Bronx Nurse Greets Terminally Ill Patient and Realizes He's Her Long-Lost Father

By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times

A Bronx nurse got the shock of her life after she greeted a terminally ill Cancer patient and later learned he was the father she hadn't seen in 41 years, The New York Post reported.

Nurse Wanda Rodriguez's shift at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx began like all the others, but it quickly took a turn for the wondrous after a doctor happened to mention the name of a new patient who had just arrived on Rodriguez' ward.

The moment she heard the new patients name, she froze, The NY Post reported.

I said to myself, 'Oh, my God!' " exclaimed Rodriguez, who was working that shift as assistant head nurse on that fateful August 25 day. The patient was Victor Peraza, the father she had not seen since she was a mere infant.

"It was fate and hope and a miracle. It was like God answered my prayers," exclaimed 61-year-old Peraza.

"I needed to go to his room. I had to see him. My mom said I resembled my dad very much. I go into the room. He looks right at me, and I realize he looks like me and I look like him," she recalled.

"I was really shaking. I said, 'Hi, how are you? Are you comfortable?' trying to remain calm."

Then she asked the terminally ill man if he had kids.

"Yes, I do, but my kids are grown. I have an older daughter, Gina, and a younger daughter, Wanda," he said.

"As soon as he said that, I grabbed my head and started crying. I thought I was going to faint," she recalled.

She quickly left the room.

Minutes later, after regaining her composure, she walked back in and said, "I'm Wanda. I'm your daughter."

"I know. I know you're my daughter!" said Peraza, who saw the resemblance.

"I looked into her eyes, and we both started crying," he recalled.

Peraza and Rodriguez's mother were high-school sweethearts in The Bronx who married before breaking up sometime later. Rodriguez said she always wondered where her father was.

"I had no pictures," said the mother of three.

Peraza, a bank employee, never remarried and resided in Astoria, Queens. He said that he always wanted to know what happened to his daughters but that "as the years went by, it was harder and harder to reconnect."

Since their incredible reunion, Rodriguez and Peraza have tried to catch up. She introduced him to her three children and his five grandchildren. She even brought her sister and mother to visit Peraza, who was moved by hospital officials to another unit because of the family conflict.

That did nothing to prevent the loving daughter from caring for her ailing father. Rodriguez arrives at the hospital hours before her 3 p.m.-to-11 p.m. shift to take care of her dad.

"He keeps begging me for forgiveness and says, 'I wasn't a good father,' " said Rodriguez. "And I tell him, 'The past is in the past. You can't change the past. I love you.' "

Father and daughter are accepting of death and Peraza says he is ready to die now that he has met his daughter.

"He's at peace," said Rodriguez. "He said, 'Wanda, I've met you. I'm OK. I'm ready to die.' "