Many of us pass homeless people who hold up signs asking for help without stopping to think of the struggles they are forced to endure every day.
But one woman just couldn’t ignore a sign from a young man at the side of a road in the middle of winter – little did she know that helping this man would change her life.
The 81-year-old woman Mrs. Hill had been living in Austin, Texas, until she lost her husband to cancer and her son Liam died in a car accident, leaving her all alone.
She left the city and moved to a more rural part of the state hoping there would be no reminders of what she’d lost and she could start afresh.
While returning home from the store she noticed a homeless man shivering in the cold. “Please assist me in getting home. I’m blind and have lost my memory,” read the placard next to him.
Mrs. Hill checked her wallet but had no money and knowing she didn’t have a lot to give him she decided to help him in a different way. She returned home and started working on a blanket for him and worked every minute she could to get it finished before even colder weather moved in.
When she visited him to present the blanket she was shocked when she got close to him as he looked exactly like her late son. The woman had delivered twins, fallen unconscious after giving birth and when she woke up she was told one of her twins had died.
The resemblance made her think about her baby that died and she decided to take the man to a hospital so she could speak to a doctor about her suspicions.
She was forced to sell half of her farm to pay for DNA testing and for the man’s treatment, who was suffering memory loss from trauma, but thankfully he recovered and was able to tell doctors that his name was Ben Riddle and he was adopted when he was a toddler but his adoptive parents had been very open about his birth story.
They told him that his biological mother had been unconscious for two weeks after giving birth to twins and that no one expected her to live. So his father abandoned him at an orphanage because he was born blind but took his twin brother home with him.
DNA tests confirmed what the reunited mother and son already knew in their hearts – it was an emotional reunion.
I’m so glad these two were able to finally meet and may they find strength and happiness from each other’s love.
