Father meets his 48-year-old daughter for the very first time 'It don’t get no better than this'



SEATTLE - Mance Randall lives in Seattle. His daughter lives in Chicago. The gates at Sea-Tac Aiport were the backdrop to their very first meeting.

“This is the best feel-good story you’re ever going to get," Randall said as he waited for his daughter and newly acquainted grandaughter to deboard a plane.  “It don’t get no better than this.”

A couple months ago, Randall did not know he had a daughter. But his daughter, Tiya Jointer, had been looking for him.

“The fact that we can actually hug for the first time in almost 50 years is amazing. Yes, it’s beyond surreal," Jointer said.

For the last 10 years, Jointer had been sending letter after letter across the west coast. Every certified letter came back unopened.

Then Jointer turned to social media.

"On January 3, 2018, I decided to casually try Facebook, low and behold I found him!" Jointer wrote in a note to Q13 News. "His name is Mr. Mancer Randall he's almost 80 years old and I didn't know he had a Facebook account.

"My dad has been a Seattle resident for the last 22 years."

Randall remembered Jointer's mother.  "Her mother and I were like two people passing in the night. We were together long enough to producer her."

At age 48, Jointer met her father for the very first time.

Photojournalist Michael Driver was at a family reunion nearly 50 years in the making. Watch the moment above.