By Lori Acken
In honor of Mom’s big day, WE tv will air a special, mom-centric marathon of emotional and heartwarming episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 of its hit series, The Locator. So grab your mama and your tissue box and tune in Sunday, May 10, beginning at 2pm ET for these encore eps:
A Mother’s Last Wish:
When Carolyn and her ex-husband, Donald, split, he was granted full custody of their daughter, Cassie, who was three years old at the time. Following the divorce, Carolyn was able to stay in touch with Cassie until she turned 12, when all communication abruptly ceased. After ten years of unanswered letters and disconnected phone numbers, Carolyn was convinced she was never going to see her daughter again. Today, Carolyn is undergoing chemotherapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia. She wants to see Cassie again and alert her about this hereditary disease.
A Mother’s Hope:
Sandra Ashman, 52, is searching for her younger sister, Jennie Lorensen, whom she first learned about at age 25, after reading her mother’s diary. Penny Palmer, Sandra and Jennie’s mother, gave Jennie up for adoption (but kept Sandra and her two older half-brothers) because she was in an unsteady relationship and could not bear the thought of raising four children on her own. Traumatized by the experience, she remembers very little. Penny now has cancer and has been given only a few months to live. Will Jennie be interested in reuniting with her biological mother — and how will she feel when she learns that she has a sister?
A Goddaughter’s Dream:
Samantha Johnson, 31, is seeking her long-lost godmother, Hattie Scales. Growing up, Samantha spent much of her time with her godmother since both of her parents were in the military. Hattie remarried and moved away when Samantha was 14, and they never saw one another again. Seventeen years later, Samantha lives in Sacramento, Calif., and is still missing the woman she considered her other mother. She wants to find Hattie to rebuild the close relationship they once shared. Hattie now has two sons of her own, and describes Samantha as “the daughter I never had.”
Stolen Kisses:
Angel Fox from Tacoma, Wash., gave birth to identical twins, Tyler and Taylor Neil, when she was just 16. After her marriage to their father (who was 24 years her senior) broke up, he gained custody of the children. Angel visited regularly for the first three years of their lives, but then moved to Oregon after their third birthday and was unable to maintain the same close contact. Months later, she learned that Jack had moved the children to an undisclosed location. Angel was devastated. All she could hear was the voices of her boys, repeating the words they’d spoken the last time she’d seen them, “Mommy, come back.” Will the boys be interested in reuniting with their biological mother?
A Daughter’s Promise:
Carol’s daughter, Holly, desperately wants to find her mother’s firstborn — and only — son, Warren. In 1980, a week before Warren’s second birthday, his father came to pick him up for visitation; Carol never saw her son again. Carol wants nothing more than to be reunited with her son and tell him that not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about him.
A Mother’s Piece Of Mind:
Cindy Ruff knows what it’s like to be on both sides of adoption. As a child, she was given up by her young mother and placed into an adoptive family’s loving home. At 18, Cindy herself became pregnant and made the tough choice to give up her first-born son. Heartbroken as she was, Cindy felt that she wanted to give him the same gift of a loving, two-parent home that she had been given.
