A man spent decades searching for his long-lost birth mum, only to find her dead in her bathroom when he finally tracked her down.
Steven Smith, 41, was adopted when he was three months old, but always wondered about the woman who gave him up.
In a heartbreaking turn of events, he found his mother, Daphne Morfydd Jones, 62, slumped in her bathroom after suffering a heart attack.
The dad-of-four, born in Carmarthen, Wales, was first told he was adopted when he was a teenager, after settling into a happy family life in Harlow, Essex.
The news he was originally registered as Jason Neal Jones came as ‘real shock’ – but Steven was upset further when he realised his case file had been misplaced by social services.
From there, he set out on a mission to find his family, soon discovering his dad had been sent to jail, leaving his mother unable to cope on her own.
He told Wales Online: ‘What he was sentenced for, or for how long, I don’t know.’
The security officer made progress as he found a brother he never knew about after doing a DNA test last October.
He said: ‘It turns out he’d done the same test a few years before – that’s how they were able to put us together.
‘He’d been fostered by a different family and had been living just half an hour up the road from me in Essex all that time.
‘And, even crazier than that, we found out that his adoptive dad used to date my adoptive mum when they were both in college.’
He then discovered a sister who gave him his mum’s address in east London.
After waiting until lockdown eased, a nervous Steven got ‘suited and booted’ to make a good first impression on his mum – but he got a devastating shock when he arrived at the property.
He said: ‘It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, but I quickly noticed there was a pile of unopened letters on the doorstep.
‘So I knocked on the neighbours’ door and they told me they hadn’t seen her for a few weeks.
‘We then went round the back and [my daughter] Amy noticed the door was unlocked, so I went in. The bed was unmade and there were dishes in the sink.
‘At which point I noticed her slumped in the bathroom. She’d been dead a while – heart attack, apparently.’
Steven never got to meet his mum – but he organised her funeral service and scattered her ashes close to his home so he can visit.
He said: ‘It seemed like the right thing to do really. My brother even helped me shoulder her coffin.
‘We had her ashes scattered in the garden of the cemetery near to where I live, so now we can always be close to each other.’
The dad has since discovered he has more siblings, most of whom were adopted into different families.
He suspects he may have more unknown relatives in Wales and is looking forward to a big Christmas gathering with his new family.
He said: ‘It’s been overwhelming meeting them all – I never thought it would happen, and my adoptive family have been great about the whole thing.
‘Now I can’t wait until Christmas because we’re all going to have a massive get-together.’
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