Grand Haven man meets his biological mother for the first time in emotional reun

[stephen]

Grand Haven man meets his biological mother for the first time in emotional reunion

Anyone who watched the premiere of "Find My Family" — a show which "brings families back together" — on ABC Monday night will have an idea of the emotional ride a Grand Haven man has been taking lately.

David Ekkel could well be one of those stories, although he and his wife, Marie, did the work on their own.

Ekkel has been walking around with a "huge perma-grin" on his face since recently locating and connecting with his biological mother.

"It feels like a huge cloud has been lifted," said the 56-year-old. "It's a new chapter."

That chapter officially began Tuesday afternoon when Ekkel greeted his biological mother face-to-face for the first time ever, welcoming her into his life after she got off an airplane at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids.

"You can't put it into words," Ekkel's mother, Lillian Watson, said finally meeting her son. "But it's in our hearts."

Lillian didn't know if she would ever see her son again when she gave him up for adoption, she said, but felt they would find each other if God wanted it.

"The bond is there," Ekkel said. "This supersedes anything I ever even dreamed of."

The mother and son were so excited by the reunion, they forgot to grab her luggage at the baggage carousel.

"I've always been disconnected all my life," Ekkel said. "Now everything just feels right."

Born Timothy Lee Holmes in Buffalo, N.Y., Ekkel said long before he was told he was adopted he just knew. Part of it was that his parents were a lot older — ages 40 and 50 when they adopted him, according to Ekkel's wife. They are deceased now.

Ekkel said although they were great people, he never quite clicked with either side of the family. And "it was always strange going to the doctor. They'd ask for medical history and I had no idea," he said.

But when he started talking to his biological mother — Lillian Watson, 76, of Lockport, N.Y. — "everything just fits together, like a hand in the glove," he said.

Reuniting after living separate lives

Watson was only 19 when she became pregnant with Ekkel — her firstborn. Her parents sent her to a Christian children's home in North Carolina where she spent three months bonding with her child.

While she was away, her parents made arrangements for the baby's adoption.

"Back then you didn't do what you wanted, you do what you were told," Watson said.

She believes the short time she had with her son established the bond she feels with him today.

"He had a good start and plenty of love," she said.

Watson calls the connection a miracle.

"Only God could pull this off," she said.

Watson lost all connection with her son once he was adopted. She went into the Army, traveled a lot, got married and had four more children, including a set of twins. Her husband, William B. Watson Jr., was killed while serving on the front line in Vietnam in 1966. The twins were just two years old.

Watson said she really had to buck up to keep going.

"If I didn't have faith, I wouldn't be here today, and I wouldn't be in the good health I am today," she said.

Over the years, she lived in Buffalo, moved to Toccoa Falls, Ga., back to New York and Georgia again, then finally back to New York four years ago.

Her children, who were all born in the south, still live there.

"I like it here — I like the weather," Watson said.

The Ekkels, who have three children, moved to Grand Haven from the east side of the state about 20 years ago. David is self-employed and has had a "good life," he said.

David grew up in Dearborn and his family moved to Grand Rapids while he was still young. He graduated from Kenowa Hills High School, attended what was to become Grand Valley State University, then traveled Europe for a while, as well as worked in the oil fields.

For the last 20 years he has worked quality control, most recently for Gentex.

"It feels like we've always known each other," he said of the natural connection between him and his birth mother. "We have a lot in common. We think a lot alike. We act a lot alike."

"She has a lot of spunk," Marie agreed. "Now I know where he gets it from."

It's been a life dream for her husband to find his mother, Marie said.

"We've spent 20 years trying to find her."

The search has gone on in spurts — as the Ekkels found time and ideas. Through the years, they able to come up with all kinds of information — but not Lillian's married name.

Marie said they would go online to Web sites like Ancestry.com and plug in every piece of information they had — and still would come up with nothing.

What turned the tide was a search entered by one of Lillian's other sons. He was trying to find anyone who might have known his father and input information that included Lillian's maiden name. So the next time the Ekkels went online to search, the connection popped up.

"If her son had never programmed the info in — we never would have found her," Marie said.

They were able to get a telephone number and place a call to Watson.

"I fell asleep on the couch and woke up and saw I had a call from Michigan," Watson said of that moment a couple of months back. "She said Timothy Lee and I knew exactly who it was."

Watson said she was more excited than she could imagine about reconnecting with her son.

"People need to know that there's good ends to things like this," she said.