WEBVTT - Inheritance 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:12.680 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. It 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.280 could have happened like this one winter night, just three 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.279 years ago, when my husband mentioned to me that he 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.959 was ordering one of those popular DNA testing kids, and 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:25.320 he asked me whether I wanted to have my DNA 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.600 tested too. I might have said no, no, thanks, not interested. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.559 Instead I sort of shrugged, at least this is how 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:40.000 I remember it, and said sure, why not. I wasn't 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.080 particularly curious. I had never considered doing something like this before. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.400 I mean, I knew my relatives, I knew my ancestors, 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.839 I knew their stories. I knew exactly who I was 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:58.040 and where I came from. It could have happened like that. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.640 I might have lived my entire your life without ever 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:12.680 knowing the truth of who I was. My name is 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.840 Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets. Secrets that are 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.480 kept from us, secrets that we keep from others, and 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.720 secrets that we keep from ourselves. You're going to be 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.720 hearing a lot of different kinds of family secrets on 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:37.200 my new podcast, Secrets involving crime, race, sexuality, abuse, addiction, loss, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:47.360 and identity. While these family secrets are as individual as snowflakes, 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.320 what each one of them, What every family secret has 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.560 in common, is the silence rooted in shame, trauma, and 0:01:55.600 --> 0:02:01.920 the desire to protect what he doesn't know won't hurt him. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.200 Why should we tell her when she'll never find out? 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.200 It's none of her business. I've been a student of 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.160 family secrets for my entire life. I've written novels that 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.839 center around secrets corrosive power. I've written memoirs in which 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:22.880 I dug deep into my own family's buried past. One 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.560 of the first big pieces of journalism I ever wrote 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.160 as a young writer was a story for The New 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:33.000 Yorker called The Secret Wife. My dad had been dead 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.639 for a few years, and I was trying to understand 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:41.360 him better. From a chance throwaway comment, I had learned 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.919 that before my dad met my mother, he had been 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.560 briefly married to a young woman named Dorothy. She died 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:52.320 shortly after they wed. As I researched and reported the story, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.440 I felt I was uncovering the truth of my own 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.320 father's sorrow and oppression. I interviewed people who told me 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.160 that Dorothy had been the love of his life. I 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.160 began to understand, or so I thought, the reasons he 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.680 was so distant the source, ultimately of the pain killers 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:15.600 he swallowed by the dozen each day. When I finished 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.560 the Secret Wife, I thought I was done. Like a detective. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.359 I had gotten to the bottom of things. I had 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:29.280 solved the case of my beloved, sad dead dad. It 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.320 could have happened like this. I could have skipped the 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.680 whole DNA testing thing because I had no curiosity about it. Really, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.760 I didn't need to spit into the plastic vials sent 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.280 by ancestry dot Com. I wasn't going to discover new 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:49.200 branches on my family tree, So why didn't I? Why 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:55.000 didn't I skip it? I've learned something new about family 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.880 secrets in the three years that have elapsed between that 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.800 moment in my kitchen in Connecticut, that cold winter evening, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.880 Like so many other cold winter evenings, I've learned that 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.920 when we discover a family secret is as important as 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:16.479 the how and the why of what we discover. It 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.400 could have happened like this, that most subtle whisper, that 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.159 place in the deepest interior that we feel when we 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.599 know something isn't right. There's something we're missing, some piece 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.080 of elusive information that has been withheld from us, that 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.080 subtle whisper can become so subtle that we almost don't 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.520 hear it at all. We brushed by it as we 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.760 go about our lives. We're so busy. Our to do 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:48.320 lists are endless. There are jobs, bosses, spouses, kids, always 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:53.960 something louder clamoring for our attention. On the day that 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.719 my DNA results were returned to me by ancestry dot Com, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.559 I was fifty four years old. I had been married 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.200 for nearly twenty years. I was the mother of a 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.440 teenage son. I lived with my family in a house 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.480 in the Connecticut countryside. I was a writer who had 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:18.800 just finished my ninth book, Woman, wife, mother, cousin, niece, granddaughter, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:26.040 great granddaughter, daughter. I stared at the results of my 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.360 DNA test on my computer screen. The numbers, letters, words, 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:35.520 names were a nonsensical blur. They arranged and rearranged themselves 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.799 as I tried to make any kind of sense of them. 