Woman Develops Close Friendship With Stranger She Called By Mistake 20 Years Ago

One wrong phone call led to a beautiful 20-year friendship after Gladys Hankerson mistakenly called a stranger in Rhode Island while trying to call her sister.

The man she called by mistake, Mike Moffitt, had the same number as her sister, except with a different area code. When he answered the phone and told her she had the wrong number, Hankerson quickly apologized.

Hankerson, who is now 80 years old and lives in Delray, Florida, kept calling Moffitt by mistake. He eventually asked her who she was and where she was from.

“It was at first her misdialing,” Moffitt told NBC News. “Then I think she just started calling, not misdialing.”

The two began to have meaningful conversations with each other that continued over the years. Hankerson says that Moffitt, now 46, has felt like family to her.

As their friendship grew deeper, they learned more about each other. Moffitt told Hankerson about his three kids, and Hankerson told Moffitt about her ten children, some of whom remember when their mother’s friendship with Moffitt first began.

While the two talked over the phone for the last 20 years, they had never met in person. But the day before Thanksgiving, Moffitt decided to finally visit Hankerson while he and his family were on a trip in Florida.

When she answered the door, Moffitt said “This is Mike from Rhode Island!” Hankerson couldn’t believe her eyes, and the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m blessed!” They hugged each other and took a picture together.

Moffitt posted the picture of him and Hankerson on his Facebook page with the caption, “There are incredible people in this world that are a wrong number phone call away.”

Hear their story in the video below: