Durban - It is like a scene from a movie. A young girl spends years trying to find her biological father, and when she does, there’s an emotional reunion.
For Carrie Vuyx from Richards Bay, on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, that is exactly what happened. Her story will soon be aired on Broadcast channel TLC as part of its new show Separated at Birth which premiered on Tuesday.
Vuyx, 28, met her father Bryn Flavell at a train station in West Midlands, England, in January after seven years trying to track him down.
When Flavell and Vuyx’s mother, Sharon Booth, separated in 1991, she decided to bring her 3-year-old to South Africa to live with her grandparents.
According to Vuyx, her mother told Flavell’s mother, Rosemary, about leaving, but did not want to break the news to her son.
It was only when Vuyx was 13 years old that she was told who her biological father was.
“My mother said she told me when I was younger but I must have forgotten. I remember she gave me a baby book with old photographs and details of my father and his family.
She told me that if I wanted to find my father she would be supportive of the decision.
“I was barely a teenager and at that stage did not feel the need to look for him.
“As a teenager I would contemplate it but I would get bitter about why he hadn’t tried to find me himself, and go back to my daily life.
“By the next week I was searching the internet for answers.
“This happened for quite some time until I had children.
“By the time I turned 25, I wanted to pursue it wholeheartedly. I went back to the book my mother gave me and tried to piece together everything I could about my father. It was not easy,” said Vuyx .
She joined groups on Facebook and even resorted to befriending people with his surname on social media to find out if they knew him.
When that turned into a dead end, she almost gave up.
Then one day in October her half-sister Natalie Willis found his details on a voter registry on Google.
She searched his address and found a number that was on a signboard on the picture. Willis called the number and explained everything to Flavell, who an hour later called Vuyx.
“She told me she called him but I didn’t expect a call so soon from him. I immediately recognised his voice because of his accent. After introducing ourselves, we cried for about 10 minutes until his wife Rose came on the line and said he would call me back once he had composed himself.
The next day he called and we started chatting on WhatsApp just trying to catch up on all the time we’d missed out on.
“During our chats we spoke about family and he tried to explain what had happened, but I wanted to live in the moment and embrace the opportunity we had,” she said.
The mother of two met her dad in January in what was an “emotional time for us”. Broadcast channel TLC flew her to England to meet her father as part of new show Separated at Birth. She spent a week meeting family and touring the sights with her father.
“Our meeting was hard because at first it was difficult to find an emotional connection but after the week was over I struggled to say goodbye. Those days were very special and having the opportunity to meet people I never knew existed was amazing. We talk every day and get closer each time. I am glad I reunited with my dad as it helped fill a hole in my life and now I am happy to go on with my life.”
Vuyx will visit Flavell again and she hopes to introduce her husband, Steven, to him. Booth said she was glad her daughter and her father had reconnected and would support her through the process. Flavell said he prayed for years to meet “his little girl” and was looking forward to creating many memories.
Sunday Tribune