PLACERVILLE, Calif. — It was a Father’s Day Karen Wright and Shannon Armbruster will never forget.
Raised by her mom, Wright never knew her biological dad—or really anything about him.
"My mom and he were both teenagers when I was conceived," Wright said. "You know, back then everything was hush-hush."
She said she had tried in her past to find him, but all she had was his last name, "Robbins".
This year, Wright took a DNA test through MyHeritage and, when she got the results back, one close familial match she contacted turned out to be a cousin.
"She put me in contact with some relatives that told me I have a sister that lived in Washington,” Wright explained.
That sister was Shannon Armbruster. She was raised by their dad and only knew she had a half-sister out there. She didn't even know her sister's name until Wright's DNA test connected them this year.
"I've known about her for a long time just have never known where to find her,” Armbruster said.
They’ve only ever talked online and by phone these past few months.
"I feel connected to my sister already, even though I've not met her,” Wright said.
That changed on Father’s Day,
"I was in fear I was never going to find her,” Armbruster said. “God is good, and here I am!"
The half-sisters met Sunday morning at Westwood Hills Memorial Park, the Placerville cemetery where their father is buried. Wright had found a sister but learned that she'd lost a dad.
"Our daddy, he was the best daddy a girl could ask for,” Armbruster told Wright, after the two finally met and shared a tearful embrace. “He would've loved more than anything to have met you."
Their father, Donald Wayne Robins, died of cancer in 1996. He was buried in Placerville, where he spent his final days with family.
It’s a family that just got a bigger, with the addition of Wright, her husband and their children and grandchildren.
"I know this is just making Dad just dance!” Armbruster told Wright. “He's probably up there going, 'Yay!'"
The sisters met on Father’s Day, which would have also been their dad’s 82nd birthday.
“A day of celebration and a day of sorrow,” Armbruster said.
"Yeah, because I never got to meet him,” Wright added. “But, you know, I'm meeting him through her."
Armbruster called her sister her “missing link.”
The two women intend on spending the next few days together with family in Placerville. Wright lives in Kansas and Shannon lives in Washington, but they are planning on many visits in the future. They've even already looked up the flights.
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