Crazy True Story
Every word of the story you are about to read is true, even though some people may find it hard to believe and even call it a miracle. This is the story of how one person went from being poor and homeless for thirty years to being reunited with his family. If you were told who this person is, you would never believe it in a million years.
Crazy True Story
This homeless person had no way of getting in touch with anyone from his old life, including his family and friends. But you’re about to hear how lucky he was that a police officer helped him get a second chance. After a while, the homeless person was heard saying, “Who would have thought something like this could happen to anyone, let alone me?”
The Early Years Of His Life
The guy who was living on the street was born in 1950. His mother decided to give him up for adoption when he was two years old, and he ended up living with a couple in San Leandro, California. He was an average high school student in the marching band and had a B average overall. He was adopted but never got close to his new family, and he and his siblings had a hard time getting along.
The Early Years Of His Life
Even though the rest of the family thought of him as “other,” he was very close to his foster mother. She was his main source of emotional and physical support. Sadly, this wasn’t enough because he could never keep a job and could barely make ends meet.
Adoption Was Not For Him
After a while, the couple who had taken him in was no longer around. His immediate and extended family members who didn’t like him didn’t waste any time cutting off all ties with him and turning their backs on him. He had also lost touch with his childhood friends who still lived in San Leandro, so he was left to take care of himself.
Adoption Was Not For Him
He got a job as a truck driver and was mostly happy with it, but he ran into a problem that wouldn’t have stopped a truck. He felt very bad about this. This kind of problem could have ended his life, and it did. He was now homeless and living by himself.
Wheelchair Bound For Over A Year
The traffic jam on the road was caused by accident. Because of the accident, he could no longer drive a car. He had to use a wheelchair for more than a year before he was able to switch to crutches. He went to other places to find a job, but he couldn’t because of his disabilities. Due to his health problems, he couldn’t stand or drive for long periods. With his back pain and all, he couldn’t even pick up small things.
Wheelchair Bound For Over A Year
After some time, he could get jobs in manufacturing, the food industry, and even at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Unfortunately, he was fired from these jobs because of his disability. From that point on, things just got worse and worse.
Lived On The Street
Meet Mike Myers. Myers couldn’t pay for himself and didn’t have any family or friends he could ask for help, so when he lost his job, he had no choice but to live on the street. He tried to make money by playing the guitar and begging on street corners, but neither worked. Myers turned 67 in 2017, and up until that point, he had spent his whole adult life living on the streets. He was used to living that way, so he forgot everything about his old life and lost hope.
Lived On The Street
The sad fact is that he is just one of the thousands of people who live their lives in the same way. In 2017, the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development said there would be 554,000 homeless people in the United States. Twenty-five percent of all homeless people in the United States live in the state of California. After talking to one person, he started to question his thoughts.
Strangers Coming Across
Myers didn’t have a place to live, so he had to beg and play his guitar on the side of the road to make money. Myers was put in a situation where he had no choice but to do what Alameda County Deputy Sheriff Jacob Swalwell told him to do. He had to come up with a way to make money.
Strangers Coming Across
Swalwell didn’t know at the time that he would change how this man’s life would go. He only knew that he was homeless, played guitar, and asked for money on Foothill Boulevard.
Getting To Know Each Other
Even though Swalwell had met Myers before, he and Myers never talked to each other. On one occasion, Swallwell decided to give a citation to Myers, but he was surprised when Myers couldn’t show any form of ID.
Getting To Know Each Other
He asked Myers some questions, and soon the two of them were deep in a conversation about his life, including his early years and what happened to make him homeless. Swalwell said it wasn’t a good place for an old man to be, but because Myers didn’t have an ID, he couldn’t get social security or help.
Doing Everything In His Power
Myers could not get an identification card since he did not have any paperwork to his name. Since you need a valid ID to get government assistance, he could not obtain any. This made Swalwell feel a great deal of sadness, and as a result, he promised Myers that he would do all in his power to help Myers get off the street.
Doing Everything In His Power
Myers’ mood improved as a result, and he couldn’t express how appreciative he was that someone was there to assist him.
Retracing Myer’s Life
The first step that Swallwell took in his research was to go in the same direction as Myers. As he was interested in discovering Myers’s driving history, he contacted the DMV. There was no trace of him at the business, even though he had previously worked there. It was a pointless use of time.
