While we often take our siblings for granted and
from time-to-time for "borrowing" items of clothing without asking, or eating all the leftovers of your mom's lasagne before you had a chance, you can't deny that you wouldn't want a life without them.
But for these two young guys, they didn't even realise they were
until recently when they figured out that not only did they have the same birth mother, but they had probably crossed paths a few times at
Kennesaw State University in Georgia - the school which they both happened to be enrolled at.
Kieron Christian Graham, 20, is a political science major at the school. Back in 1997, when he was just 3 months old, his birth mother gave him up for
after she realised she didn't have the resources to raise the child on her own. Graham was adopted by his parents as a baby and grew up in their home with two other adopted kids.
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He said that his adoptive parents were always very open and honest with them and that they
always tried to keep them informed about their birth families. Graham always knew the names of his birth mother and father, and even that she had another child named Vincent who was older than him.
"I periodically would look for them and check on Facebook, but I never knew their last name so it was always hard," Graham said.
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But this year for Christmas, Graham's adoptive parents decided to give him and his siblings their own Ancestry DNA kits. It was this test from which Graham received the results on Tuesday meaning he was able to finally find his birth family, and his brother Vincent. The test revealed around 100 rough matches to people who were potential relatives, and one strong match to a 29-year-old named "Vincent Ghant", who apparently also took the Ancestry test in recent years.
Nine years older than Graham, Ghant said he had vague memories of his younger brother when he was just a baby, before his mother gave him up for adoption.
"I asked my mother about him throughout my life, but the pain was so heavy on her that it was hard for her to drum up the words to explain it to me," he explained.
Oddly enough, it was only this week that he heard more about his brother again after receiving a Facebook message from him.
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Graham said he found Ghant on Facebook after searching his name and told him about the DNA results. "[I said] this is so random, I think I’m your birth brother," he explained. It was only when he mentioned the name of his birth mother that the two knew for sure that they were indeed long-lost siblings.
"When I realized it was him, I was shocked and then elated just to meet him again and talk to him," Ghant told Inside Edition. "I was very amazed. I started thinking, ‘What if I passed him all these years and didn’t even know it?’ It was just fate that brought us together."
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The two met up in person, and Graham was delighted to meet the niece he never knew he had, who Ghant had together with his wife. He also discovered that he has another brother, 17-year-old Christian Ghant.
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Their mother, Shawn, was also happy that she was able to reunite with her son again.
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“Although it’s been 20 years,
there’s not one day you don’t think about him,” she told Atlanta TV station WXIA.
And the best part of it all? Graham’s adopted family are planning on spending Christmas together with his biological family this year. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
