Today’s guest blogger is Mysterious Ways assistant editor Daniel Kessel.
Do you believe that siblings share a powerful, even inexplicable bond?
I know whenever I’m with my brother, we can finish each other’s thoughts and rehash inside jokes with a single word or phrase. It’s almost like we have our own secret language.
Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to stories that show just how great the connection between siblings can be. Take the chance meeting that reunited Isaac Nolting and Dakotah Zimmer, two brothers separated as infants who were nevertheless drawn to each other when they met more than a decade later.
The meeting took place on a hot day in June. Isaac, 12, went to cool down at his local community pool in Washington, Missouri, the same one he’d been visiting for years. But that day there was someone new: a friend of a friend, a 13-year-old named Dakotah.
You might say Isaac and Dakotah got along swimmingly. One of their pals even joked that the two boys acted like brothers. On second thought… what if it was more than a joke? Comparing their features, Isaac and Dakotah noticed a striking resemblance. They had the same nose, same hair; some said they even walked alike. Besides, they talked similarly and had the same sense of humor. That night, before bed, Isaac broached the topic with his mom.
“He looked at me with his big, black eyes and asked, ‘Mom, am I adopted?’” Dawn told the Today show. “I said, ‘What makes you think that?’ And he said, ‘Because I think I found my brother.’”
Dawn was shocked. She had just consulted with her pastor and begun praying for guidance on the topic: When should she tell Isaac about his adoption? She knew she needed to have the conversation soon–next year he would enter the same middle school as his older brother–but the right moment never seemed to come.
Until now. Dawn told Isaac that his biological mother was very young when she had him. The teen mom, now deceased, knew she needed help raising her second child. Dawn took Isaac in when he was only nine days old, and they’d been together ever since.
Dawn and her son burst into tears as they shared this moment of revelation. Since then, though, the family has been all smiles as Isaac and Dakotah get acquainted.
“You can just tell they’re brothers,” Dawn says. “It’s the strongest bond that I’ve ever seen. It’s like they were never separated. For being apart for 10 years… they picked up right where they left off.”
How about you? Do you have a story about the incredible power of sibling bonds? Send it our way!
