It’s been two years since a father in Oregon has seen his little girl, who vanished without a trace until he got a phone call one day that he wasn’t expecting. It was from a friend who thought he saw her in the most unlikely of places, and she hasn’t been too far from him this entire time.

It began as a one night stand at a karaoke bar with a free-spirited woman, but it didn’t end the way he expected. Their fling became a romance that eventually resulted in a pregnancy, then later, a parent’s worst nightmare. Bryan Thouvenel and his girlfriend raised their little girl, Harmony Rain Thouvenel, until she was two-years-old. That’s when the mother disappeared with their child, and the two hadn’t been seen again, until recently.

Bryan Thouvenel, Harmony Rain Thouvenel

Devastated, the father-of-three never gave up on getting his little girl back with each passing year and even filed for and was granted custody of Harmony back in March of 2015, while she was still missing, according to KREM. Even though it had been more than a year by that point since he had spoken to her, he held on to hope that he would see her again, always feeling as if she wasn’t far.

That parental instinct wasn’t unfounded. While he was eating diner with his mother, he got a call from a friend who had heartbreaking news of where he had spotted the now 4-year-old little girl. The call that changed the course of Bryan’s life came in June, when the friend said that he was sure he saw Harmony in a Salvation Army homeless shelter in the town of Spokane, Washington, which is a couple hundred miles from where the father lives in Oregon.

Dropping his fork, Bryan jumped up from the booth and got into his car with his mother at that moment, and they made the 10-hour trek to find his little girl. Since he couldn’t legally waltz into the shelter and take his child back, Bryan stopped by the county courthouse and got a court order which would require Harmony and her mother to appear in court. The day had arrived that this dedicated dad had been waiting for, when he watched his daughter walk toward him for the first time in two years.

Bryan and Harmony back at home together after two years apart

“I sat there and the next thing you know I’ve got my daughter coming out, walking by herself,” Bryan told KATU. “She’s kind of looking around, and I said her name once. She kind of looked at me funny and I said ‘Harmony, it’s daddy.’ Her eyes just kind of lit up.”

It took some reacquainting and showing her photos on his phone from their past to jog her memory. After that, the two have been inseparable ever since. The thoughtful father is careful to never speak ill of her mother or blame her in conversations with Harmony. Instead, he has arranged daily Skype sessions between his ex and their daughter, and she even gets supervised visits. Bryan says that the focus should be Harmony’s health, happiness, and growth.

It’s rare for fathers to be shown favor over mothers in court, regardless of how bad the situation is with the woman raising the child. Bravo to Oregon and Washington for doing what was best for the child, who now gets her father back, a home, and the family life she was robbed of by a selfish mother. Last week, Harmony and her dad were gifted a trip to Hawaii by a on-profit group, where they look forward to making up for lost time.

h/t: [DailyMail]