LOS ANGELES — A man’s reaction to coming home to his dad after a cross-country trip has quickly gone viral, warming hearts of people around the world.
PEOPLE reports that Matt Cobrink, 53, who has Down Syndrome, flew to New York to see his favorite baseball player, Yankee’s Aaron Judge, play. He had to leave his 88-year-old father behind for nearly a week.
When Matt got back home on Aug. 12, his sister, Marcy Cobrink Mayer, was recording as he made his way down the airport escalators and started to look for his dad.
The video shows Matt running to his dad, showering him with kisses.
“I knew that my brother and my father are so closely attached, and I knew that after five days my brother was going to really be missing my father,” Marcy told PEOPLE. “They’re never separated for five days.”
Marcy shared the video on Facebook, and it’s since gotten over 19 million views.
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“People all over the world were sending me pictures of their children with Down Syndrome, telling me that it made them cry, that they’re so happy to see such a long, loving relationship between my father and my brother,” Marcy told PEOPLE. “It gives them hope for their children or they have a cousin who has Down Syndrome. And that it’s so nice to see something that’s happy instead of things that are negative.”
Marcy told Fox 8 that her family wants to get the message out to as many people as possible about “how wonderful the world of ‘up’ syndrome is.” She says Matt has an Instagram page, with the handle @UncleJessesWorld.
“He loves Uncle Jesse from Full House, so for years we have all called him Uncle Jesse, and he calls my daughters Steff and DJ,” she said. “Gotta love him!”
