Chinese orphanages are full of abandoned children who only want one thing: To be loved.
The conditions are far from ideal, but the staff at the orphanages do their very best for the children while they wait for them to be adopted.
On the whole, China has a big problem with children being abandoned, and it can happen for any given reason. Sometimes the cause may be as simple as the child having been born out of wedlock, sometimes it’s that the child has special needs that the family can’t afford to accommodate to.
In any case, siblings going to an orphanage is a rare occurrence indeed, but it doesn’t stop the children there from forming very strong bonds.
Dawson and Hannah moved into a Chinese orphanage when they were but a few months old. They saw each other as siblings despite not being biologically related.
As they got older, their connection solidified into something strong, beautiful and inspiring for all…
The children shared the same foster mother at the orphanage, one who took Dawson and Hannah home on the weekends so that they could have a break from the every day life of the nursery.
Soon, though, the day arrived when they were separated.
Hannah was told she had been adopted by a new, loving family in the United States. She realized that her and Dawson would no longer be able to spend every day together.
Unfortunately, soon after, the duo was broken apart and Dawson remained in China while Hannah left for the U.S.
It was Sharon and Andy Sykes who adopted Hannah into their family. The little girl immediately got two new big brothers, but she still missed Dawson very much.
“They had so little connection, and so little consistency, [but] they had each other for those first formative years,” Sharon told CBS.
Sharon also explained how the exceptional bond between the two children became clear during the adoption process.
In every photo update that the Sykes family received from the adoption agency, Hannah was always depicted together with Dawson. They played together, held hands and sat next to each other.
Hannah’s new mom began to feel responsible for finding a new family for Dawson, so took to social media to share her story. For though Hannah lived in Texas, a part of her had been left behind in China with Dawson.
“He was on my heart. Really, I couldn’t stop thinking of him,” said Sykes.
When Amy Clary heard about Dawson, through a friend who had seen Sharon’s Facebook post, she went for dinner with the Sykes family.
It wasn’t long before she decided to get actively involved in giving Dawson his forever home.
In fact, the decision was made so quickly that her husband Chris joked: “I was gone for 45 seconds, maybe it was two minutes, and then [she] said, “We’re adopting this little boy. I just said okay.”
The Clarys family already had three children under five, and their home was a busy as one can get. But they felt that they could give even more.
Amy saw the pictures of Dawson and Hannah together and just knew she had no choice.
When the adoption for Dawson was approved, Amy and Sharon decided that the two needed a reunion; they’d been apart for several months.
What the two little ones didn’t know was that they were to become neighbors, living just five minutes apart from each other in the States.
Many hugs
When three-year-old Dawson got off the plane and walked through the airport with his new family, he soon saw his best friend. Four-year-old Hannah was waiting for him.
“They must have hugged 400 times. They kept hugging and getting so giddy that they would fall over,” said Dawson’s mom, Amy.
Thanks to the connection between Hannah and Dawson, the families Clarys and Sykes have also grown together.
You can watch their emotional reunion in the video below. You won’t stop laughing when you see them radiating pure happiness:
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