Our continuing quest for TV shows that inspire and edify (as opposed to the “dumbing down” variety) has produced a fine, new find in “Last Hope with Troy Dunn.”
The program host has made it his lifelong advocacy to reunite adopted children with their birth mothers—an often difficult, complicated and frustrating task, given the secrecy surrounding the adoption process.
But, Troy Dunn knows that the search for one’s real roots and identity is an all-important and self-defining priority for the “searchers” and “questors” involved.
So, he and his team doggedly pursue even the faintest and murkiest tip to effect and complete the reunification cycle.
The telecast we viewed of “Last Hope” focused on a young man who was given up for adoption in early childhood, and ended up with a loving adoptive family.
He was grateful for his good fortune, but when he became a teenager, he realized that despite his adoptive parents’ love and care, he still had this “hole” in his psyche that cried out to be filled.
On his own, he did what he could to find his birth mother, but kept getting frustrated as lead after lead fizzled out.
Finally, he reached out to Dunn’s show for help, and the program host saw how much it meant to the questor, so he decided to make it a personal mission to provide the answer he so desperately needed to get.
Dunn worked really hard on “Jacob’s” case—and was overjoyed when he was finally able to get the long-missing birth mother’s most recent address and phone number.
However, the long-yearned-for reunion was not to be—because Jacob’s mother had passed away six years ago.
Now, Dunn’s problem was having to give him the sad news—and Jacob took it really badly, as expected.
But, after he mourned the death of the woman who had given birth to him (whom he’d even more sadly never even met), Dunn revealed that all was not lost, because his birth mother had had other children after him.
So, he “suddenly” had a brother and sister—and they were just waiting for him to meet them!
The change in Jacob’s feelings was instantaneous: From being “all alone” in the world, he now had an “instant” family to possibly share his sorrows and joys with!
So, the longed-for reunion did take place, in a different but also psychically consoling form!
More realistically, however, Jacob’s perception of his long-absent mother ended up being altered, because his newfound siblings revealed to him that she was not the “angel” that he had imagined and idealized her to be for so many years.
Yes, she loved them—but she also had a mental problem that caused her to be viciously cruel to them from time to time.
Well, that’s life—you have to take the bad with the good, “win some, lose some.”
But, Jacob was still grateful to “Last Hope with Troy Dunn” for helping fill the “hole” in his psyche.
For our part, we appreciate the show’s selfless determination to help bring families together again, years or even decades after they were torn apart.
We’ve seen some local TV shows or portions of programs do the same, so we honor and celebrate them, as well.