oakwood Nursing & Rehabilitation tested posted for the coronavirus and the 67-year-old Duffin was not going to be allowed to leave the nursing home.
Officials at the Arlington nursing home agreed to allow Hays to spend an hour with his mother in a patio. He got to spend almost two hours with her.
Of course, Hays was tested for COVID-19 just before he met his mother and tested negative for the virus.
“It was great,” Hays said after his visit. “I walked up to her and said, ‘Hi, you’re my Mom’.”
The two, who had been searching for each other off-and-on for years, hugged.
“She was so happy,” Hays said. “Every time an employee walked by, she would say, ‘This is my son’.”
At the end of his visit with his mother, Hays took pictures with her.
“It was real nice to meet him,” Ruffin said Wednesday in a telephone interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Just meeting my son was the greatest thing.”
Ruffin said that other members of her family say Hays looks like her.
But the reunion wasn’t over at that point.
“My uncle invited me over to his home because more relatives and cousins wanted to meet me,” Hays said.
Hays plans on returning to visit his mother as often as he can because she’s “not in good health.”
“I want to get her something for Christmas,” Hays said. “This was all a very good experience.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 12:45 PM.
