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Sandra Yi ReportingAbout a week ago we told you the story of a Utah man with a dying wish -- to find his estranged daughter. Today that wish came true thanks to a viewer who saw that story.
Dave Politano says he'll spend his last days a happier man with his daughter by his side again, and a granddaughter he never knew he had.
Dave Politano: "I really didn't anticipate seeing her again."
Dave Politano waited six long years to hug his daughter again.
Dawn Politano: "I have so much to tell him."
The reunion in Salt Lake City today was emotional and bittersweet. An argument tore them apart; now a tragedy has brought them together again.
Dave Politano: "I said a lot of prayers and hoped and wished that we could find her."
That was his one dying wish. Politano, who has stomach, pancreatic and liver cancer, has only weeks to live. His caretakers spent days trying to find his daughter, but it was a Salt Lake City woman who saw Politano's story on the news and tracked her down in Verona, New Jersey. Turned out Dawn had since married and had a baby girl.
Dave Politano: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I only had one wish in the whole world."
Johni Cerny, Lineages, Inc.: "You always feel grateful you had the tools to help someone, especially someone who has such a short time to live."
Steve Booth, Harmony Home Health & Hospice: "He has more spirit. He has more spunk. I think the diagnosis is so horrifying when you get a terminal diagnosis, it's made it easier for him because of this reunion."
Politano says it wasn't the thought of dying that scared him, but dying without seeing his daughter again.
Dave Politano: "Even if I only spoke to her on the phone and she said, 'I still love you, daddy, I forgive you', it would have been good enough. But to have her out here with my granddaughter, a man can't ask for anything more."
Dawn Politano couldn't afford the trip here. It was Harmony Home Health and Hospice that paid for her plane ticket and hotel stay. She and her father will spend the week, making up for lost time.
