MaryAnn Ontiveros never watches the evening news. However, she never misses her favorite show, CBS’ Person of Interest. One night she forgot to turn the TV off after it aired, and the news began to play. It was there she saw CBS 2′s Brad Edwards profiling a woman she hadn’t seen in 25 years. That woman was her mother, Shirley Bennet. Shirley had been living in a shack in the parking lot near Cook County Jail. We’ve seen this happen before when a journalist photographed a missing man and reunited him with his family.

In the 90-second news segment, Shirley plead for help and to be reunited with her daughter. “I haven’t seen her in 25 years, and I still love her,” Shirley said. MaryAnn wasn’t the only one watching. Ninety minutes after the story aired, Brad received an email from Shirley’s sister Linda, who hadn’t seen her in over 50 years. The email said: We been searching for her for 50 yrs. HELP HER.

MaryAnn called the station, drove down to the shack, and took her mother home once and for all. The two became estranged after an argument. Neither expected that the quarrel would turn into 25 lost years.

“It’s heartbreaking when I saw the report, I just started crying,” MaryAnn said. “I haven’t seen my mother in over 25 years, and I didn’t know where she was.”

See this mother-daughter reunion instigated by fate below.

Please SHARE if you believe family members may argue, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other!
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