Mother Sees Her Son After 27 Years, Thanks to Facebook

LONDON, June 1, 2009 -- Had it not been for Facebook, who knows when, or even if, a British woman would have reunited with the son she hadn't seen in the 27 years since he was allegedly kidnapped by her estranged husband.

Gavin Paros was taken from his mother, Avril Grube, in 1982. Separated and living in Liverpool at the time, Grube had won custody of her 3-year-old son. But while exercising his visitation rights one weekend, her Hungarian husband allegedly fled with the boy to his native land.

Over the years, Grube, 62, and her sister Beryl Wilson never gave up on Gavin. The two sisters had repeatedly contacted the Hungarian embassy and even took their case to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Their efforts were to no avail, until one day in March of this year when Wilson Googled her nephew's name and discovered that Gavin Paros was on Facebook, the social-networking site.

Wilson e-mailed him but received no reply because, as it turned out, he was not a frequent Facebook user. Once again, Wilson did not lose hope. She e-mailed two of his children and a friend of his she found on his "friends" column. Her persistence paid off when Paros wrote back to his aunt and they arranged to speak via Skype, the Internet telephone service.

Communication between mother and son has not been easy, Wilson told ABC News. Paros, now 29, barely speaks English and Grube's 2008 heart stroke left her with a speech impediment.

But Grube, who now lives in Poole, Dorset, isn't hiding her feelings, Wilson said, noting that her sister keeps repeating, "'My beautiful son," and software that translates English into Hungarian helps the two understand one another.

Through their conversations, Paros has learned that his mother suffers from chronic nose bleeds and diabetes and that she had a stroke last year. He also learned that his mother remarried 15 years ago. After many years of solitude, she married a man disabled since birth, whom she thinks of as her soul mate, Wilson said.

Meanwhile, Grube has learned that her son is a master plasterer and lives in Hungary with his wife and three children.

Long-Lost Son Plans to Relocate for Mom

After 27 years away from his mother and his own search for her that began with his father's death in 2006, Paros is no longer wasting time. He scraped together what money he could for a plane ticket to the U.K. and was reunited with his mother May 27.

Wilson said she doesn't have enough money to make the 360-mile bus trip from where she lives in Liverpool to Dorset. She has, however, called her sister and Paros every day. And she learned last week that her nephew, who visited a job center in Poole, plans to move to the U.K.

"He doesn't want to scrounge on anyone, and he's hoping that with all the publicity our story is getting, someone will help," Wilson said.

She said Paros will do any job he can as long as it allows him to relocate to Britain with his family, and start a life alongside his long-lost mother. They are excited about the prospect of Paros spending his 30th birthday in his mother's home.

Wilson's battle to help her sister is not over. She phoned Dorset's BBC Radio Solvent last week to make an appeal for a Hungarian translator. She found one but the fee put his services out of reach.

Wilson herself suffers from breast cancer and says, "Liverpool is in a recession, so things are not good for me financially."

Although she can't afford the trip to Dorset, she uses her son's computer to view the photos of her grown-up nephew on news Web sites.

As for the initial conversation she had with her nephew, Wilson said, "The first thing I said was, 'Did you have a happy life?'" His response: "Happy with father. Life very poor."