Lost but Found- After 50 Years April Finds Her Father

My league buds has all the knowledge you want. My league buds has all the knowledge you need.

League Buds, Yet they have all the books that the whole wild world?

What of read my league buds?

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshelf, Bringing a world together with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshelf. I'm down in a dirty South, deep in Texas, in Arkansas and Louisiana. We in search of April's lost family for over fifty years. She's gonna be you, red and nine it. It's gonna be an Antoine officier experience. I'm gonna be talking to her family members in April about this.

I'm here to witness it.

It's in a deep, dirty South out here in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas. They spread it all over. This is a surreal experience. I'm glad to share it with my audience on Malik's Bookshelf, Bringing a world together with books, culture and community.

You know what brings people together? Also family.

You can choose your family, you can't choose your relatives.

But the fact that she has a.

Biological father, biological grandfather, biological sisters, that she just now finding out at fifty years old.

That's my episode.

This episode is about this whole experience. I'm here to witness it, recorded, document it, and share it all. Right now, this is a different lifestyle here. I ain't never I'm a city born, city raised, and I ain't never been in the backwards woods like this, off grid, no internet, no paved streets, ponds and you know, and just in the wilderness, you know out here. And let me tell you something. Driving all around, this is country. This is Trump country. Town flags everywhere. I'm in the deep and

Like I said, I hope this car will break down.

You feel me, So hey, all I know is.

This is an experience for me. This is new for me.

I'm here to be supported for April. My wife also want to say this. Yesterday we all sat around her new family. Like I said, it's an Antoine Offisher experience, and watch the LSU in Texas.

A and M game. They have. April has a nephew.

This is a starting D lineman on Texas AM DJ Hicks, and he was explosive in.

Texas INM won the game.

And I got a chance to witness us all cheering for Texas A and M for the first time with her family.

It's not every day that a did you get.

Us to know a surprise starting nephew whom her whom her brother David. That's her son and her father name is David. Her brother name is David, her nephew is it plays for a Texas and M defensive line. DJ hicks name kept being announced on television as we watched Texas and M beat LSU yesterday's So that was an experence. Stay tuned for this upcoming episode.

We're out here on a journey.

This is a what I call a Antwine Fisher experience where April.

After fifty years.

Found contact with her biological father, biological sister, biological grandfather, deep in the South Louisiana and Arkansas. I'm standing right here with her biological father, David, her two biological sisters, Kimmy and Courtney, and I just wanted to do a podcast on this holy experience.

I'm gonna start with April because she.

Just found out after fifty years that she got a family cross way across America. She live in California, twenty five hundred miles away, deep in Louisiana, deep in Texas, and so this has been an Antoine Fisher experience, and so just speak on this whole experience.

April.

Well, this whole experience has been very, very overwhelming. And it's not a sad overwhelming feeling. I'm getting emotional already. It's just a feeling of completion. I know, I didn't know, but I knew, and the DNA don't lie. And I have sisters that I really say that that's my sisters. I have friends, that's my sisters. But you know, I found sisters. I have a brother, and that was hard for.

Me to say.

For my husband, No, that it was hard for me to say that I have any siblings because I didn't have any. You know, I grew up with people that said they weren't my my siblings, but I never said brother or and my husband say that's your brother. I'm like, that's my daddy's brother, that's my daddy's son.

My daddy son. Never said it.

But I'm comfortable saying my sisters and my brother. So it's very beautiful.

That's true. That's right. This is really emotional.

And you find out fifty years later a family twenty five hundred miles away, and believe me, this has been an experience for me as well. We're in a deep, deep South, off the grid, no internet, you know what I'm saying. We need silent dirt roads. Come on, man, wilderness.

All right.

So, but the people loved this. This is where they grew up, generational families out here. So this is her biological father, David, And after fifty years, you finally met your daughter.

Just tell me.

My audience on Malie's bookshelf bringing the world together with books, culture and community, Well, we're trying to bring families together that have been lost.

So speak on this experience for you.

It's been a great experience to me because I've been looking for April for fifty one years really ever since she was in Pampers and due to my granddaughter did asking me said, how about.

You still want to find your I said, yes, I do. She said, well, wasn't her grandpa? Wasn't her grandpa name? I said, Bill Ray stay at Maryland somewhere, And I'm just wondering how did she find his address to get there?

