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AN AUTHOR'S LIFE IMITATES ART Finding My Mom After 25 Years
People US
|May 12, 2025
DECADES AFTER LOSING CONTACT WITH HER BIRTH MOTHER, STEFANY VALENTINE WROTE A NOVEL ABOUT AN ADOPTEE YEARNING FOR ANSWERS-AND THEN FOUND SOME ANSWERS OF HER OWN By RACHEL MCRADY
Fresh off a flight from Texas to Taoyuan, Taiwan, in August 2024, Stefany Valentine was filled with nerves. She scanned through the hustle and bustle at the airport for a face she hadn't seen in person in more than two decades—her biological mother, Meiling Valentine. “I was wondering if I would recognize her in a crowd, and I did,” Stefany, 31, recalls through tears. “It was just so good to hug her for the first time. I needed that hug.”
Stefany didn’t think she’d ever get such a reunion, having believed Meiling might have died in the years following a messy divorce from Stefany’s father. Then an unexpected coincidence brought them back together from opposite sides of the world while Stefany was writing her debut novel, 
This story is from the May 12, 2025 edition of People US.
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