The emotional moment one San Antonio woman met her biological father for the first time was captured on camera for the world to see.
The heart-warming scene came after months of searching, praying, and dead ends.
The moment was a dream 31 years in the making for mother of two Kelsey Prado.
Prado struggled with not knowing her real father her entire life, as detailed on her YouTube channel.
“I went through a terrible fight with depression and anxiety and it was difficult. I just thought, you know, I can’t let anything happen to me. I need to find my father. And I wanted to fight for my family and for that hope that God was going to lead me to him. I just felt it,” Prado said in a vlog on her YouTube page.
All Prado knew about her father was that his parents owned a pizza parlor on Medical Drive back in the 80s when her mom met him.
She had no name or address to go off of during her search.
In December, a friend of Prado convinced her to submit genetic information to genealogy website Ancestry.com. From there, she matched with a distant cousin willing to help her find her dad.
One lead led to another and by February, Prado found herself messaging her biological father on Facebook.
Four days later, he was at her doorstep. The moment was captured on a Facebook Live Stream posted by her husband SAFD firefighter David Prado.
(Fast forward to 1:51)
"It was as if he was the only one in the room when he walked through that door, it was like he had like this halo of light around him… everything else blurred,” Prado said.
Her biological father, Lenny Lopez had been living in Fort Worth with eight kids and a wife of his own. He had no idea he had a long-lost daughter. In fact, Lopez said he had always longed for a daughter having all boys.
He shared what it was like receiving a Facebook message from someone claiming to be his biological daughter born 31 years ago when he was only 19.
"It caught my attention because my parents used to own a pizza place when I was 18 years old. It was about a young girl meeting a young boy in 85, 86 and they met at a pizza place and I was like, umm wait a minute," Lopez said.
He slowly started connecting the dots.
"It started to register in the back of my head really quickly," Lopez said.
Despite never knowing each other, the two said they have a number of things in common.
“She went to Hobby Middle School, I went to Hobby Middle School. She went to Clark High School I went to Clark High School. I played football, she was a cheerleader,”
The two are both afraid of flying and they also order the same meal at Chilis: Cajun Chicken Pasta.
Listen to Kelsey Prado's full story below.