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.240 But I couldn't make sense of them. They made no 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.320 sense the results of the DNA test. I almost didn't 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:51.119 take Those results, spilled out in crystal clear, scientific black 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:57.320 and white, meant only one possible thing. My father was 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:05.200 not my father. What forms us? What shapes are identities. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:10.240 When we're children, teenagers, young adults, there's nature, and there's nurture, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.800 of course, and then there are the stories were told 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.160 and the stories we tell ourselves. The story I was 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.360 told and the story I told myself all my life 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.919 until I was fifty four, was that I was the 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.720 only child of my two older parents. My father was 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.279 from an Orthodox Jewish family, a family well known within 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:39.039 the confines of the Orthodox Jewish world. I spent my 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.560 childhood in suburban New Jersey, going to synagogue with my 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.040 dad on Saturday mornings. Our home was strictly kosher, dairy 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.600 and meat kept separate. I never tasted bacon or shell 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.359 fish until I rebelled as a teenager. And when I 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.920 first tried at cheeseburger, I was afraid that God would 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:01.640 strike me dead. Oh and one more sing I didn't 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.360 look at Jewish. I know this sounds like the punch 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.720 line of a joke, but it was a real thing, 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.120 A huge part of what formed my identity. This not 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.440 looking like who and what I was. I was very fair, 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:20.120 with blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. I blushed easily. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.760 People made comments every single day of my life about 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:28.239 how non Jewish. I looked your mother had an affair 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.160 with a Swedish milkman. Come on, I've never seen a 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.280 Jewish girl who looks like you. Sometimes people would even 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.080 get mad at me, as if I was trying to 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.400 pull one over on them, pretending to be something I wasn't. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.880 The ethnic breakdown on my ancestry dot com d n 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:49.440 A was as follows, that was pretty much half Jewish, 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:59.960 to be precise. The other half was English, French, German, Swedish, Irish. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.200 It turns out that all those people were right. They 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.400 saw something that I couldn't allow myself to see, and 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.120 so at the age of fifty four, I was left 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.600 holding a massive mystery. My dad was dead, my mom 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:21.360 was dead. Who was my father? Where had I come from? 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:27.559 I mean literally who and what had made me? Here's 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.160 another thing I've learned during my recent crash course and 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:35.920 family secrets. If the secret keepers believe, really, truly believe 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.559 that their secret will never come to light, they can 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.840 pretend that it doesn't exist. And if they pretend long 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.360 enough and hard enough that the secret doesn't exist, it's 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.800 possible for them to come to believe this with their 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:56.160 whole selves. In a sea of confusion. I did have 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.840 a few clues to go on, and I clung to 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:08.360 them like life raft. If a secret has been kept 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.760 from you for your whole life, there's a part of 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.240 you that knows it, not consciously, but in a deep 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.920 place of knowing what the psychoanalyst Christopher Bolas calls the 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.959 unthought known, something you know but can never allow yourself 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:29.360 to think. Here's what I knew. My parents had been older, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.240 they'd have trouble conceiving me. My mother had had a 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.880 number of miscarriages. She was nearly forty when I was born. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.800 Many years earlier, my mother had once let it slip 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.560 that they had visited an institute in Philadelphia where they 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:51.320 had undergone the process of artificial insemination. But there was 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.920 no question that my dad was my dad. That was 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.760 a given, that was a fact, his sperm, her egg, 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:04.600 my parents. Do you know that expression the rug was 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.679 pulled out from under me? We use that expression so 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.600 often that it's pretty much a cliche. But stop for 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.680 a second and think about what it really means. On 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.000 the day that I found out that my dad hadn't 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:22.720 been biologically speaking, my dad beneath me, all was suddenly empty, 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.680 all was air, all was nothingness. The rug of my 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.439 entire foundation had been, in fact pulled out from under me. