Facebook Brings Family Back Together

Just when you thought Facebook had no redeeming qualities, a woman in Denver is crediting the site with reuniting her with her lost half-brother.

Twenty-four-year old Julia Mauer says she always wondered what happened to her brother Isaiah Luke. Julia and Luke, as well as two other siblings, had the same mom but different dads and were removed from their home in 2001 because of abuse. The siblings were sent to live with their respective paternal grandmothers, and eventually Isaiah and his younger sister were sent to live in foster homes, and then adopted.

Julia hadn’t seen Isaiah in 12 years, and five years ago she decided she needed to find him. She wasn’t having much luck until last Tuesday, when she decided to take her search to Facebook. She posted a selfie holding a sign with all the information she knew about her brother, and the photo was shared thousands of times through the site. Eventuality two local news stations picked up her story, and by Wednesday night a woman contacted Denver’s ABC7 informing them she believed Isaiah was her cousin’s adopted son. Turns out Isaiah had been living only 30 miles away from Julia in Aurora, Colorado.

"I've never felt this happy, this sort of fulfillment, and closure of the past in my entire life," Julia told ABC. "It's tears of joy. It's also a new beginning. I have part of my family back, I have part of myself back." And it sounds like Isaiah is just as happy to have his sister back in his life. When Julia sent him a message through Facebook asking if he had ever thought about her and her twin sister, he replied, “I’ve spent the last 12 years telling everybody about my sisters.”