“It couldn’t have had a better outcome for our lives.”

Paula Blanchard (33) She spent her entire life completing the family drawing, which only featured her and her mother. The absence of a father he never knew left a void in him that he always sought to fill. This search for identity ultimately revealed something he could never have imagined: Her best friend was actually her sister..

Grew up in a large household with seven siblings Vancouver, CanadaPaula discovered this at the age of 15 his story wasn’t what he thought.

In the middle of the argument, her mother confessed that neither the man who raised her nor the older brothers she lived with were her biological relatives. The revelation changed his relationship with him forever identity.

Shortly after, her mother tried to recant it, but eventually confessed that her biological father was supposedly a man from Vancouver. When Paula tracked him down at the age of 17, he denied any relationship.

But for two decades she lived with the conviction that she knew her father’s name, even though he wanted nothing to do with her or, later, with her own children.

Years later, another revelation would shatter all his certainties. His mother revealed to him that the man he had been chasing for so long wasn’t even his father. He mentioned another name, Rickabout which he had no further information.

The search remained stalled for more than a decade, a time during which her mother died, the family moved several times, and Paula felt the truth was increasingly distant. I had no real idea.

In 2019, he decided to turn to a genetic testing service that offers medical and ethnic information as well as the ability to connect with other users DNA matchessaid Paula during an interview with CBCNews.

Paula remembers the long process as a lottery. Among thousands of distant matches, she had to find someone who shared enough DNA to lead her to a close relative. Then it appeared Emilya young woman who turned out to be his cousin.

The two began exchanging messages and Emily even offered to connect her with her grandmother, a genealogy expert. For the first time in years, Paula felt like she was making progress. But from one day to the next, her cousin’s profile disappeared and the messages were cut off, leading her to suspect that someone in that family preferred it Keep information inside.

A year and a half later, Emily resurfaced. This time he apologized and put her in touch with her mother. TanyaPaula’s second cousin and key figure in solving the search.

Together they began to rebuild Family puzzlesVerification of dates, dates, places and names associated with a branch of the family that lived there Capitol Hill, Burnaby.

At the beginning of 2021, the investigation was directed against four brothers Barker. The two minors were of an age that was inconsistent with the story. There were two other possible candidates, both deceased: Jack and Rick Barker.

When Paula mentioned the name Rick to her maternal uncles, one of them reminded her that he was the man her grandmother had driven away “with screams and a frying pan” during her mother’s pregnancy.

The truth finally came out, even if it came late. Both his mother and his biological father had already died.so that Paula was never able to speak to them or close the chapters that had been opened since her youth.

But the story was far from over. When reviewing an obituary on Rick BarkerPaula found the name of a daughter: Heather Barker. He paused. Flicker. He read it again. She was his best friend for twenty years..

The reaction was explosive. “I yelled at my uncles and my husband, ‘Oh my god, Heather is my sister!“‘” she recalled. They were the people with whom Paula spent vacations, dinners and weekends. Their families had been united for years without knowing why the connection was so natural.

The similarity was obvious. Paula discovered that she had the same curly hair as the Barkers. Also the passion for music. Even a unique detail: They both chose the same name, Taylor, for their children.now known as “Girl-Taylor” and “Boy-Taylor”.

When Paula decided to tell Heather, she asked her who Tanya Charman was. Heather replied that she was her cousin. Paula replied, “She’s my cousin too” and continued with the question: “Who is your father?” “Rick Barker,” Heather replied.

“It was a big shock,” the sisters admitted. And they regret discovering the connection when Rick was already dead, although Heather is convinced her father would have been happy if he had known he still had a daughter.

Since then, friendship is no longer just that, but has become brotherhood. The two families share Christmas, holidays, birthdays and even raising their children, who discover from one day to the next that they are cousins.

Today, Paula, the older sister, sums up the story with a sentence that sums up decades of searching: “I won the lottery. There couldn’t have been a better outcome for our lives.“.