NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — This past June, Kathy Ahmad went to her brother John Tanner’s birthday for the first time that either of them can remember.
“That never happened before,” says Tanner.
The Pictou-born siblings were separated as children back in 1962. Ahmad was adopted into a family outside Toledo, Ohio. Tanner would later be adopted by a family in Halifax. For many years they thought they would never be reunited, so to spend time together now is an unexpected gift.
“It’s definitely surreal and it always will be,” says Tanner. “This isn’t something that’s going to end next week or end the following week.”
The pair credit an article first published in The News on Nov. 15, 2018 for making it happen, and stopped by the New Glasgow newspaper office this week to say thanks.
About a week after The News first published Ahmad’s story about being separated from her brother as a child in Pictou, her brother made contact with Saltwire Media, which owns The News, to say he thought he was the John she was looking for.
Tanner says it was his sister-in-law who had read the article and made the connection and called his wife to tell him about it.
In the last 11 months they’ve been able to meet several times, and Ahmad has introduced Tanner to all the other family members she has been able to connect with through a DNA site. That includes their younger brother Peter, who they spent time with this week, as well as some half-siblings.
They both say there’s a natural connection that time hasn’t erased and they already finish each others’ sentences.
“We’re as comfortable with each other as if it never happened that we were separated,” Ahmad says.
In some ways their upbringing was different. While Tanner went to public schools and played sports, Ahmad went to private Catholic schools and never learned to skate or swim.
“She went to all girls schools, which I wish I would have went to,” Tanner says with a laugh.
They both were raised by older parents though and both had adoptive fathers who were ex-military so had some similarities.
Tanner said finding his sister has brought joy. Together they’ve gone to weddings and a funeral for a family they had been separated from for decades.
“It kind of took up a space that’s always been missing,” he said.
