Florida

Siblings Reunited in South Florida After 50 Years Apart

After more than 50 years apart, a family was reunited in South Florida Thursday.

When Devon Ressler walked through the door, she walked into a new life. The 66-year-old woman knew at age 14 that her mother gave up her sister and brother for adoption.

"I never gave up hope, I thought that one day God willing I'd find them," Ressler said.

For the first time ever, Ressler was reunited with her sister Mari and brother Chris in Plantation.

"I haven't been able to find the words to describe it, I hoped for it my whole life but I didn't know it could exist, I didn't know I had siblings," Chris Repetti said.

Mari and Chris were both adopted by different families as children in the 1960s. And just last year when their birth mother passed, Ressler reached out to find them through registries.

"I got their birthdays and I found Chris in a week and Mari five days later," Ressler said. "There were two chunks of my heart missing, the three of us being together and holding and hugging them, I am 150 percent complete."

"Now we're all three for the first time, first time getting together in the same place at the same time, took 50 years but I knew I had siblings," Mari Aivazian said.

The newly-found siblings aren't just meeting each other. There are nieces and nephews galore to enjoy. Ressler admits she still wakes up in the morning crying tears, some over the time lost but mainly over what she's gained.

"We can't go back, I can't dwell there, but what I can do is make every day the best ever," she said. "We get along well, it's the best of stuff, it is the best of stuff, there's nothing better than this."

Now the trio is trying to make up for lost time. They head down to the Florida Keys Saturday for the weekend, one of many more to come.

And they hope to inspire others out there searching for their families. They say don't give up.

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