NBC's hit show America's Got Talent is back for yet another season (their 16th). While acts from all over the world perform for the chance at fame and career-launching success, one act combined, "two kinds of magic." Magician Dustin Tavella of Virginia Beach showed the world that the most meaningful magic happens when life is celebrated.
Before starting his act, Dustin explained to the panel of judges:
"The first is the kind that you see performed on stages like this but there's a second kind and it’s the most real and it's the most powerful magic that exists. It’s the magic that happens when one individual makes a decision that positively impacts another human life forever."
Dustin's act was not typical of magicians on the AGT stage. He wove throughout his astounding trick the story of how he and his wife adopted their son, Xander, at two months old. Before Dustin took the stage, he had emailed AGT host, Terry Crews, photos from the family's adoption day that he was not to look at until the end of the act.
Dustin then had Crews and the AGT judges participate in choosing—what they didn't know at the time to be—various aspects of the special day when Xander's adoption was legalized.
"Xander is our world," Tavella explained through tears. "He was in a pretty rocky situation and the day his birth mom asked if we would raise her little boy, changed my life forever."
"The most magical day of my life was the day that the judge pronounced our son, Xander Dre Tavella," he continued.
In the minutes that followed, Dustin astounded the judges and audience by showing how each of the photos sent to Crews contained one of the elements chosen—without any insight or prompting—by each of the judges. When Howie Mandel was asked to give a last name, any last name—he chose Smith. Which happened to be the last name of the judge.
Another judge, Sofia Vergara, was asked to mark a random day in February. She chose the exact date that the adoption was finalized. Judge Heidi Klum chose the exact toy Xander had been given as a gift that day, and judge Simon Cowell, when asked to write down any random time he wanted, wrote down the exact time seen on the clock in the background from the family's adoption day photo at home.
After this reveal, Tavella went on to explain how he and his wife were not the “heroes” of this story. The real hero, according to Tavella, was Xander’s birth mother - a woman who made the hard decision to change the course of her little boy’s future by placing him up for adoption, “no matter what it cost her.”
Host Terry Crews then scrolled down to reveal the final photo in Tavella’s email. The photo showed Xander’s birth mother proudly holding a sign that said “power” - the word chosen by Crews at the beginning of the act.
Dustin Tavella’s act was a treat for the mind as all wonder: how did he do that? But, it was more so a treat for the heart. Watching this adoptive father’s love for his son expressed through his act was more than a trick. It was pure magic.
At Care Net, we know that there is nothing more amazing for the eyes or the heart than the celebration of life. Thanks, AGT, for showing the world what an incredible opportunity adoption is for both the parents and the child.
You can watch Dustin Tavella's act here.