Retracing Myers Life
In order to get a government-issued ID, he would be required to provide both his birth certificate and evidence that he now resides in the state of California. Swalwell posed the following question: “But how is he supposed to produce evidence of residency if he doesn’t even have a place to live?” On the other hand, he had no intention of giving up at any point. He would need assistance from another person.
Myers Had Gotten His ID
At this time, Swalwell’s pastor and a few other individuals from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department who were assisting him arrived to provide a hand. They collaborated in order to track down Myers’ birth certificate and provide evidence that his claimed place of residence was accurate.
Myers Had Gotten His ID
Myers and the Department of Motor Vehicles had just met for the first time a month earlier, but he was eventually able to get his driver’s license after providing them with all of the necessary documentation. During his inquiry, Swalwell uncovered information that would forever alter the course of his new friend’s life. This revelation could not be reversed.
Name Had Been Changed?
When Swalwell learned that the name Myers had been altered, he was taken aback by the news. At the time of his birth, he was given the name Gordon Michael Oakley. He did not really go by the moniker Mick Myers. Even Myers was taken aback by this information, given that he was completely unaware of it.
Name Had Been Changed
When a local news station learned about the event, it told the tale of the peculiar connection to entice a greater number of people to back the cause. Because of the success of this scheme, a private investigator by the name of Mark Askins decided to donate his services.
Meet Mark Askins
Mark Askins had spent a significant amount of time working in the area of investigations before becoming interested in the Myers case. He was used to dealing with situations such as this one since he had previously worked for a nonprofit organization known as “Miracle Message,” whose mission was to help formerly homeless persons reconnect with their families.
Meet Mark Askins
He contacted Swalwell and Myers and inquired about the possibility of the two of them assisting him in locating his biological family. In point of fact, this bestowed upon Myers a revitalized feeling of optimism.
Challenges In His Life
The circumstances surrounding Myers were not unique in any way. A significant number of homeless persons have been estranged from their families due to factors such as mental illness, a lack of access to technology or the inability to utilize it, or simply because they are embarrassed by their situation. They vanish into thin air, and no one can recall that they were a part of history.
Challenges In His Life
Since Myers did not have a place to call his own permanently, he did not have too much access to modern technologies. Because he was unable to access it, he was unable to make use of the internet. Because of his advanced age, he could no longer keep up with the rapid pace at which technology was advancing, making it even less probable that he would ever be able to reestablish contact with his previous existence.
Askins Began To Work
Askins returned to work almost as soon as he finished his conversation with Swalwell and Myers. Because he could only go off of what was written on the birth certificate, his task ended up being more difficult than it should have been. He had to make his way to the courts to get further details.
Askins Began To Work
In the more recent years, there has been a significant shift in both the system that is used to keep birth data and the accessibility of that information. On the other hand, this was not the case throughout the decade of the 1950s. People interested in seeing the documents had to go through a large number of other papers to find them since they hadn’t been digitized yet.
A Shocking Discovery
Askins was able to locate an old case file for a lady whose name was Marie Pauline Oakley after doing a substantial amount of investigation. She wed Wiley Albert Oakley in Reno, and the couple quickly welcomed a son into the world. Gordon Michael Oakley, or Mick Myers, was the name they gave him, although he was most often referred to as Mick Myers. In the years to come, Mick Myers would become a well-known musician.
A Shocking Discovery
Sadly, after a few short years of being married, the couple made the decision to end their marriage and their relationship. Although Askins learned that the father had passed away, he did not let this deter him from looking for the baby’s original mother and attempting to learn the reason she had placed her child for adoption.
The Search For Marie Wasn’t Easy
Finding Marie was a challenge in and of itself. To begin, her name was quite common, and considering her age, it’s probable that she had already passed away before we found her. Askins didn’t let this deter him, and he swiftly made contact with a lady in California who had his name and resided in that state. The two of them had the same last name. Even though he realized it was a long shot, he had to give it a chance nevertheless.
The Search For Marie Wasnt Easy
When Askins called the number, he was taken aback to learn that former Marine Pauline Oakley, who was then 85 years old and lived only a few miles away, now went by her middle name, Pauline, and that she had served in World War II.
