14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook may be changing the way we interact with each other or make friends but now we hear that it helped a mother reunite with her son after having spent 27 years apart. The boy's father had taken him to Hungary and she never heard from him again. Her sister, who had been looking for him for years, finally tracked him down using Facebook.
Avril Grube, who is now 62 and lives in Pool, Dorset, ended her marriage with the Hungarian man in 1982. She received custody of her son Gavin Paros and the father had visiting rights. However, during one visit the man, who died in 2006, took the boy and left for Hungary and she hasn't seen him since.
“When he didn’t arrive back we found out he had taken him back to Hungary,” Beryl Wilson, Ms Grube's sister said to the BBC. “My sister was devastated, her health suffered. I tried everything... but no-one wanted to know.”
Ms. Wilson had been trying to find him for several years through the Hungarian Embassy and even asked then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for help. Her efforts were in vain as she wasn't able to get any information on the missing boy. This all changed when she searched for her nephew's name online and found a Facebook profile. She knew it was his as the profile also showed that he was born in Liverpool and also named his mother.
Mr. Paros himself has been trying to find his lost family for the past five years. He is now 30 and married with three children and has been finally reunited with his mother this week. “They have been hugging, really, really happy,” Ms. Wilson said. “At Christmas my sister had a stroke; she suffers from angina, diabetes and chronic nose bleeds... but it is very important that now is the time she spends with her son because she is not a well lady.”