Soul sisters, finally back together.
Two women who first bonded as childhood friends have learned, through a DNA test, that they are actually long-lost sisters — a discovery that came decades after both were adopted and that they say has filled a profound gap in their identities.
Meena and Minal were adopted from an orphanage in India 40 years ago and raised about 100 miles apart in the Netherlands. Though they grew up in different homes, both said they carried the same quiet loneliness and the same unanswered questions about their biological families.
“When I see you, it’s like I’m home,” Meena Geltink, 43, told her sister during an emotional reunion Tuesday, where laughter and tears flowed freely.
“For years, I felt a hole in my heart,” said Geltink, a mother of three. “It’s like a missing puzzle piece has been found.”
Their connection began long before the DNA results. The two first met in 1996 at a gathering for adopted children, where they felt an immediate pull toward one another without realizing they shared the same birth family.
Others noticed their resemblance, and the girls leaned into the coincidence, jokingly calling each other “sis” before exchanging addresses and staying in touch.
But life eventually carried them in different directions, and they lost contact for 15 years. Then, in April, a MyHeritage DNA test revealed the truth they never expected: they were a 100% sibling match.
Minal Tijssen, 44, who lives in France with her partner and two sons, was sitting on the couch in April when her phone pinged with the DNA results.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
Tijssen didn’t realize it was the same teenage girl she had chemistry with 30 years ago, until she found her on social media and looked at photos.
She had no record of any birth relatives and felt loved by her adopted family but still felt lingering loneliness throughout life, she said.
At their first meeting since learning they were sisters, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, the women hugged, laughed and cried. They also snapped a selfie together, beaming.
“We were friends before we were sisters,” Tijssen said. “We were sisters the whole time, but we didn’t know.”
With Post wires