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.080 The ancestors whose photographs and portraits hung on the walls 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.720 of my home, the men and women I believed I 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.400 came from, were transformed in a single instant into people 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.680 with whom I had no connection. I had never known them, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.600 so now who were they to me? It felt almost 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.120 as if they were all floating away, perfect strangers, waving 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.320 at me solemnly. As the distance between us grew and grew. 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.920 I had never felt so alone. Somewhere out there was 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:17.520 my biological father, a huge question mark. I quickly understood 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.640 that he must have been a sperm downer. I walked 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.520 through the world for days, looking at every man of 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.440 a certain age, wondering, are you my father? But the 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:33.520 deeper mystery was this, What had my parents known when 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.360 they went to that institute in Philadelphia? What was their mission? 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.880 This was in the early days of reproductive science. What 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.160 did my parents understand about what they were doing? One 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.360 thing became quickly clear. They would have been told that 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.880 they must never speak of this again. They would have 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.200 been told that the child would never know. They would 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:01.760 have been given express permission, no more than permission, a mandate, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.840 to keep a secret forever, to take that secret to 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:10.360 the grave with them, to die with it. I was 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:18.680 that secret. Their secret was me. Somewhere out there in 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.200 a vast world was an elderly man with white hair 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:27.120 and blue eyes who blushes easily, A man whose background 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:32.960 is French, English, German, Swedish, Irish, a man who lived 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.920 in Philadelphia during the year I was conceived. Somewhere out 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.040 there was an elderly man who had been told long ago, 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.640 when he was a young medical student, that no one 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.520 would ever know, that records would be destroyed, that he 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.000 would help a couple have a baby, make a family. 0:12:52.120 --> 0:13:00.120 Somewhere that man existed, and I would find him. I 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.760 did find him, and also learned a great deal about 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.720 the journey my parents took on their path to making 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:15.480 a family to making me. We're living in an extraordinary 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.200 moment in time, one in which the potent combination of 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.000 easy and popular DNA testing and the power of the 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:28.200 Internet have made many kinds of family secrets no longer possible. 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.640 Every day, people are making discoveries. They're finding out that 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.440 they were adopted, or donor conceived or have siblings they 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.040 hadn't known about. They're discovering that their ethnicity is other 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.000 than what they've always known, and often the keepers of 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.520 those secrets are still alive, the ones who thought their 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.080 secrets were safe. These kinds of secrets have been around 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.440 since the dawn of humanity, but now that era is over. 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.000 In the not too distant future, the very idea that 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.880 family has kept these kinds of secrets out of self 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.200 protectiveness or shame or in the name of love will 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:12.559 be considered ludicrous and just playing wrong. But here we are, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:19.240 with secrets tumbling out at a staggering rate. Join me 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.000 and my guests on Family Secrets as we shine a 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.520 bright light into the dark hidden corners of the unspoken 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.800 and discovered together the power and beauty that comes with 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:45.680 finally knowing the truth. Family Secrets is an I Heart 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.960 Media production. Dylan Fagin is the supervising producer, Andrew Howard 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.840 and Tristan McNeil are the audio engineers, and Julie Douglas 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.960 is the executive producer. A special shout out thank you 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.520 to my husband Michael Marin and my son Jacob Marin 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.680 who have been on this journey with me If you 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.080 have a family secret you'd like to share, you can 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.920 get in touch with us at listener mail at Family 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.320 Secrets Podcast dot com, and you can also find us 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.480 on Instagram at Danny Ryder, and Facebook at Family Secrets Pod, 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.480 and Twitter at fam secrets Pot. That's fam secrets Pot. 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.840 For more about my book, Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:41.840 com