Oh my, what a tear jerker! FYI, this mom and son will be interviewed on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning. Posted on 12/20/2007 1:32:23 PM PST by Pyro7480
Oh my, what a tear jerker! FYI, this mom and son will be interviewed on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning.
From the Grand Rapids Press, December 18:
For years, Steve Flaig, a delivery truck driver at the Lowe's store on Plainfield Avenue, had searched for his birth mother.
He found her working the cash register at the front of the store.
For several months, he and Christine Tallady had known each other casually as co-workers. Last Friday they met for the first time as mother and son....
It was a tough decision for Tallady, unmarried at the time, to give him up when he was born on Oct. 5, 1985, but "I wasn't ready to be a mother," she said.
She left the adoption record open, figuring he might want to contact her someday, and she often thought of him, particularly on his birthday. But life went on. She got married, had two more kids.
Four years ago, when Flaig turned 18, he asked DA Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information. A couple of months later, it came, including his birth mother's name.
He searched the Internet for her address and came up empty. In October, around the time of his 22nd birthday, he took out the paperwork from DA Blodgett and realized he had been spelling his mother's surname wrong as "Talladay." He typed "Tallady" into a search engine and came up with an address on West River Drive less than a mile from the Lowe's store.
He mentioned it to his boss, and she said, "You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?" He was stunned.
"I was like, there's no possible way," he said. "It's just such a bizarre situation."
He had been working at Lowe's for two years. She was hired in April as head cashier.
Over the past two months, "I would walk by her, look at her from a distance, not knowing how to approach her," Flaig said. "You don't come stocked with information on how to deal with this."
It would seem tactless to walk up and say, "Hi, I'm Steve, your son." What if she rejected him?
Last Wednesday, on his day off, Flaig happened to be driving past the DA Blodgett offices. He decided to stop in and tell them of his find. An employee there volunteered to call Tallady for him.
Tallady, 45, was surprised to get the call at Lowe's. How did the DA Blodgett people know where she worked?
"The first thing that crossed my mind is something was wrong with him," she said. Was he sick? Did he need a blood transfusion?
"And then she said, 'Christine, he works with you,'" Tallady recalled. "It was a shock. I started crying. I figured he would call me sometime, but not like this."
She sobbed a lot that day, tears of joy. Flaig called her later that day, and last Friday the two, who until then had occasionally said "hi" as coworkers do, met at the Cheers Good Time Saloon near the store. They hugged, sat and talked for 2 1/2 hours.
On Tuesday, they hugged again in the store where both were working the day shift. They know their paths must have crossed many times. Both graduated from Northview schools. Both attended St. Jude's Catholic Church.
"We both hate olives, both love roller coasters," Tallady said....For Flaig, it was the reunion he had dreamed of for much of his 22 years. He had always known he was adopted, and his parents, Pat and Lois Flaig, who raised him since his birth, supported his decision to search for his birth mother.
[HT: Fran at IL Review]
Culture ping!
Man, good thing he didn’t date her.
Ew.
That’s the first thing you thought of?? Just wow.
you good thing they’re weren’t involoved in any kind of “relationship”-that’d be trouble-unless of course they lived in WV.
Second actually...as it was a joke.
Incredible story of love. A great percentage of women would have chosen abortion. Bless both of them.
I see an upcoming “You’ll find it at Lowe’s” commercial in the making.
Norm!
Great story for mom and son
Wonderful story and to think that now between the two of them working at Lowes, they will have about as much income as one person working a regular job elsewhere....
Hope they both speak Spanish; it is the only way to get ahead at Lowes.
Great story. Thanks for this.
GREAT story-—I’m sure Home Depot and WalMart are kicking
themselves in the ass over this-—too bad you can’t get away w/ staging stuff like this.....
<><
Come give your daddy a hug!
Dah-DEHHH???Dah-DEH of my dreams????
(see great John Boorman movie The Emerald Forest)
Lovely story. Thanks
The “parents” are the ones who gave of themselves throughout his life to raise him. The “birth mother” pales in comparison IMHO.
Wow what a story I am so glad for them.
I was adopted but never met my bios!
The bio mother is now dead, and the bio father is unknown!
Paternity check on aisle 3!
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