I was adopted as a toddler — what I discovered decades later about my birth family was shocking

He was so close — and yet so far.

A woman who’d been seeking her biological family for years after being adopted as a toddler was shocked to discover her grandfather living right down the street.

“It just so happened that he lived round the corner from my house, legit a five-minute walk,” said Sammie Wilson, 41 of the startling revelation, according to the Liverpool Echo.

Adopted at the age of five, Wilson didn’t find out about her past until she was 16.

And when the Brit turned 18, she was able to access her birth records — leading to a decision to search for her long-lost relatives.

Happily, Wilson, who hails from St Helens, England but lives in Blackpool, was successfully reunited with her mother and father.

But then, her family informed that her grandfather, Cyril Fletcher, had been in her vicinity the whole time. She was understandably shocked after going to visit him and discovering just how close he really was.

“I could have walked past him in the street,” recounted Wilson, who eventually “plucked up the courage and knocked on the door.”

Despite not seeing each other for 20 years, her grandpa knew exactly who she was. “I don’t know how he ended up here from St Helens and he has had a stroke so can’t really talk, I want to learn more,” said Wilson.

Unfortunately, her reunion with her parents was shorter-lived than Wilson would’ve hoped. Her mother died of pneumonia at 62 after some “lovely years together” — especially toward the end — while her father died of cancer at 47 just five months after seeing his pride and joy again.

“It was lovely to reconnect, I just wish we had got longer,” lamented the mother-of-four, who managed to make the most out of the brief time she had with him.

Wilson explained, “[In that time] he managed to meet my eldest child, he saw the birth of his first grandchild and watched me get married.”

Losing her parents has inspired the Brit to track down her remaining relatives so she can spend as much time with them as possible. First on her agenda is tracking down her grandfather’s brother, Roy, who she doesn’t know much about, only that he might still be in St Helens.

“He [Roy] is the last of my biological family,” explained Wilson. “I have already lost my dad, mum, auntie, and there is another child in a picture I have with Roy and I want to know who the child is.”

She added, “It would be so nice to find my real family because I have children I want them to meet. Family is everything to me.”