NEW YORK (PIX11) – Thanksgiving is more than a tradition – it's a time for loved ones and families to get together, to embrace and give thanks for all that is good in their lives.
For one family in Rockland County, this is a special holiday. A daughter and her biological father are together. After almost 50 years, they found one another after a lucky DNA test.
Sitting on the sofa at her home in Piermont, N.Y., Susan Filosa asks her father, “You want to tell me you love me?”
With a glint in his eyes, he quickly obliges, “Oh sure, no doubt about that.”
Susan quips, “He tells me he loves me five times a day.”
There’s always been a special bond between fathers and daughters, even more special after finding one another after almost 50 years.
Bob bubbles, “I really couldn’t be happier. It’s like a miracle to me.”
The miracle was a gift of a DNA test that Susan refused to take for three years. But it ended up enabling her to find her biological father 49 years after she was born.
She explains, “One day, my daughter was visiting me and I tossed the DNA invitation into her suitcase as she was heading back to school.”
Out of curiosity, her daughter, Isabella, decided to take the DNA test.
“I was expecting to see where in Spain I was from but I didn’t anticipate all these questions, but I immediately saw all this Italian and I said I didn’t know we were Italian. I had no idea what she was talking about since both sides of our family I knew were Spanish," Susan remembers.
Susan’s mother’s second husband, the man she long believed was her father was of Cuban heritage. A study of family photos discovered a resemblance between a man in a wedding photo and Susan’s son, Brandon.
“My mom brings up the name Bob Filosa. He was my grandmother’s first husband. So I asked who is Bob Filosa, let’s find out. I was on Instagram, on Facebook, on Ancestry.com,” Susan said.
Finally, she burst with pride, “I found him. This guy who looks like my brother ended up being Grandpa Bob. It was amazing.”
Isabella found him living with his current wife and two children in Pearl River, N.Y. A subsequent DNA test confirmed he was, in fact, Susan’s biological father.
How could this have happened? According to Susan, her mother was in a relationship with a man at the time of her divorce from the man with whom she couldn’t conceive during their 10 years of marriage. When she became pregnant, she assumed the child was her new husband’s daughter.
After discovering her biological father, Susan adopted his family name.
“I made him a photo album starting with the day I was born. It was a book that told the story of my life, she said”
In advance of their first meeting in March 2023, Bob sent a letter to his new-found daughter. It read, “Dear Susan. I am writing you this letter because when we meet it will be very emotional and talking to you will be very hard at first, the tears I will have will be tears of joy and love for you.”
They embraced and kissed one another during that tearful moment.
“Oh my God, it’s a moment I will never forget,” Bob remembers, tears welling in his eyes. “It means a lot to me.”
Susan adds, “There was a part of me that I felt I already knew him.”
Wiping a tear from his eye, Bob says, “It will always stick in my mind. It was a big day. What bothers me more than anything else is that I lost almost 50 years of not knowing my daughter.”
Susan moved from her home in Colorado to Piermont to be near her father.
They see each other almost every day and enjoy taking long walks along the Hudson River. They spend hours playing cribbage which Bob has taught his daughter.
Susan still can’t believe she found her biological father. Her mother and her second husband have long passed away. She lived with her grandparents.
“I’ve never had a father before”, she reflects, teary-eyed. “I have a great Dad. I feel so blessed every day and I’m still a little shocked that this is my reality that I have a dad and a beautiful extended family. We are so much alike it’s scary.”
And in a pinch-me moment, Susan adds, “I still wake up having to remind myself this is actually happening. This is true I’m not imagining it.”
Susan, her dad and their extended family are celebrating this holiday season together. Fate and a DNA test brought them together late in life, but the love between this father and daughter is something that will endure for a lifetime.