Mom reunited with her son after 40 years in an emotional meeting
"When I got off the plane, my heart is ... pounding," Jane Kim said.
A mother was recently reunited with her son, whom she had not seen in 40 years, in an emotional meeting that has since gone viral on TikTok.
The moment was captured by Jane Kim's other son Ed Kim, who later shared the video on his TikTok account, where it quickly garnered more than 7 million views.
Speaking to "Good Morning America," Jane Kim, who emigrated from Korea to the United States decades ago, shared her side of the reunion story with her son Brian Oh.
In the video, Jane Kim and Oh can be seen embracing each other after finally meeting at an airport. Jane Kim can be heard sobbing as she hugs her son.
"I was so emotional that I can see my son back here," she recalled. "And then I'm really thankful he's very grown up. He's a nice, big man."
Jane Kim said she and Oh's father divorced when Oh was a little over 2 years old, and she initially tried to keep him with her.
However, she said Oh's grandmother on his father's side convinced her to let the father's family "raise him for you."
"Almost everyday [his] grandma talks to me, persuades me," she said. "Financially, they were living so well in Korea, and I had nothing ... That's why I decided that they [could] keep my baby ... I thought that I [could] see him if I wanted."
Soon after, however, Jane Kim said she was told by her ex-husband's family to stop contacting Oh.
"That was really painful," she said, adding that she didn't think she would ever see Oh again after that.
Speaking with "GMA," Oh said his family first took him to Korea when he was 3 years old.
He said he later returned to the United States in 1989 to live with his dad and stepmother, who he thought was his real mom.
"In third grade, I actually went into my sister's diary and that's where I found out [she was my stepmother] and my [birth] mom was out there somewhere," he said.
Throughout the years, Jane Kim said she received updates about her son secretly from a mutual friend who played a crucial role in their reunion. The two eventually reconnected after Oh's father died.
"On the day of the funeral, [the mutual friend] came up to me and she gave me a slip of paper and said, 'That's your mom's phone number, so give her a call,'" Oh said.
Jane Kim added, "I couldn't even stand [to wait for him]. I sent a text message, 'I'm your mom. Just wanted to call.'"
Jane Kim and Oh said they subsequently talked on the phone for hours. She later told Ed Kim about the phone call.
Ed Kim, who runs a popular TikTok called "The Korean Mama," in which he shares wholesome videos of his mom, said prior to the phone call, he and his mom had planned to take a trip together to Palm Springs, but decided to reroute to Los Angeles once they found out that was where Oh lived.
"You know, we started doing TikTok and Instagram, and we always just go to new places and do food videos. And I thought, why don't we go to Palm Springs?" he explained. "Once they got reconnected, mom called me and said, 'Hey, I just talked to Brian till like 5 a.m.' In my head I was thinking, 'You guys waited, like, almost 40 years, Palm Springs can wait.' And we just switched [the flights] from Palm Springs to LA."
Recalling the day of the reunion, Jane Kim said, "When I got off the plane, my heart is beating -- like, pounding. And my heart is racing."
For his part, Oh said he didn't expect the meeting to be so emotional.
"I wanted to be like, 'Hey Mom!' But then right when I saw her, it just hit me again … I just kind of sobbed with her," he shared.
Ed Kim said after sharing the moving video on TikTok, he received many messages from others who are in similar circumstances.
"A lot of Korean families that are going through very similar things -- they were separated at birth or separated from their family members -- and a lot of Korean adoptees [who] are trying to reconnect with their birth families," he explained. "And it just resonated so much."
He added, "For that reason, I'm really glad to have posted that video. I think it provided a lot of healing for a lot of people too. I'm just really excited to see where this all takes us."
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