VIDEO — Woman Adopted Second Time After Journey to Find Biological Dad: 'I Love Her'

This Father’s Day will be extra special for a dad whose biological daughter embarked on a long journey to find him when he had no idea she existed.

Forty-six-year-old Jennifer Skiles was born on an Army base in Germany, but the birth certificate was blank where her father’s name should have been, People reported Friday.

Her mother gave her up for adoption due to the fact she was in an abusive relationship, and Skiles, who now lives in Tennessee, was placed with a family in Virginia. However, she said her adoptive father abused her for years until he died when she was 18, and her adoptive mother died a few years later.

Skiles began to question her background in an effort to find the truth, telling People, “The search for belonging and family was so important to me.”

She eventually found her biological mother, Cheryl Brown, who was living in Texas, and the pair connected on a phone call. Their relationship grew from there, with Skiles also learning more about her biological father.

“She had given me a gift before she passed away, and it was his name and that he was from Rhode Island, and that’s all I knew. So, I used Ancestry DNA, and I also used Facebook, and I made it a mission, and I found him,” Skiles told WPRI in January.

When her father, whose name is Paul Lonardo of Rhode Island, connected with her on the phone, Skiles said, “As soon as I heard his voice, I cannot explain it, it felt like home. I just melted in the phone, kind of the same way with her, just every breath, I wanted to just take it all in.”

Lonardo told her he was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 1978 where he met Brown, who was a nurse, and the pair spent a weekend in New York together. For all those years, Lonardo kept a red soap box from their hotel.

“I just love it because somewhere deep down, something told him that night mattered,” Skiles commented.

Lonardo, who later married and had three children, officially adopted Skiles, who has five children, in January.

“She’s my daughter, like the rest of the kids. Around here, she’s just one of us,” he said. The family is now planning to celebrate Father’s Day with a virtual party.

According to Britannica, Father’s Day is celebrated in several countries.

“It originated in the United States, and credit for the holiday is generally given to Sonora Smart Dodd. Dodd’s father, a Civil War veteran, raised her and her five siblings after their mother died in childbirth. The first Father’s Day was held on June 19, 1910, the month of the birthday of Dodd’s father. It became a U.S. national holiday in 1972, when Pres. Richard Nixon signed legislation designating the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day,” the site read.

Lonardo told WBIR, “I’m blessed every day. That’s why I tell people, sometimes people meet me and I say, ‘You might want to shake my hand. I’m the luckiest guy you’re ever gonna meet in your whole life.’ A lot of people are happy for us, because it’s pretty obvious. I love her.”