Facebook Post Helps Mother and Daughter Reunite After 21 Years

Ashley Brawley hadn’t seen her biological mother for 21 years when she got on the internet and began searching listings in San Angelo for a woman named Selena Scott White.

With the aid of a detective, Brawley wrote letters explaining that she had been adopted at the age of 2, and wanted nothing more than to be reunited with her birth mother for Christmas.

Three letters in the mail, Brawley waited for the results, hoping on the one hand she’d receive a response, fearing on the other she’d hear nothing, until a Facebook post on San Angelo Swap and Sell led to the reunion she’d prayed for.

Fighting back tears as she relayed the news of the joyous reunion, Brawley’s mother, Selena Gatica, explained how the two were brought back together.

“She wrote a letter to all of the addresses that I lived at previously…she wrote the letter saying all she wanted for Christmas was her birth mother,” Gatica said. “Somebody that lived at one of the addresses got a hold of the letter and then they posted it on Swap and Sell, and then it went from there.”

Gatica’s niece saw the Facebook post and tagged Gatica’s mother, which got the ball rolling on connecting the two. Within the space of an hour, commenters had tagged both Ashley and her mother, and someone was en-route to provide Ashley with her mother’s phone number.

“At first, I was like—I didn’t believe it,” Gatica said. “Then I was overwhelmed, too because I thought maybe this is it. I had mixed feelings about it. I was excited, happy, but of course I cried.”

Both mother and daughter had attempted to find one another over the years, but it wasn’t until Dec. 19 that a viral Facebook post brought the two back together. They hit it off instantly.

“Our first conversation, she cried a little bit and was like, ‘I need to get myself together. This is overwhelming for me,’” Gatica said. “Which I understood, it was overwhelming for me [as well]. I didn’t know what to say. Ever since then we’ve talked [non-stop].”

After that initial phone conversation, 23-year-old Brawley climbed in her car and drove from Odessa to San Angelo to meet her mother for the first time. While in San Angelo she also met her three siblings, 19-year-old Destiny, 16-year-old Shanece and 12-year-old Brandon.

“I was only told I had one [sister],” Brawley said, expressing surprise that she has now met her three siblings. “I was very happy. And I actually get to be a big sister. They’re very happy. I guess they were shocked, too as well.”

Getting to know each other and meeting for the first time in 21 years was a bit awkward at first, the mother and daughter said, but the two quickly fell into conversation and realized they have lots in common.

Pictures from the union show the two with a profound likeness, and the two found similarities in things like music, fashion and personality.

“All of us see how she is and she’s a lot like me, very much like me,” Gatica said. “In fact, she looks like me. She’s feisty, she likes clothes, she likes looking herself in the mirror like I used to…just the way she talks. Even her boyfriend said, ‘Y’all talk alike’.”

“That really made me, really, really happy,” Brawley added on the similarities. “It kind of explains the reason why I am [the way I am] today. I’m a lot like her.”

After spending the day in San Angelo, Brawley returned to Odessa, but has remained in contact with her mother non-stop ever since. Although they’ve been apart for 21 years, Brawley immediately began calling Gatica “mom” and relayed how much she loves and cares for her mother.  

“It’s different—I mean she’s my baby—but it’s somebody else calling me ‘momma’ and saying I love you,” Gatica said. “I like it. Like her, there’s not a day that went by that I didn’t think of her. Birthdays—as a matter of fact, my other daughter, Destiny, had a daughter and had her on [Ashley’s] birthday. It’s been hard. Like I said there’s not a day that has gone by that I didn’t think about her, because she’s my daughter regardless if I didn’t raise her till now.”

Both Brawley and Gatica said they knew that one day they’d be reunited, they just didn’t know when it would be. Brawley said she began the search when she was 15, but wasn’t really able to do much until she was 18 years old.

After searching on Facebook and on People Search, she sent the three letters, but couldn’t have dreamed that she’d be reunited so quickly.

“I honestly thought people would just throw them away, or say, ‘I’m sorry, you have the wrong address,’ or threatening letters back, like ‘why are you writing to this address?’ I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting—I had high hopes, but then again a part of me was like, ‘well, I don’t think anybody will help me find my mom.’”

Now that they’ve been reunited, mother and daughter spent their first Christmas together as a family this year. The two said prior to Christmas that they weren't looking forward to do anything in particular for he holidays, but just enjoying one another's company and making up for lost time.

With the search now behind them, both encouraged others who have been parted from their families to never give up the search for those they love.

“It’s going to change [my life] dramatically,” Brawley said. “Now I know—it’s just an amazing feeling to have my mom back, and my siblings. I’m happier now. Growing up, my life was a maze and I felt like I was always lost and now I’m found.”