Years after Kirby Burks lost her mom, an Ancestry test brought a match that eventually led her to the family her mother had always wondered about but never found.
“My mom always told us that her real name was Michelle Buchanan,” the 28-year-old told People. “She didn’t really want to search for her family because she worried what if they didn’t want any relation with her. We respected that, but it was always something we wondered about.”
Burks added, “My brother did the Ancestry, and a match came back with somebody named Michael Buchanan. The first thing that clicked in my head was to go look on Facebook. I searched and I couldn’t figure it out, so I left it alone. Later, I tried again, and this time the pictures matched.”
While scrolling through Facebook, Burks noticed features in a profile that resembled her own. She observed numerous women with dimples in their photos, a feature she also possesses.
Then, she found Marva, who looked identical to her mother. Burks screenshotted the image and sent it to her brother. He told her, “She doesn’t look like my mom, but she does look like my sister Marva.” From that point, the situation “snowballed”, she said.
A handwritten note, written years ago, confirmed everything.
“He sent me a picture of this little piece of paper from back in the day,” Burks recounted. “It had my grandma’s name and said ‘expecting,’ and it had my mama’s birthday. The rest is history. We all connected.”
That connection took her to Arizona, where her grandmother now lives. She and her siblings flew out there to meet her. She got to know that she had an auntie and that they were the only grandchildren and the only ones with kids, so the great-grandchildren too.
She said, “It was bittersweet because I had to explain to my grandma that her daughter had passed.” The moment remains overwhelming even now.
“Knowing that my mom has passed, but I still have a grandma and an auntie, it blew me,” Burks recalled. “It still feels like a movie. I’ve never seen nobody that looks just like my mama. She looks identical.”
The similarities stretch far beyond appearance. It included everything from the kind of earrings they wear to the lipstick that they wear, which Burks described as “crazy.”
Burks wanted her grandmother to have something more than stories.
“She told me she tried to search for my mom for 15 years, but my adopted grandma changed my mom’s name from Michelle Buchanan to Denise Michelle,” Burks explained. “Nobody ever came and got her original birth certificate, so nothing tied together. My heart just told me, give her some of these ashes.”
The green urn, her grandmother’s favorite color, was a personal touch.
“It was in my heart to do it,” Burks said. “I felt like it was needed because I really feel like they both needed each other. My mama had a lot of struggles, and I feel like if they knew each other, their lives wouldn’t have been the way they were. My grandma had struggles too. They needed each other.”
Burks’ TikTok showing the powerful moment her grandma finally got her daughter’s ashes went viral. This emotional reunion, decades overdue, gave millions of viewers a really personal look into their story.
Burks fondly remembers her mother, who passed away on April 2, 2020, as having “a heart of gold.” She shared with People that her mother faced numerous challenges, stating, “She just went through a lot of trials and tribulations that brought her down. She always said she was going to write a book, so this opportunity right here is real big for me. I feel like I need to share my mama’s story because I really went through every single thing with her.”
“People who have loved ones that are addicted to things, the only thing you can really do is love them through it,” Burks remarked. “That was my mama, and I stuck with her through the whole process. Just love them through it.”
After going through such a huge loss, finding her grandmother totally changed her outlook on grief.
She said, “For going through the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life, it feels like I found my mama. I feel extremely blessed. It gives me a different type of motivation.”
“I can’t give up,” Burks shared. “I want my daughter to remember my mom and carry on her legacy, even though she won’t meet her. It’s important to me that she knows.”
Burks said the response to her story has been really moving. She said she is “a very deep person” who loves hearing other people’s stories and helping out. Lots of folks have told her she “healed” her grandmother, who now lovingly calls her “her sunshine.” Burks believes that while she might not have fixed everything, she knows her grandmother “feels good” when she wakes up each day.
The reunion also reshaped how she sees herself. “I definitely feel like a new person,” Burks said. “Meeting my aunt and my grandma was one of the best moments of my life. Just to see her and know that I still have a part of my mom here—it was beautiful. Sometimes when I talk to her, it feels like I’m talking to my mama.”
She isn’t the only one who felt the impact. “We all went — me and my two brothers,” Burks explained. “I told my grandma, if my brothers don’t pick up the phone, don’t worry. As long as you’re connected with me, you’re connected to them.”
Burks treasures the memories of that trip. “It was one of the best moments of my life,” she expressed. “I’ll tell the story over and over again if I have to. It was beautiful.”
“I just want to continue to grow with her and learn about our family history,” she added. “I want to make memories. And I want us to be able to share our story because I know it can help somebody else.”
Burks’s message is a simple one: “If you have a family member who is an addict, love them through it.”
She emphasized that while people may give up, she witnessed her mother’s struggles firsthand, from her triumphs to her lowest points. Initially, it was frustrating, but she came to understand that her mother endured experiences she never did, and everyone copes differently.
“The most important thing,” Burks stated, is the love she carries. She expressed, “Just love them through it. That’s what I did with my mama, and that’s what I’ll always do.”
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