Lisa Wright was just a baby when she was separated from her birth mom and given up for adoption.
50 years on, she still had no clue about the identity or whereabouts of her mom- that’s until she decided to take a DNA test.
Not only did Lisa end up reuniting with family members that she never even knew she had, but she also learned that she had been watching her mom on TV for years without realizing who she was!
Lisa’s mom, actress Lynne Moody, had only been 18 when she fell pregnant with Lisa.
She made the difficult decision to put her daughter up for adoption, and since the adoption was a closed one, records were sealed. This meant that not even Lisa’s adoptive parents knew who her birth mom was.
“My (adoptive) mom told me, ‘Your mommy loved you, but she was really young, and she knew she couldn’t take care of you. I wanted the baby so bad, and that’s why your mom let me take care of you. You weren’t abandoned. This was just the best thing for you,'” Lisa recalled.
When she turned 54, Lisa’s son suggested that she should take a DNA test to find out her genetic heritage.
It wasn’t long until she was notified of a match.
“I get an alert, and it says, ‘This person is your uncle,'” Lisa said. “So I just reached out and said, ‘If you’re open to it, I would love to chat with you to see what all of this means.'”
Lisa arranged a phone call with her uncle, and as she told him about where she was born and the little information she knew about her mom, he stopped her right in her tracks.
It was a heartwarming moment as Lisa’s uncle told her, ‘Lisa, you’re my niece. We’ve been looking for you. We’ve all been looking for you.’
Moments later, Lisa received another call. This time, the person on the line was her mom.
“A voice on the other end says, ‘Is this my daughter?’ And then I just went, ‘Oh, my God, is this my mother?'” Lisa said. “And then she goes, ‘Yes, sweetie, this is your mom.’ It was just the most indescribable feeling.”
The pair arranged to meet the very next day, and when the moment arrived, Lisa found herself in total shock.
“I just could not believe it,” she said. “For the first time ever, other than looking at my son, for the first time I’m looking at somebody who looks like me.”
Lynne still has clear memories of the moment that her daughter was taken away from her, and those memories played on her mind for decades afterwards.
“When she was born, they covered my face, my eyes, so that I couldn’t see her,” Lynne said. “But I could hear her cry. All I could say was ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.’ As a mother, you never, ever, ever forget. During those 50 years, all I did was try to learn how to live with it. I didn’t know if she was hungry, if she was alive, if she was happy, if she was adopted.”
Over the years, Lynne and her family searched for Lisa, but it wasn’t until her DNA test that they were able to reunite.
Naturally, this was an incredibly emotional moment for Lynne.
“When I found out that she was my daughter, at that moment, it was like I was giving birth,” Lynne shared. “Because I lost my legs, I was on the floor in a fetal position, screaming and crying. I didn’t know how deep that hole was.”
In an incredible twist, it turned out that Lisa had been watching her mom act on the TV show, “That’s My Mama” for years without knowing that Lynn was in fact Lisa’s mama.
“I grew up watching my mother on TV and didn’t even know it,” Lisa said. “‘That’s My Mama’ — that was our must-see TV. We all sat down and watched ‘That’s My Mama’ every week, and who knew? No idea. … And that’s my mama!”
After 50 years, the pair have a lot of lost time to make up for- but Lynn is choosing to look at the positives.
“Life is full of surprises sometimes, so hang in there no matter what your circumstances are,” Lynn said. “Be open to miracles, be open to surprises, and keep the faith.”
Since then, Lisa has reconnected with her biological dad, and has discovered that she has four half-sisters!
Watch the pair’s interview below.
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