How Coronavirus Turned Out To Be A "Blessing" For Long-Lost Sisters

A 73-year-old woman from Nebraska has called her coronavirus diagnosis a "blessing", for it helped her reunite with a sister she had not seen for more than 50 years. According to WWSB News, Doris Crippen was reunited with her younger sister, Bev Boro, who turned out to be a medication aide at the facility where she was recovering from COVID-19.

Bev Boro, 53, works at Methodist Health's Dunklau Gardens in Fremont, where Ms Crippen was hospitalised after breaking her arm in a fall resulting from the illness. She recognised her elder sister's name on a list of patients. 

"I thought, 'Gosh, I know that name.' And then it hit me," Ms Boro said. "I think that's my sister!"

The two sisters were separated in 1967, after their father left them at home alone. Ms Boro was just 6 months old at the time.

"I seen her once when she was a baby and I held her. And the rest of my life growing up I never thought I'd find her again," said the elder sister to WCSC-TV.

Their reunion took place at the hospital, where Ms Boro used a whiteboard to communicate with her elder sister, who is hard of hearing. 

"I went in with one of the whiteboards and I said to her, is your father Wendall Huffman? She goes that's my daddy, and I pointed at myself and I go that's mine, too." Ms Boro said.

"She said, 'I am your sister, Bev.' I nearly fell out of the chair, and I just burst into tears. It was just a happy feeling to find my sister. It's been 53 years since I seen her, and she was a baby," Ms Crippen added while talking about the reunion.

The women had searched for each other for years without any luck. After more than half a century apart, they are now making up for lost time.