Getting More Answers
After the first encounter, the two individuals met together, and Askins engaged in a lengthy conversation about her kid. She was taken aback and interested in how he was doing.
Getting More Answers
It was discovered that he had an issue with his stomach not long after he was born. [Case in point:] Because Pauline was a single mother and unable to afford the treatments for such a life-threatening illness, she made the difficult decision to give up her son to another family in the hopes that he would have a better chance of surviving if they adopted him. She did this in the hopes that he would have a better chance of surviving if they adopted him. She had no choice but to surrender something, despite the fact that doing so broke her heart.
Reconnecting
A newborn boy called Myers was adopted by a family that could better provide for his needs after being given away at the Catholic parish. She felt certain that this decision was the right one for her kid, despite the fact that she had some reservations about it. Since then, she has never been able to go to sleep without first thinking about him.
Reconnecting
For the first time in more than sixty years, Myers and his mother were able to communicate with one another thanks to Askins, who arranged a phone conversation between them. On the other hand, Askins would take it to an even greater extent.
Time To Meet
A few weeks later, when it was finally time for Myers to fly to his mother’s home for the first time, Askins and Swalwell accompanied him on the trip. In spite of the fact that he had never met her and that she was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger to him, he could not help but feel thrilled.
Time To Meet
When they arrived, his niece Shannon was there to greet them, and she volunteered to take them to his mother’s house when they accepted her offer. He was completely oblivious to the fact that he had a niece.
Finally!
When they arrived at the residence, Myers’ mother greeted them at the front door and invited them to come on inside.
Finally
They clung to one another in a tight embrace for a considerable amount of time until they both burst into tears. Over sixty years had passed, and not one of them had the slightest inkling that this day would ever arrive.
Catching Up Time
In spite of the fact that a significant amount of time had elapsed, they remained adamant about getting back together. His mother shared a great deal of her life’s history with him as she flipped through an old photo album that was full of images of him and his siblings. The two of them ultimately led lives that were not all that unlike one another in the end.
Catching Up Time
Myers discussed the experience of growing up with his adopted family, which included some of his most cherished childhood memories. In addition to this, he discussed the occasions in his life when things began to turn around for the better.
Disturbed And Hurt
When his mother found out about all of her son’s issues, it caused her a great deal of emotional distress. She sought solace in the thought that he was making progress in his life throughout the years, but when she discovered that this wasn’t the case, it caused her a great deal of pain.
Disturbed And Hurt
She expressed her emotions to KPIX-5 by telling the station, “It makes me so sad to think of the things I got to do with his siblings and their kids.” Everything that they’ve encountered and accomplished up to this point in their lives. What benefits they have been able to get from it. When he told me about how horribly he had been treated, I felt like I was going to weep. I didn’t cry, but I felt like I was going to cry. The emotional anguish that results from never being accepted. On the other hand, they had reconciled their differences, so it was a positive development.
Merely A Pipe Dream
Myers had long since abandoned the hope that he would ever be reunited with his family in any form. After spending the previous thirty years of his life on the streets by himself, he realized that it had all been a dream.
Merely A Pipe Dream
Then, suddenly, he found himself in the heart of a large family, surrounded by his mother as well as his siblings, sisters, and even his grand nieces and nephews, all of whom were excited to see him. Myers moved back home with his mother not long after the reunification of the family, and members of his extended family visited him often after that point. Because of his new ally, Deputy Swalwell, he was also able to get health insurance and social security benefits for himself.
Lovely And Beautiful Ending
Without the help of Deputy Swalwell and the rest of his team, Myers and his mother would not have been able to locate one another and reunite. Their efforts were much appreciated. Myers and his family will be thankful to you for the rest of their lives. Before asking Swalwell to turn back, Pauline engaged in some light banter with him for a bit. She explained to him when he asked her why she was seeking his wings that it was because he was the angel that reunited her with her kid. He had questioned her why she was looking for his wings.
Lovely And Beautiful Ending
She referred to him as the piece of her heart that had been missing and expressed her happiness at having him back with her. Myers is freed from the need to aimlessly roam or move around without a predetermined course. This environment makes him feel completely at ease.