“I have a sweet tooth.”

Vamarr Hunter, 51, openly confesses his gluttony, a sin that a few years ago led him to discover a small bakery on Chicago's South Side called “Give Me Some Sugar,” where he became a regular customer because of its delicious pancakes and chocolate chip cookies.

“There aren't better pancakes in the whole city,” he said.

In addition to the sweets and desserts he is a fan of, Hunter found something there that had been missing his entire life and that he thought he would never find: his biological mother.

The man and his mother, Lenore Lindsey, told the BBC podcast, Lives Less Ordinary, the surprising circumstances under which they were reunited.

The bakery and the TV show that brought them together

It all happened at Christmas 2022, when Hunter and a friend were, by coincidence, watching the same television program.

“One of my closest friends had seen the same program, in which a woman talked about how her son had been kidnapped from the hospital in 1974, which was when I was born,” he said.

“He told me, 'You should call that number. Maybe they can help you find your mother.' And that's how it all began," he recounted.

Hunter had never met his biological mother, as she gave him up for adoption a few days after he was born. It wasn't until he was 35 that his adoptive family revealed the truth about his origins.

The man, who has four children and several grandchildren, listened to his friend and called the show, but was informed that he wasn't the kidnapped child the program was talking about. However, they offered to put him in contact with a genealogist named Gabriela Vargas, who would help him in his search.

“Two weeks later, she called me and said, 'I found your mother (…) She lives very close to you,'” he recalled.

However, the expert had bad news for him: his mother didn't want to talk to him yet, because she was having health issues,having just been diagnosed with cancer.

“I spoke to her (Vargas) and explained that I was about to undergo chemotherapy, but that I was willing to call him afterward because I couldn't deal with it right now. It was all very overwhelming,” Lindsey recalled.

However, after a few minutes the woman changed her mind and asked the expert for her son's phone number to contact him.

From the beginning

But before continuing with the reunion, we must go back more than half a century to understand how the separation happened. It was 1974 and Lindsey was in high school.

“I was 16 and had just broken up with a high school boyfriend named Michael who I had been with for a couple of years,” she said.

The pain of the first breakup was followed by news that shook the then-student's conservative family to its foundations.

“I didn't know I was pregnant until I was six months old. For about three or four months my stomach was perfectly flat, and then my mom asked me if I was having my period. I told her I had stopped, and she sent me to her gynecologist,” she said.

“When she put the stethoscope on my belly, the doctor said, 'Oh my God,' and I heard a heartbeat, and that's when I knew,” she continued.

Lindsey admitted that the news devastated her.

“I couldn't stop crying,” she said, while indicating that she dared to speak to her parents, so she asked her sister to drop the bombshell at home.

“It was 1974, that wasn't acceptable. There wasn't the freedom there is today. (Teen pregnancy) was something to be ashamed of. It wasn't a source of pride,” she explained.

Lindsey admitted that for months she didn't look her parents in the face and said that she still regrets having disappointed them.

“I broke their hearts,” she said.

“I didn't even give him a name.”

Lindsey decided to continue with the pregnancy, but with the intention of giving the baby up for adoption.

“Raising him wasn't an option,” she said, while admitting that she didn't even give the child a name.

“I did it on purpose, because the only name I could think of was the father's name and I didn't want my parents to know who that was. They kept asking me, 'Well, who's the daddy? He has to take responsibility,' and she didn't want to tell them," she explained.

She also didn't want to see or hold the baby once she gave birth, so as not to make his delivery any more difficult.

"One time the nurses accidentally brought him in, and I saw the top of his head. That was it. But I never saw him as a baby," she confessed.

Where did the baby go? The young mother didn't know.

“The social worker in charge of the case made me believe that they had a home ready for him. And that it was a perfect home, you know, that the parents were both professionals,” he said.

The story made his son laugh.

“I never had a good relationship with my adoptive parents, although I had wonderful grandparents and aunts and uncles,” the man said.

“Over the years, on several occasions my adoptive mother made comments to me like, 'How would you feel if you were adopted?'” Vamarr said, which is why he always knew there was something wrong with what he had until then called a family.

An open wound

Lindsey's attempts to move on didn't entirely work.

“I bottled everything up. she admitted.

Lindsey She didn't even tell the baby's father what had happened, and her experience with her first child affected her behavior when she had Rachel years later with her first husband.

“I don't think I was very maternal. I wasn't one of those (mothers) who, when you looked at the baby, you connected with her. I wasn't a loving mother,” she confessed.

“I loved her, but I think I more assumed motherhood was a responsibility,” she said.

“I knew I had a job to do, that I had a daughter that I was responsible for and that I had to raise and support,” she added.

Second Chances

Seventeen years ago, Lindsey decided to turn her life around and left a job that didn't excite her to open a bakery. This, after discovering in the years prior that she had a talent for baking and that baking cakes, cookies, and other desserts relaxed her and brought her peace.

“The people in the Bible study group at the church I started attending enjoyed what I made and told me I could open a new business,” she said.

“I thought it could be fun because the neighborhood was very desolate and didn't have anything really nice,” she said.

In 2008, “Give Me Some Sugar” was born, and a couple of years later her son began frequenting her shop.

Over the past decade, Hunter's visits for breakfast or to pick up a chocolate chip cookie became so regular that she had the bakery's phone number in her cell phone contacts to place orders.

And so, when genealogist Vargas told her in late 2022 that his biological mother would call she was surprised to see the name of the establishment he frequently appeared on the screen when his phone rang.

“I called and said, 'Hi, is this Vamarr Hunter?' And he said, 'Yes, is this Mrs. Lenore?' And I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Mrs. Leonore from Give Me Some Sugar?' I said,'Forks.' And he insisted, 'I'm Vamarr, Vamarr Hunter!' He knew who I was because he had my number, but I didn't recognize him. “Her name meant nothing to me,” Lindsey recounted.

“I had the bakery's number in my phone to order my pancakes,” the man said with a laugh.

However, Hunter admitted that it took him a few seconds to internalize what he had just discovered. “It seemed impossible to me,” he admitted.

And immediately asserted that, before discovering that the owner of his favorite bakery was his biological mother, he already held her in high regard, due to the kind and helpful way in which she treated him and the rest of the customers.

After that first call filled with screams, cries, and laughter, the two met at a church with their respective families to get to know each other.

Lindsey said that reuniting with the son she was forced to give up almost five decades earlier has also impacted her relationship with her other daughter.

“It made me more maternal, even with Rachel. It's a strange thing.” It's like I'm free to be a mother now,” she said.

Taking charge

After reuniting, Hunter began visiting the bakery more frequently, but no longer just as a customer.

She started going there after work to help her mother make cakes and cookies while she recovered from cancer treatment.

And, in 2024, Hunter made the bold decision to give up her 18-year career in distribution and logistics to dive into the previously unknown world of baking.

“At first, my only goal was to spend time with my mom and help her because it was really hard for her physically,” she said.

“At that time, the bakery was only open a few days a week. And we know that if you only work two or three days a week, the business is not sustainable. So I thought, 'Well, what can I do to help?' And I learned how to make cakes or whatever and it was great,” she added.

Hunter said she not only enjoys the process of preparing the desserts, but also serving her customers.

“You better, because I told you you weren't going to make any money here,” her mother replied with a laugh.