Sisters Meet in Columbia Writing Class After Decades Apart

Imagine finding out your long-lost sibling isn't just alive, but sitting in your college writing class. That's exactly what happened to Lizzie Valverde and Katy Olson at Columbia University in January 2013.

Both women were in their thirties, back in school chasing their dream of becoming writers. On the first day of their literary reporting course, students went around the room introducing themselves.

Valverde shared her story about being adopted as a baby through a closed adoption. Across the room, Olson's heart started racing.

Olson had been quietly searching for her older sister for months. She knew her sibling had been adopted and given the name Lizzie Delgado. She'd even found someone matching that description on Facebook and sent a message that went unanswered.

Now that same woman was sitting in her class, telling the exact story Olson had been piecing together. After class, Olson approached with careful questions. Were you adopted at birth? Was your birth mother from Tampa?

Valverde could only respond with what became the perfect line for the moment: "Is this real life?"

The discovery carried an extra layer of emotion. Valverde had always known her birth mother had another baby after her. But her adoptive family was told that second child likely died during birth due to complications. When no news came, they assumed the worst.

Valverde wasn't looking for her sister because she believed she was already gone. This wasn't a reunion. It was meeting someone she thought she'd never had.

The sisters kept their discovery private for about a year and a half. They spent that time getting to know each other over pitchers of beer, comparing everything from their love of chicken wings to their matching weird pinkie toes.

Their birth mother, Leslie Parker, was a Florida teenager when she placed both daughters for adoption a year apart. She'd always wanted to be a writer too but never got the chance. Parker has been open about the hardship she faced and calls adoption the best gift she could give her girls.

"I wanted to give them the best possible future they could have, and it wouldn't have been with me," Parker told CBS News.

Sunny's Take

The story reached its emotional peak at Valverde's graduation ceremony. Olson, who had graduated the year before, came to watch her sister cross the stage. But the bigger moment belonged to Parker, who had reconnected with Valverde years earlier but had never met Olson face to face.

The day before graduation, mother and daughter met for the first time in over thirty years. Olson ran over and hugged her. The next day, both mothers sat side by side watching Valverde graduate.

"To see both my moms together, that's a pretty intense moment," Valverde said. "It felt like all the things that matter in my life were very much there."

Valverde graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, then went on to earn her MFA. Both sisters are now living the writer's life they dreamed about in that first class together.