She did so much completions with technology and knowing how to use it and brought this into a close that everything worked out like we're playing yesterday and standing my story.

How did you feel when your first laid eyes?

How did you feel in your first laid I tears in my eye and my alma skin.

Just drew up.

Feels just just ooh, open up now?

How did that first hug feel?

That first hug felt so good that I couldn't hold it no more. WHOA, it's well looking, couldn't hold it anymore.

April, I was that first hug at first sight beautiful, It was beautiful energy.

I did, I did, I did, I witnessed it. I'm here too, I told her, I'm coming with you. I ain't gonna that you go experiences without me. I came down here with you. She was out here trying to make plans, and I'm like, well, I ain't think you want to go on something like that.

But I'm like, hold on, hold up now.

First of all, you need me, I need you need the security there too. You don't know what damn you're about to go in the deep South, all kind of shit.

I'm now the way the bodies have buried at out this tree.

It's off the grid.

It's deep in the South, all right, one sheriff And about what how many fifty sixty miles?

Come on? Right? Dang? You need launch too manitude to get here. Yeah, see that? So hey, hey, wow, this has been an experience.

But you was just speaking on your granddaughter, y Yes, and this is the mother.

Oh my name is Courtney.

My daughter name is Casey. I've been telling Casey all her life, y'all. I have an older sister. She didn't believe me. My husband's appearance is Beardy Wood. And I always was out there and I was like, my sister's close to me.

Then realize.

On seven you was on sixth ass y'a was yeah, look I was on seven.

Yeah, I live on seven the cemetery.

Yes, and I was right there. We was always right there, and I was like, oh, so close, but just didn't know. Look I got I was so close and I just didn't know. But I kept saying, I feel my sister, she's close by. And it was like, Mama, please, Yes, I never knew, Mama, I know, I said, Dad be telling me years that I have a sister, and I have an older sister.

I'm not the oldest.

And she all he always said, go ask miss Barbara, and Miss Barbara her aunt that she didn't get a chance to meet. She used to be like, oh, she live in California. You won't be able to go there. I said, we go there all the time. But she never would really give me any information on her. And so finally Casey said, you know what, Mama, this is going to be my project before I go back to school.

Something.

I'm gonna find your sister. If you say like you said, but.

I really don't believe you, because I know how y'all make stories.

Here we go, here we go again.

So I was so excited and it seemed like I've been knowing her the whole time.

And it's like it wasn't any distance.

It's like you know how you meet people for the first time, you be like okay, but this time it was like I've been knowing it my whole life, and it's like she's not a stranger to me.

Wow, well, I know one thing.

We have so many similarities in its soul.

Yes, y'all looking like shame cheeks built from the hips down, the same pair, texture, the same you know. Yeah, walking in your house. I feel like, you know, y'all got a lot in common. And so this has been an eye opener. And we got Kemi over here her sister, I guess with the third oldest.

I'm the middle, so well, I guess now I got bumped, so like I grew up with my sister Courtney, I'm the middle.

Then my brother David, so.

Well, our dad got sick lately, and that's when I started hearing a lot about April and my niece. She bought the idea to me because she gets stuck. It's only so much you can find on Google. So I have a friend that works for the government, and I gave him what she gave me, and he was able to find things in detail. So he's just he's so happy, like he is so happy.

I am too. I'm so grateful.

But myself, kim Ya and April and my dad David, we did a DNA test, so we sent it off and this was the longest how many days?

Five four? Five days? Yeah, we had to wait.

Yeah, so this was the longest way ever. And I'm telling her, like she's trying to find her dad, I'll make sure he mind. I'm just so grateful, Like I mean, I love family, like that's near and dear to me.

And even to have that.

Not necessarily closure, but it's like now what you've been missing or that feeling that you're like something is missing or something that's not right now to just know that, it's just so it's you can't even explain it.

You can't explain the feeling that you have.

So piece you feel a piece, Oh yeah, a piece, A piece.

Yeah.

As I was telling you guys yesterday, I was so conflicted with the decision of moving forward because I just felt like I was betraying my mother, you know, and she wasn't here to say yes, daughter, go ahead. So I just was feeling so conflicted, like am I doing the right thing?

