‘We met again after 40 years and the love was still there’: the poignant story of two teenagers who broke up when she became pregnant

“They were very loving, they loved Kevin, they knew he was a great boy, and we loved each other very much,” Depp said. “But back then things were very different for girls who got pregnant.”

“Arrangements have been made to send me to a home for single mothers where my mother is allowed to take me on weekends and I go out with her for walks and dinner.”

During this time, both Deb and Kevin maintained the illusion that when she left home, they could formalize their love and devote themselves to raising the child who was about to be born.

Kevin was so convinced by this idea that he convinced his mother to enlist him in the Marines when he was 17: “I found out that if I enlisted, even though we weren’t married, I could send money to Deb, and the Marines would take care of the medical care for her and the baby.”

“My hope was that when they let me leave training, we could get married.”

But everything will remain an illusion.

During his military training, Kevin received a letter from Deb announcing that she was giving the baby up for adoption.

“I remember that feeling,” Kevin explained, his voice breaking. “I’ve been in this training with a lot of Marines, where you couldn’t show your emotions, but my inner world collapsed.”

“For me, it became a big loss. I didn’t blame Deb. I understood. I knew why. I knew it was the most practical thing to do, but it was difficult.”

After she ended her relationship with Kevin – who was about to leave for Vietnam – Deb says she was tormented by nightmares in which she left her baby in the wing of the house where the adoptions took place.

That’s why she was so relieved when the private doctor who was examining her at the end of her pregnancy told her about a family who might be interested in her baby.

“He told me: ‘I have a family of four boys and a mother who can’t have any more children. If you have a girl, they will want to adopt her.’ That made it easier, if you can say so. “It made me feel better about the whole situation.”

Deb gave birth to a beautiful baby girl – who, according to her, looked like Kevin – and abandoned her, not really knowing the people who would be the baby’s new family.

“We had to leave the hospital area. We found ourselves in the parking lot, a car pulled up and a woman who reminded me of Jackie Kennedy got out of the car while the kids were looking out the window.”

“My mother came and took Val and gave her to her new family.”

After that, Depp’s family sold their house and went to live in another part of the country, where no one knew them, to start a new life.

Meanwhile, Kevin has just been sent as part of a Navy SEAL to fight in Vietnam.

“My job was to recover pilots downed in combat, and on October 10, 1969, we went to rescue a supply helicopter.”

“When we located him (the pilot), we also saw about 80 or 90 North Vietnamese trying to get to him: I was hit by shrapnel in my arms, legs and back, and had to use mud from a nearby river to try to avoid bleeding.”

“I didn’t think I was going to get out of there, and I had this fight with God,” Kevin told Outlook, his voice breaking. “I told him: ‘I can’t believe you would let me die here, in the middle of nowhere, 18,000 miles from my home, without seeing Debbie again, without seeing my baby.’”

The answer came to him as he slowly lost consciousness: a Marine picked him up and they were able to evacuate him in time to treat his wounds. Kevin was transferred to the Philippines, then to Japan, and eventually was able to return to the United States to continue the difficult and complex recovery process.

“I had 18 surgeries in that time. Since then I’ve had 20 more. But I went from wheelchair to walker, from walker to crutches, from crutches to cane, and I’ve never looked back.”

As the years passed, Kevin attempted to search for Debbie, but the technological limitations of the time left him with little information about her whereabouts. For her part, Debbie did everything she could to try to forget a situation that, for her, was linked to the feelings of guilt she had left behind after giving up her child.

Debbie was married several times and had three daughters while Kevin was a widower and neither of them ever heard of the daughter they had together all those years ago.

Over the years, Deb came to the conclusion that she had to put her guilt aside, and initially, she decided to tell her other daughters about what happened to her in her youth.

“It was Mother’s Day. We were in the kitchen and I said, ‘I have something to tell you: When I was very young, I had a baby.’ I explained the whole situation, and how Kevin and I fell in love.”

One of her daughters took the initiative and asked her what few details she could still remember that could help trace the child.

“I knew the last name, I knew there were four boys (in the family) and I knew the area they lived in.”

The information was sufficient for her daughter to be able to find the family that adopted the little girl, and Deeb chose one of the siblings at random to contact him.

The message was answered with a call, and on the other end of the line was Val.

“I called her at 8 a.m.,” Val told Outlook. “At that point, I actually had the maturity to start the conversation by acknowledging that we had a lot to talk about, but I appreciated what you did and what happened. There were no hard feelings of any kind.”

For Depp, this response had a therapeutic effect: “All those feelings of shame and guilt melted away,” Depp told Outlook.

They met on the same night, and during their meeting the question arose: What happened to Kevin?

They took to the Internet again and were soon able to locate him thanks to his deceased wife’s obituary. Deb decided to write him a letter.

He wrote along with his phone number: “I’m sorry for your recent loss. I would like to talk about your school days. I hope you are doing well.”

For Kevin, the message was a miracle: “I will never forget the moment he received that message. I immediately went to the phone and told him I couldn’t believe we were having that conversation.”

But the surprise wasn’t over yet: “I said, ‘I have something to share with you,'” Depp recalls. “You found our daughter. Do you want to meet her?”

After a resounding yes, Deb and Kevin agreed to meet at Val’s house and when they both saw him arrive, their daughter recalls with a laugh her biological mother’s reaction: “She said, ‘Oh, but he’s so beautiful!’

Deb was reserved during Val and Kevin’s interaction but in the end, she realized that the real reunion was between the two and left them alone. They sat in the car and talked for hours.

Kevin says that after they told each other what had happened in their lives, he admitted that he never stopped loving her. Deb, excited, tells him that if he’s still the wonderful person she remembers six months later that she just found again, they can still be together.

“Six months and 14 years later, it’s still unbelievable,” Deb admits about the man she had to part ways with for so long, but with whom she now shares her life.

More than 40 years after their failed plan to elope and get married, Kevin and Deb finally tie the knot. Now, both in their 70s, they’re focused on keeping each other happy and healthy: “We’re able to care for and love each other through this stage of life. Honestly, there’s nothing else I need,” Depp concludes.

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