UTAH — Sometimes you meet people in the most unlikely places. That was the case for one Utah family on Friday.
Brandy Vega was out shopping with her husband and her four-year-old son Blaze when she noticed a man panhandling on the street corner.
"My first reaction was to kind of look away because I don’t want to feel guilty and I don’t want to support that," said Vega. "But I had this overwhelming feeling to look and I looked."
Vega realized she was looking at someone she recognized.
Pulling out her phone, Vega began to record a video that she later shared on social media. Vega is heard in the recording asking the man who he is before responding, “I’m Brandy. I adopted your baby.”
The man asked if he could see his biological son. After conversing with him, they decided it was safe.
“I said, 'What do you want him to know?' And he said he just wants him to know his dad loves him," said Vega.
This will likely be the four-year-old's first memory of his biological father.
Vega was a foster parent for many over the years and always wanted a baby boy.
"I had always known that God wanted me to have a boy," said Vega. "But as a single parent, I just thought it wasn’t going to happen."
Four years ago, Vega received a phone call from a caseworker who needed a family to care for a two-day-old baby boy.
"'I have a baby for you. He’s in Ogden. He’s two days old. He’s addicted to meth. Can you take him?'” she said they asked her.
Dropping everything, Vega drove to the hospital and met Blaze.
"He was the cutest baby that I’d ever seen," said Vega.
Eleven months later, Blaze was officially adopted. It was the only time Vega had ever met Blaze's biological father.
A few years following, Vega remarried a man she said Blaze picked out.
Together, the three were shopping on Friday when they realized the man panhandling on the corner was Blaze's biological father — a moment Vega called a miraculous reunion.
“We wanted to give him that gift. It’s a new year, there are new beginnings and just because people have addiction doesn’t mean they’re bad people and that they don’t love their kids," she said. "It just means they’re not capable of taking care of them.”
Vega and her husband also received a gift from Blaze's biological father. The Vegas were able to learn more about Blaze's family history and where he came from.
Most importantly, Vega said they created a memory for Blaze to keep and remember his biological father by.