And now what I see you guys like, oh man, this is this.

Is so right, this is so right.

Hug Her up, hug her up, hugger up. Come on, Dad, come on, Pop, come on, get on in there.

Look at this. Yeah, hold on, y'all, stay right there.

I gotta take a picture, my audience.

You gotta be still because I gotta take this picture of all for hugging the round table. You know, this is surreal. This is filled with a lot of emotion. This is history, It is extraordinary. I didn't want to miss it. This is an Antoine Fisher moment. Find you're not alone, You're not ain't.

God gotta answer, Like she said, she.

Didn't know if her daughter, if her mom would feel a certain way when she passed away a few years back.

But God gotta say so.

A week joke, kim joke, and this corny joke that we just been laughing about other people be like, why are laughing?

But we know why we're lafting.

Like corny stuff.

I'm so I'm a jokester.

And I thought I I thought I got it for my.

Father because he was a joke to too. Oh my god, he used to just joke Jojoe. But now it's like, yeah, it's so good.

I believe that laughter. Is this the most powerful medicine. It's so powerful, and I use it. I use it on a daily basis.

And all of us are vegetarian. Yeah, I courtinate a vegetarians. None of us wear the old room. You don't stink, but I trot the owner. That's all long before this. We have so much of the same like similarities, just like we were grew up in the house together, siblings, and we did what the other ones did.

First time meeting each other in fifty one years. And so I'm.

And I'm forty six, so yes, first time meeting. He just turned forty in our So yes, first time meeting.

And we already are having connection. Yes, and we do some.

Of the same things unconsciously knowing.

But because the DNA, yes.

It's just ain't physical, but there are certain things inside of the DNA personality traits as.

Well as when I didn't believe it, I even called the people like this, right, the lady said, ma'am, if it's no zeros on there, it's right, that's right, y.

Yeah, So I'm I'm grateful. I'm more than grateful. I mean it just feels like, I mean, the torch, we gotta keep going with it. And then it's like.

Yeah, I feel like like I called Courtney and talking to her as a big sister.

I mean I feel that with you too, like I can call you and talk to you as a big.

Sister and get that guy in their wisdom and even knowledge and so and I always rely on my big sister.

So yeah, I call her.

She's been through some things that I'm just now going through and how she dealt with and me watching thinking back, I don't know how she did it, but I asked questions now because I'm going through those things and she's able to help me.

And then even the short time that you've been here.

I feel like, oh my god, I could talk to my sister too, like we can have our comforts calls and yeah, we just talking. So this is like this is a miracle to me. This is miraculous and it's a blessing. And so yeah, I'm grateful.

You know, you know how I always tell you how life repeats yourself and think about all the families you helped found their siblings.

Oh yeah, and she.

Has helped her.

She has helped people find their people, and look why she was in Los Angeles and she was down there.

A family I found from Mississippi. Her family thought she died. And I went live near uh yes, what's the area skid roll and these people's tent had burned up, and I went to the good store sport and good store bought them new tents and everything. I was going live and like five people in boxed me, like.

That's our sister.

We've been looking for her for.

Seven years and we're way in Mississippi. So they asked me if I can send the address, send whatever, and they asked me to ask her questions about her children. She had seven children, lost them to the system, and she was pregnant now so I still they still keep in touch with me.

They made a trip to l A and found her. Yeah, so I've helped like a couple of people do that. It's like the seeds, Yeah, so so on the seed.

Is she and that years ago like six fower.

That was at least about six years ago. Yes, I have their picture. I'll show you.

Yeah, six years ago. To see with someone never.

And I mean even to see them, I mean I can imagine this feeling that they had seeing their lost loved one that they grew up with and then rekindling after seven years. So this is like, I mean, it's a joy that's unexplainable.

So I'm grateful.

I'm glad they have witness shit. I think this was an eye opener. You know, it's never too late as long as you have life too correct change, seek fine, but don't give up.

And maybe this would encourage somebody to come forward if you were maybe missing a sibling, or if you are in search of your own family, like, there are ways that you can do it.

There are ways, and.

Even if you feel like something is missing, most of the time it is. It is, So I encourage everybody to find their families.

Yes, I'm good.

