Search + Win

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

This is hat i wrote to Ellen...

watching your show over the past few years - i get the feeling you're one for a sappy tear-jerking story's...

lets see how mine does haha

im twenty-one years old and i have never met my Father...

until about 2 days ago.

my cousin Kelly and i sought to find him and did just that.
all i had was a letter he'd sent me maybe 4years back that i never replied to because i was to scared.
so we started by calling the number he'd given me - it was no longer his.
and the same story for the address.
all we had was the town we thought he might still be in - Harrisburg, PA.
we started out Monday afternoon by going to People Search on yahoo
and just going to numerous different sites seeing how many Joseph M. Lombardi's we could find who lived in PA.
we ended up buying some information for a "deal" $2.95
haha
in this we found a Verna, Gayle, and Ron Lombardi.
his mother Verna, Sister Gayle, and brother Ron.
we thought this was it!
all numbers were no longer in service

we knew Gayle was married - so we looked her up under her married name.
someone picked up -oh my god we're getting somewhere

it was her ex husband, Del
they'd since divorced and she went back to her maiden name.

he gave us her number - which we told him didn't work.
he told us if he gets a hold of her he'd let her know we were looking to speak with her soon.
he also told us that my Dad has two other brothers
so he gave us Fred's number.
called him and got a hold of his wife Caroline - who at first was a bit hesitant of giving us any information but had told us that Joe was no longer in PA but had moved to FL with his other brother Ron.

she also told us she and Fred don't often hear from Joe but the next time she spoke with him she would let him now we were waiting for a call.

this was all after about 3 days of searching and calling. calling random joe's that we figured there was no harm in calling and seeing if he was my dad haha.

that day (Wednesday)after speaking with Caroline, Kelly had left the house for a bit and i was at work waiting for Kelly's next update.
around 3pm i get a call from Kelly, " are you off yet? when do you get off? call me when you get off. DONT FORGET!"

i sped to her house.
when i got there - she played a message on the machine.

it was my dad
holding back tears as he tried to give his phone number to call him back
told us to call him back as soon as possible
and again said his number - tears making it hard for him to say the last few digits.

at the sound of his voice i broke down in tears
i couldn't believe i had finally found him
my dad - Joseph M. Lombardi
my other 50% to my being 100% Italian!
ha

i waited for my voice to stop shaking and said, "ok, lets do this."
i called him and Kelly listened in on another phone - so i wouldn't have to try and repeat everything to her later

we talked for an hour and a half

mostly
"i cant believe i'm taking to my daughter"
"i cant believe i found my dad"
all the emotional words you can think of were said drenched in happy happy tears.

i'd found out that he was now living in Saratoga, FL and had been looking for me for a good 7yrs but had hit so many dead ends it hurt too much to search anymore.
he said he couldn't take getting calls back from psycho's saying, "yeah we have your daughter - send $500 for a plane ticket."

so pretty much
we're both stoked on life
he has his daughter
i have my dad
our lives can be complete - everything else is now.... just a bonus.



having this feeling honestly as cliche' as it may sound - i just want to let the world know and shoud it from the heavens.

but since i can make it to the heavens at the moment,thank god, i figured you would be the next best place to go.

love you
and your show

do with this story what you will
i just had to tell somebody who i thought could help other kids in my shoes go out and find their long lost parents.

thanks for your time.

Melissa Ashley Di Pietro-Lombardi
760.774.7741
vlcmsctsnwbrdr777@gmail.com

1 comment:

Eric said...

this is really intense. i'm really happy for you. it's really touching haha. maybe some day i'll meet my own dad haha