After 85 years these twin sisters were finally reunited!

When their mother died, 5-year-old twins Maurilia and Andrea were sent to live with different relatives. The families didn't stay in touch and the girls lost track of one another...but they never stopped hoping they'd see each other again. At age 90, they learned it's never too late for a dream to come true

- Bill Holton

Last November 30, Maurilia Chavez celebrated her 90th birthday, but when her daughter, Loretta, who is her caretaker, went into her bedroom to get her for dinner, she discovered her mom sitting on her bed, sobbing. “Oh Mamacita,” Loretta sighed, knowing the reason for her tears: Maurilia was missing her twin sister.

“She’s still alive, I can feel it,” Maurilia wept. “But I’m never going to see her again—not in this lifetime!”

Unbreakable bond

Maurilia and her fraternal twin, Andrea, had lived on a small Laredo, Texas, farm with seven brothers and sisters. They were only 4 when their father died, and when a year later they lost their mother, their 20 aunts and uncles, most of them itinerant farmworkers, divvied up the children. Sadly, the twins were separated.

Andrea stayed with relatives in Laredo. Maurilia went to live with an aunt and uncle in Greeley, Colorado. Both girls had hard childhoods, made even harder because they each deeply missed their twin.

At 21, Maurilia married and moved to Denver. She went on to raise four children. But having a family only intensified her desire to find Andrea. Over the years, she tried several times to locate her. Eventually, a brother, who had also remained in Laredo, told her Andrea was deceased.

“No, she’s still out there, I can feel her,” Maurilia insisted—and she was right!

At 20, Andrea fled an abusive boyfriend and moved to Chicago, where she married, then resettled in Las Vegas, and had a daughter and two sons. Over the years, she, too, tried to find her sister with no luck.