This is organic now and it's not scripted. They speaking from the heart and mind. We in the deep South wind Arkansas.

Yeah, we got a pond, we got a.

Dirt road, we got with the wilderness all around us. You know what's gonna pop out of them trees?

Man? Look, look, I'm a city boy. Yeah, I'm a yeah.

Look beautiful butterflies I see.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm the city you know, and that ain't gonna change.

I need to be around people and around things.

I like concerts, I like grocery stores close, you know, you know, yeah, this ain't my cup of tea. But hey, it's beautiful though. It's quiet and feel peaceful.

You know.

It's a good place to probably retire, you know, buy some land.

But you know, I need to be developed because out here is wilderness.

They love it.

They great. It's generational. You know, this is generational. The Hicks family, they own over one hundred acres. You know, many of us in the past showed our acres and moved and land and moved to the inner moved the city's north up north.

In the east coast.

But out here they own about one hundred and something acres. They all grew up here, generational one hundred and eighty acres. And I'm looking at it and I'm standing on it.

They grew up.

Here, Their grandfathers grew up here, their great great great fathers.

So you know, this is this is their home.

This is where they all grew up And the young lady who found yes, she come on up here, come on. What's your daughter's name again?

Casey? Casey. That's why I thought, what this is? Casey. She's the one that found April.

I'm doing my podcast Maleak's Bookshelf, bringing the world together with books, culture and community.

But today you brought.

Together a long lost sister, a long loss that's your neat Auntie, and today I wanted I'm talking to my audience, but tell me about that experience and what made you do it.

The experience of finding my aunt.

Honestly, it was very excited, fast faced.

I was a girl.

I was hoping first because mister Billy Ray remember that he originally gave me.

It was like it didn't come back to anything, and.

I was a little scared and I'm like, I don't know hypa found When my first day searching, I found other ladies with the name April, I'm like, this be her, but it was like they didn't seem right. And then finally talking to my other aunt, I found I finally found her, and honestly, it has been one of the most exciting experiences ever.

I'm in this speech class. I literally wrote my speech pouder I got an.

A wow, wonderful, wonderful and.

Hostually, I'm just happy to have her in my life.

Out Yeah, yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad.

I'm mad your experience the reunion. After fifty years, April finds out that she has family out here in Texas in Arkansas, and the person I'm talking to right now is the one that did the research, found enough connection and pinned down and called her. I was sitting on the couch when you called. When she got that call, she thought it was a telemarketer.

I remember that.

I heard you in the background.

You were on your computer talking about the ancestry and never talked about like the Higgs.

And all that.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, we did some twenty three and meters with me and the family. And Hicks popped up in her DNA at saying relatives, and that kind of got her mind spinning too. Who's all these Hicks? And I don't see Hagen. So that's beginning. But her mom was already passed, her father was ill, her daddy that raised her, so she wasn't aware at all about her family out here and her biological dad. So this was all new a surprise. But what comes out the dark

Wait, you ask me, how does that feel?

Yeah? How does that feel?

This was amazing. It feels wonderful because the.

Fact is that I'm walking this earth and I have five other cousins, another uncle, another another, ain't it? And I have all this amazing family. And the fact that we were literally around the corner when we were visiting my grandparents or my other uncle, and the fact that we could have met y'all.

Yep, y'all was on six. I believe we're on seven. Were right down the street in Englewood.

Yeah, it's just it's, honestly, just a surreal feeling. It's exciting.

At first, you get a little confused and you're like, ain't no way. But honestly, when I see y'all yest day, I'm like, it's real.

It is real, and we happy to meet you. Look at that you got some West Coast on you right there. Lord that death Road Records Death Road Record t shirt on Los Angeles, yep, California.

Well, I hope my audience enjoyed that.

I'm glad that y'all was open to allow me to interview you from a podcast. Malik's Bookshelf, bringing the world together with books, culture, and community and I really appreciate it. I think this will definitely inspire someone who has a family member that they trying to connect with, this loss or forgotten or whatever. This definitely gonna inspire them to want to take some steps to reunite with a family member. You know, you can't choose your relatives, but you could

That is so thank you, Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Malik's bookshelf with topics on the shelf are books, culture, and community. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check out my Instagram at Mileak Books. See you next time.