Photo: Audio: Listen Here.
Mary Beth DeSanto was just 18 when she gave up her newborn daughter to adoption. It was August 1970. On March 5, 2020, she was watching an episode of "Long Lost Family," a TLC program about reunited families. Turning it off before it was over, her husband came in with a letter from New York. It began: "Hello Mary Beth. My Name is Victoria Rich. This may not be the letter you'd expect to receive every day. I was born at Our Lady of Victory Infant Home in Lackawanna, N.Y., on August 20, 1970." DeSanto recalls, "I've often thought that I didn't see the happy ending on the show that day, but the letter was my happy ending." DeSanto had always hoped that her daughter's life was much better than what she could have offered at the time, but also carried a gnawing concern for not being able to know if she was okay. "I couldn't ask for a better daughter. She grew up to be a remarkable woman. She's who I wish I would have been," DeSanto said, months after receiving Rich's letter. The two began calling and texting each other as the pandemic began and ensued. In August, around Victoria's 50th birthday, mother and daughter reunited for the first time in half a century.
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