A local father reunited with his long-lost daughter recently in Germany after spending over 30 years apart from her. Now, he is overjoyed and would like everyone to know that: “she’s the most special and beautiful woman in the whole world.”
In 1976, 62-year-old Larry Bickel of DuBois was married to his first wife in Virginia while in the U.S. Air Force. Two years later, the couple celebrated the birth of their first child, a little girl named Danielle. She lived just four days.
“It was real tough, you know … my wife and I never really recovered from that,” he shared. Doctors felt having another child would help the young couple overcome their depression and heal emotionally. So, in 1980, they had Tiffany, and “she was a beautiful, little blonde-haired girl.”
However, Bickel’s wife was deployed in the service to Germany when Tiffany was about two years old. She went to Germany with her mother who was being stationed at the Ramstein Airbase. “That was the last time I held Tiffany – 1983,” Bickel recalled with tears brimming his eyes.
Bickel’s life took him to California where in 1987 he received a letter when Tiffany’s step-father wanted to adopt her. Enclosed was a photograph of Tiffany, who was now six years old. She was on the school bus ready for her first day of kindergarten.
He has carried this picture of her in his wallet with him ever since. He has also marked her birthday each year when he puts up a new calendar; and, he even admitted to being off by just one day all those years.
Bickel didn’t let the adoption go through and tried to get information through the American and German consulates on Tiffany’s well-being. Since she was under 18 years old, he only found out that she was “healthy and OK,” he said. As years passed by, Bickel lost hope that he would ever see her again.
Tiffany grew up with her mother and step-father and her half-sister, Cordula, and half-brother, Eric, and went to a German school. When she was about 18 years old she had her first thoughts about finding her father. Her mother didn’t have any information on him, and she tried to find him on her own.
She initially contacted the Domestic Relations office, which provided her with an address and telephone number for him. When she called, she was told he didn’t live there any longer. “… So I stopped searching,” Tiffany shared in a Facebook message.
In 2007, she lost her mother when she succumbed to her battle with Multiple Sclerosis. She was married in 2008 to her husband, Daniel, and she gave birth to their son, Luca, the following year.
“During all this time, I didn’t think about finding my real father,” she said. “I was always wondering why he didn’t try to find me.”
But everything changed for Tiffany in April of 2015 when she and her husband separated after being in a relationship for 11 years. This prompted her to revive her search for her father because she felt alone.
In November that same year, she looked around Facebook and discovered Bickel, who she felt resembled her father in a picture she had of them from when she was about two years old. She sent him a private message but didn’t get any response.
“I really wanted to find him and asked my mom’s siblings in the states for help. My uncle remembered him being in the Air Force, and he was pretty sure he was from PA,” she said.
Tiffany took her search to Google and back to Facebook, which led her to the same profile for Bickel. She messaged him again Jan. 22, and this time she shared a photo of them from when she was a little girl.
He shared her message to him, saying: “I think you’re my dad, I love you and I don’t blame you for a thing.” When her message popped up, he noticed there was another one above it from her in November of 2015.
“I never ever got that message,” he said, expressing joy and gratitude that she didn’t give up after it went unanswered. “…I wanted to see her, I wanted to fly to Germany that day, but I couldn’t.”
Within an hour of her message, Tiffany had the answer she’d been searching for – It was him. “I broke down in tears,” she recalled. “I had finally found him. I couldn’t believe it.”
On Jan. 24 Bickel and Tiffany (Bickel Müller), celebrated finding each other again on their Facebook profiles, and their friends and families left heartfelt comments for them.
Since then, Bickel and Tiffany have used social media, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, to rekindle their father/daughter relationship, as well as to make special plans to see each other again. It has also brought her and her husband, Daniel, back together.
On the morning of Aug. 10, Tiffany and her family anxiously watched her father’s plane land at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. For her, it seemed like it “took forever” for him to un-board and when he did, he called worrying he wouldn’t be able to find her.
Five minutes later, Bickel held his little girl – now a grown woman – for the first time in over 30 years. When they first embraced at the airport, he described that moment as being “amazing, absolutely amazing,” and it left him feeling that “I don’t think I’ll ever let her go.”
“We saw each other after 33 years, and we both just cried in each other’s arms,” Tiffany recalled. During Bickel’s visit with her in Martinshöhe, she confessed having a “strange feeling,” because although he was her father, it still felt like he was a stranger.
“I felt bad because I couldn’t show him that he is important to me,” she said. “… I hope he understands. When he left and went back home, I was sad. He is a part of my family now, and it’s hard for both of us to not see and spend time with each other.”
What bothers Bickel now is that he cannot hug Tiffany during a time when they need them most. He especially feels this way because he missed watching his daughter grow from his little girl into the woman she has become today.
“She will always be my little girl,” he said. “I missed her going to kindergarten, I missed her graduating from high school, I missed her getting married and walking her down the aisle. I just feel so bad it happened to her and I wasn’t there; those years I’ll never get back.
“I never stopped thinking about her or loving her, but I gave up and that was wrong for me to do. She didn’t though and she took the chance to find me. And, I want the world to know my daughter is a strong, beautiful woman … for her to take the chance to find me, it’s a daughter’s love for her dad.”
Bickel spent 10 days with Tiffany and his “new family,” including his six-year-old grandson, Luca, who “doesn’t speak a lick of English.” They were truly wonderful, welcoming him with open arms and expressing gratitude that Tiffany had found him.
He wants to be a good father who is loving and supportive and who provides for the “new additions” to his family. He also wants to be more than just an “American father,” which for him means learning German, even though his daughter is fluent in English.
Bickel is looking forward to the day that Tiffany comes to his home to feel the same warmth and love from her American family. She feels the same and ideally would like Daniel and Luca to accompany her so that they can all be together.
“I think we’re both happy that we held each other again, but we’re both unhappy that we cannot see each other for at least a year probably,” he shared. Once Tiffany’s emotions settle, Bickel hopes that she will be able to say, “I have a dad and smile.”
