David Aguirre's hands were shaking as he and his family anxiously awaited the arrival of his older sister, Janice Dunn. It was the first time the long-lost siblings were ever going to meet in person.
“My heart is racing now. Last night it felt like Christmas and Santa Claus is coming,“ Aguirre said.
Aguirre grew up in San Diego, played football at Hoover High School and runs a business in La Mesa. For roughly 50 years of his life, he never knew he had a second sister because his parents never spoke of giving her up for adoption before they passed away.
So when Dunn contacted Aguirre's family through the ancestry service 23AndMe, 'It kind of freaked us out, we didn’t know what to do," he said.
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From the moment Aguirre saw his sister's picture, he knew they were related.
“I could see my father in her. My father’s eyes. Everything about her, she was definitely related," he said.
Despite meeting online during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two only spoke via text and email over the years.
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“My wife said it was so weird [that they never spoke]. We shared stories — I wanted to wait for this moment to hear her voice," he said.
As his sister came down the escalator at San Diego International Airport, Aguirre began choking up before walking to greet her.
When the two finally embraced, tears flowed as the two took note of their similarities.
“You look just like dad,” said Aguirre.
“Glad to see you. You look just like me," responded Dunn.
Dunn, who’s now an attorney in Idaho, was happy to be back in her birthplace where she was able to go out and enjoy dinner with the long-lost family she’d been searching for for nearly 30 years.
“We're cherishing this,” Aguirre and Dunn said. "We’ve lost quite a few siblings. But we have each other.”
