New friends realised they were long-lost brothers because of the way they walked!
Filed under: Advice and health
It was a chance encounter that changed the lives of two little boys forever.
Isaac Noltin, 12, and 13-year-old Dakotah Zimmer had struck up a friendship at a local swimming pool when other children remarked on how similar they looked.
They had the same hands, the same feet, the same nose, the same haircut - they even walked alike. Then the boys started chatting about their backgrounds – and discovered that they were long-lost brothers!
Dakotah told Isaac that he knew he had a brother he'd never met who was adopted by a woman named Dawn.
"That's my mom's name," Isaac responded.
The boys' amazing and touching story was told by Isaac's adoptive mother, Dawn Noltin to TODAY.com.
She said for weeks before Isaac and Dakotah met, she had been asking her friends and pastor how to tell her son that he had a brother, and knew it had to be before the boys started school because they would be attending the same one in Washington, Missouri, and would surely find out one way or another.
Then the night after Isaac and Dakotah met, Isaac approached his mother and asked if he was adopted.
"He looked at me with his big, black eyes and asked, 'Mom, am I adopted?'" recalled Dawn, 42, a manager at a dry-cleaning company.
"I said, 'What makes you think that?' And he said, 'Because I think I found my brother.'"
"I was so happy that I had a brother. I had always asked for one," Isaac said.
Dawn had met Isaac's mother several years ago when she was heading out to dinner with her ex-husband.
A friend of Dawn's ex-husband invited them to meet his girlfriend and their newborn son. The 16-year-old mother had just given birth to Isaac nine days before, and also had a one-year-old son - Dakotah.
Dawn had been a single mother herself, having her own daughter at 19. She said that her maternal instincts kicked in, and she offered to take care of the newborn.
Months passed, and Dawn received a call that Isaac's biological mother was pregnant again. The woman's grandmother asked if Dawn wished to legally adopt Isaac.
Eighteen months later, and Isaac was legally hers. Isaac and Dakotah's biological mother died in 2007, and their biological father died a year later.
Debi said that Dakotah always knew he had a brother.
"Though the two didn't know of each other's existence for more than a decade, it seems as though they grew up together, Dawn said.
"You can just tell they're brothers. It's the strongest bond that I've ever seen. It's like they were never separated. For being apart for 10 years and 20 minutes away, they picked up right where they left off."
The boys celebrated their birthdays together recently and now they spend weekends sleeping over, playing Xbox, riding bikes and skateboarding.
Celebrities who adopt
- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt<p> Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie in 2001, with then husband, Billy Bob Thornton. She then adopted her second child, Zahara Marley Jolie, in 2005. Both children were also adopted by Brad Pitt.</p>
- Elton John and David Furnish<p> Elton John and husband David Furnish adopted their son, Zachary, on Christmas Day 2010.</p>
- Hugh Jackman and Deborra Lee-Furness<p> Actor Hugh jackman and actress wife Deborra Lee-Furness adopted a boy named Oscar in 2000, then in 2005 adopted for a second time, a girl named Ava.</p>
- Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley<p> Actress Katherine Heigl and husband, Josh Kelley adopted a special needs baby girl from South Korea in 2009.</p>
- Madonna<p> Madonna adopted son David in 2006, and then went on to adopt Mercy James in 2009.</p> <p> </p>
- Meg Ryan<p> In 2006, months after filing for adoption, Meg Ryan brought her baby girl home to Los Angeles from China. Initially naming her daughter Charlotte, Meg decided the name didn't suit her daughter's personality, so decided to change it to Daisy.</p>
- Michelle Pfeiffer<p> Michelle Pfeiffer adopted daughter Claudia Rose in 1993 when she was a baby.</p>
- Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne<p> In 2002 Sharon and husband Ozzy adopted 16-year-old Robert Marcato after his mum, and close friend of Sharon's, died of colon cancer.</p>
- Sharon Stone<p> Actress Sharon Stone and now ex-husband Phil Bronstein adopted a baby boy named Roan in 2000. Ten years later, the actress went on to adopt two more boys on her own - Laird, 4, arrived in May 2005, and Quinn, 3, a year later.</p>
- Sheryl Crowe<p> In 2007, Sheryl Crowe adopted a two-week-old boy named Wyatt. Wyatt gained a sibling in 2010 when Sheryl adopted a second boy, 9-week-old Levi.</p> <p> </p>
- Sinitta Renet Malone<p> Sinitta already mother to five-year-old daughter Magdalena and son Zac, three, who she adopted in 2009, has revealed plans to adopt her third child from the same birth mother.</p> <div style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"> </div>
- Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman<p> Tom and Nicole adopted Isabella Jane in 1992, and Connor Anthony in 1995, when they were babies.</p>
- Charlize Theron<p> Hollywood star <a href="http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2012/03/14/charlize-theron-adopts-baby-boy-jackson/" target="_blank">Charlize adopted baby boy, Jackson in March 2012</a>. In a statement released to Associated Press, Charlize's publicist said the actress "is a proud mom of a healthy baby boy named Jackson". She's been keeping mum on pretty much everything else surrounding the adoption.</p>
- David Tennant<p> Doctor Who star David announced he had adopted wife Georgia's ten-year-old son, Tyler, shortly after the couple welcomed their first baby together, Olive. <a href="http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2012/03/22/david-tennant-adopts-wife-georgia-moffett-10-year-old-son-tyler/" target="_blank">David broke the news</a> on the Christian O'Connell Absolute Radio breakfast show, saying: "My baby is almost a year old and I adopted my wife's boy last year as well so I became a father twice in six months - that's got to be something of a record, hasn't it?"</p>
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