A man reunited with his childhood nanny after 30 years after her Facebook post was shared 56,000 times
A man has been reunited with his childhood nanny more than 30 years after they were separated, thanks to a post that got more than 55,000 shares on Facebook.
The fascinating story comes from Logroño, Spain, and has been reported by El Pais, which witnessed the historic meeting between Francisco Javier Gimenez Diaz, now 35, and Yeny Zaera, his childhood nanny.
On February 20, Yeny wrote in a post on her Facebook page how she hadn't seen the children she used to look after because they had been adopted by other families, and she was not able to get in touch with them.
But the post was shared 56,336 times and, in less than three days, Diaz managed to get in touch.
Here is how that post appears now on Zaera's page, after it had been updated announcing the two had found each other:
And on Saturday, 30 years after they had been split up, Yeny and Francisco managed to finally meet:
Post by Yeny Zaera.The story has attracted lots of coverage in Spain, and Yeny has explained why it has been so hard for her to get back in touch with Francisco.
Yeny used to look after Francisco and his three siblings, who were neglected by their natural parents. She told El Pais that sometimes she had to bring the children some ham to eat as they were left malnourished and that their grandmother used to beat them.
In 1985 Francisco's mother disappeared with another man and the tribunal ordered that the four children had to be adopted. Yeny presented her request to take Francisco with her but failed it, as she was a single woman in her twenties, and without a full time job. Her own parents were judged "too old" to take care of the child.
The four children were sent to different families in different regions, and Yeny lost track of them, although never forgot. Not even a private detective, hired by Yeny some time after the separation, was able to re-connect the pair.
It was Francisco's sister, Raquel, who had managed to keep in touch with her brother and told him that Yeny was still looking for him.
Rapidly, Francisco got back in touch, and the search was over.