Mom Spends Months Working on Emotional Graduation Gift for Son After Adopting Him as a Teen (Exclusive)

Jill Wagner spent months contacting people from Hakin's life before she started fostering him at age 13

• In May 2023, Jill Wagner gifted her son, Hakin, a collage of his school portraits that dated back before her family started fostering him in 2017

• The Missouri mom posted a TikTok explaining the months of research that went into finding the photos, from locating his biological family members to calling his old schools

• Wagner spoke to PEOPLE about the inspiration behind her project and how Hakin first became part of her family at age 13

Jill Wagner didn’t meet her son, Hakin, until he was a teenager, but she knows that’s not when his story started.

In honor of his high school graduation in May 2023, Wagner dove deep into Hakin’s background to find his school photos from before her family started fostering him in 2017.

In an effort to create a mosaic of photos of him at every age, the Missouri mom found and phoned key players from Hakin's childhood, from his biological family members to contacts at his old schools.

On the day of Hakin’s milestone commencement ceremony, Wagner revealed the finished, framed project in an emotional TikToK video that touched the hearts of 1.2 million viewers.

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“When Hakin came to us, he was 13. I didn’t have his background. I didn’t have his history,” she explained in the clip, which received over 102,900 likes. “I’ve had to call around so many different places, and so many people have helped me piece together his history.”

“Tonight he graduates high school, and I get to give him this, and he doesn’t know that I have done this for him,” she said of her now 20-year-old son. “Is that not like the most beautiful thing in the world?”

Looking back on her thoughtful gift, the mom of four spoke to PEOPLE about why she was moved to compile his gift in the first place.

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Wagner says she’s been collecting her three other kids’ school portraits for the same purpose throughout their lives.

“I felt terrible that Hakin didn't have the same history to do that with,” she says. “I just thought it would be a sweet gift for him to know his past … and to have those images, just like everybody else's childhood in our family.”

Wagner knew little about Hakin’s early upbringing other than his place of birth in Hannibal, Missouri. She started calling all over the town, looking for any information about his family, his history in the foster care system and his education, hoping someone could help her dig up photos.

“I got to talk to a sweet teacher named Wanda, who had him in second grade or something … I contacted some family members of his and also some people who had him in the Big Brother Big Sister program in Kansas City,” she tells PEOPLE. “It just all got pieced together, and I was able to find enough images.”

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Her gesture was made especially challenging by the fact that Hakin entered the foster system when he was 9 years old. He had lived in several houses and attended various schools by the time he found a permanent home with Wagner, though she says her family wasn’t even looking to foster when they took in the teen.

Wagner’s eldest son, 25-year-old Brandon, met Hakin while volunteering at the residential facility where he was living in December 2017. It was two days before Christmas, and he was set to move in with a family that was already fostering 11 other kids. Hakin confided in Brandon; he said he didn’t want to be placed in the packed household that awaited him.

“My son said, ‘Well, what if you could come and live with us?’ Not really knowing what all that entailed,” Wagner recalls to PEOPLE, adding that Hakin was keen to accept Brandon’s offer.

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“Brandon came in, and he had tears running down his face. He was like, ‘Mom, there's this boy we need to help,’” Wagner continues. She says Brandon even offered to pay his own college tuition if it meant Hakin could join their family.

They agreed to start fostering him even though neither Wagner, her husband nor their other two kids — son Brent, now 22, and daughter Aliyah, now 19 — had met Hakin yet. About three years later, Hakin’s permanent placement with the family became official.

Wagner’s TikTok followers are familiar with Hakin's adoption story, so when she posted a first look at his graduation gift, fans flocked to the comments asking that she record his reaction to it too.

In the highly requested follow-up video, Wagner can be heard telling her son a bit about what went into the portrait collage.

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“I’ve had to call a lot of places, and I’ve talked to a lot of people,” she began in the video posted last May. “People from your past in kindergarten and first grade remember who you are … They told me that they’re excited to see that you’ve had a great future.”

Once he saw the final result, Hakim laughed and playfully joked about his younger appearance, but Wagner says he showed his full gratitude later, after the camera stopped rolling.

“He placed it in his room, and we had [it] at his graduation party,” she tells PEOPLE. “I just thought it was something that he was proud of.”

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