A woman reunited with her long-distance best friend in Spain, 27 years after she hosted her as a foreign exchange student in America.
Lili Baiden, 20 (@lilibaidenn), captured the heartwarming moment her mom, Dawn Baiden, 55, embraced her best friend Anna, 43, from Helsingborg, Sweden. The clip which garnered 310,100 likes and 2.3 million views captured the moment the women saw each other for the first time in almost three decades.
“I screamed, I was feeling as if she never left. Time literally stood still. We picked up where we left off, it was an incredible feeling and the highlight of my trip. I had so many emotions, how could we not have seen each other through all these years,” Dawn, the founder of Lucky Star Jewels, from Arizona told Newsweek.
“She is now married with children, she got to meet Lili and now I have grandchildren, it was a full circle moment,” she said.
In 1997, Dawn stepped in last minute to look after a 16-year-old Swedish stranger for a year in Arizona after her original host family pulled out as she made the 8,578 km trip across the Atlantic.
“I had a one year old, Mia, and a four year old, Sky, I thought how am I going to do this? My ex-husband was gone all the time but I couldn’t leave this poor girl flying from Sweden. I made a room in our home and we immediately bonded. I could cry talking about it,” Dawn said.
The 16-year-old quickly settled into the family as she attended high school and the family took her on trips around the USA.
“I was like a second mom to her, I wanted to take care of her. It was very challenging with toddlers and a teenager. It was a juggle and a joy, it expanded my mind so much too, I learned so much about her life coming from across the pond. I can’t even explain it, it was as if I was her parent but I also grew from her, she was very special and very mature,” she said.
“We connected almost immediately. Anna’s a very special person, it was like it was kismet. It was totally meant to be. It was like the missing link or missing piece of the puzzle, my heart feels so full, she’s like my fourth child.”
Anna left the U.S., leaving a big void in the Baiden household. She returned to see the family a year later but the two women eventually lost touch as they grappled with keeping up with busy lives, relationships and motherhood on opposite sides of the globe.
The friends were able to reconnect on Facebook and they tried to make plans to meet but it proved geographically challenging.
This year, they were finally able to meet as they were both in the same Spanish region at the same time.
Anna, who is now a teacher, drove with her family to meet the Baidens in Marbella where they spent six hours together.
Anna fondly reflected on her time in the U.S., reminiscing with Dawn about some amusing memories, such as when she confused mailboxes for memorials and asked her host mom if people were buried under them.
“Anna got to see my new life. One of the coolest things is that now the age gap has closed. She is a mom, I’m a mom, we talked from a different perspective, we have so many different facets of friendships and relationships.”
Lili, a college student, also connected with Anna’s children aged 4 and 9, despite the language barrier and the Baidens hope to visit Sweden next summer.
“I was more excited than nervous to se my mom’s reaction. It was me and my boyfriend at the table and I said to him I’m going to make a quick video, I feel like my mom will have a good reaction.
“I just remember I was videoing and I had never heard a scream come out of my mom before,” she said.
She wrote on the overlaid text of the TikTok video: “This is their reunion after 27 years. This is love.”
Viewers were overcome with emotion after watching the reunion and shared their similar tales of foreign exchanges.
“Beautiful,” one user said.”Saw my exchange student from Spain in Madrid a few months ago for the first time in 10 years, was like no time had passed,” said Amber.
“50 years ago my grandparents hosted a student from the Netherlands. My grandma stayed in touch with him, he came to her funeral last year,” said Molly.
“My mom just did this too with a girl she hosted from Germany. Right now I’m visiting the girl we hosted my senior year,” said Annaliese.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The post Woman Reunited With Foreign Exchange Student BFF After 27 Years-‘Beautiful’ appeared first on Newsweek.
