PORTLAND, Maine — The power of social media can be truly amazing. People use websites like Facebook to connect with old friends or to find loved ones they’ve lost touch with. William Rivera is one of those people, who used that powerful tool in hopes of ending a 23-year search.
Rivera moved to Maine from Puerto Rico in his early 20s and shortly after he got here, he learned he had a daughter. But without an address or a phone number, finding her was nearly impossible.
“Every single day it was like an emptiness in my heart,” Rivera told CBS 13. “You wonder, ‘Are they eating? Are they well? Who’s taking them to the doctor?’”
Rivera hit a lot of dead ends, but he kept searching.
Two years ago he took his search to Facebook using one of the only pictures he had of his daughter.
“I put a picture of them on there as babies and, well, what do you know?” he recalled.
His daughter, Tania Rivera, stumbled across that picture and sent him a message.
Rivera said she asked him the most simple of questions — “She was like, ‘Are you my dad?’”
Tania picked up the story from there.
“Then we started talking and obviously my first question was ‘Why? Why did it take you so long?’” she told CBS 13. “But we explained it to each other and here I am.”
William met his daughter Tania in person for the first time this week. He was able to meet his grandson, too.
“I was very nervous,” Tania said. “I was going to meet a total stranger, but I was very happy, too. It was a mix of emotions.”
For Rivera, it was a moment he’d dreamed of for 23 years.
“When I turned around and saw my beautiful daughter and my grandson, I just flew across the street and grabbed them in my arms,” he said.
Tania and her son spent the week exploring Maine, taking pictures and getting to know the man they never thought they’d get the chance to meet. Now, William has more than just an old baby picture of his daughter that he can post to his Facebook.