The heartwarming tale of Lizzie Valverde and Katy Olson.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The first day of their writing class at Columbia University started off innocuously enough for Lizzie Valverde and Katy Olson, two strangers who had never met before one fateful day in fall of 2013.
As Valverde began to introduce herself to the class, something seemed to click for Olson, who wasted little time in following up with additional questions.
” … When she followed up with the rapid fire of more detailed personal questions like, ‘Were you given up for adoption in Tampa, Florida, to a woman named Leslie,’ I was, like, ‘Woah woah woah!'” Valverde told CBS News.
“I think we’re sisters,†Olson recalled saying at the end of their exchange.
All Valverde could muster, according to The New York Times was, “Is this real life?”
Since that first class, The Times revealed Valverde and Olson have become very close, meeting each other’s adoptive families and spending holidays together.
“It feels like a fairytale,” Valverde remarked to CBS.
Valverde had already found their mother, Leslie Parker, a few years earlier. Parker was just a teenager when she gave up both of her daughters for adoption at birth one year apart, and 35 years later, her voice still breaks when she discusses it, according to CBS.
“I wanted to give them the best possible future they could have, and it wouldn’t have been with me as sad as it is to give up your own children,” Parker said, “but I felt that’s the best that I could give them is to let them go.”
In the next few days, Parker meet Olson for the very first time since she was given up for adoption when the two attend Valverde’s graduation ceremony at Columbia, from which she is receiving a degree in creative writing.
In another almost fairytale-like coincidence, Parker told the New York Times that she always wanted to be a writer, “but a hard-knock life riddled with poverty, drug abuse and emotional problems had been too much to overcome.”
“They’re brilliant, beautiful young women,†Parker said. “In them, I see what I had the potential to be. They’re both living what I always wanted to be.â€