Bend woman meets half-brother for first time

In Cary, North Carolina on Thursday, a brother and sister got to know each other for the first time in a lifetime.

“I try not to stare, because we look alike,” Bend resident Bambi Will said.

Their airport reunion moment, captured on film, was of course a lot of happy hugging – and was shared widely on social media.

Will said she’s been looking forward to this moment every day for two months.

It turns out the half-brother she’d never met, Allan Smith, was a childhood actor growing up, making appearances on the Brady Bunch and in Oscar Mayer commercials.

But things weren’t so nice for Will, who said her adopted father sold drugs, and was once held at gunpoint by his ex-wife.

“I remember this because I was 5 or 6, and I’d just had a bath and I was basically naked in a towel, standing on a heating vent with the rifle in my face,” she said.

She said this meeting is something they both needed. Smith agrees.

“This is like winning the lottery,” he said. “That was a dream come true.”

The two of them are also excited to keep looking — they still have at least two other siblings they haven’t met.

“My dream is to have both families come together and to be one big solid family where we celebrate holidays and stuff together — and it probably sounds like a pipe dream,” Smith said. “Dreams come true, and that’s the future that I want.”

Will said she almost missed both her flights to Raleigh Thursday.