Come by Chance CBC STORIES

At a worksite on Newfoundland’s coast, the staff take a break for birthday cake in honour of Craig Avery’s 52nd birthday. Coincidentally, another coworker Clarence Hynes is also turning 52 and was born in the same hospital in the same small town as Craig — Come By Chance. The serendipitous discovery starts a chain of events in motion that will ultimately change the course of their lives.

When baby Clarence Hynes was brought home from the hospital, someone casually asked if this small dark haired baby was really a Hynes? His parents ignored it, taught to let mysteries lie. And after they died early, Clarence put his head down and focused on being a good big brother and supporting his family. So when someone mistook him for an Avery brother, he shrugged it off: “Somebody always looks like somebody, right?” But the coincidences became too insistent to ignore.

At the same time people were mistaking Clarence Hynes for an Avery, others were mistaking Clifford Avery, Craig’s older brother, for Clarence. In side by side photographs, the two men with their bushy mustaches looked eerily alike. So when Clifford and Craig finally take a DNA test, the results confirm long-standing suspicions. Clifford, overwhelmed by the revelations, reaches out to Clarence. 

Note: This episode references suicide, please take care when listening.

As the Avery family mourns a devastating loss, Clarence Hynes resists their multiple appeals. But the cost of turning away becomes greater and greater for Clarence. The two families hurtle towards an inevitable truth.

Note: This episode references suicide, please take care when listening.

It turns out this once in a lifetime mistake might not be so rare. A few months before Clarence and Craig were born at the Come By Chance hospital, a young mother named Muriel felt like the little baby boy she brought home from the hospital wasn’t her own.

Another mother at another rural Newfoundland hospital has suspicions that the little girl she brought home isn’t her own. Over fifty years later, an online ancestry kit connects the dots and allows a mother and daughter to reunite.