WEBVTT - Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 21 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:11.880 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:16.079 Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.880 are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.400 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I've heard from 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.200 so many about your own family secrets and realize that 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.840 what we are creating for each other on this podcast 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.240 is a community, a community for those who are looking 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.400 for a safe and supportive space to unburden themselves. To 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.240 that end, we've created a number for listeners to call 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:44.280 in to record stories to share here in this space. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.520 This week, I'd like to share a few of those 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:55.280 stories from our community. Thanks for listening. In May of 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.080 two thousand nineteen, I got my d n A results 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.880 back from ancestry dot com and I saw that I 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.600 was Irish. Well, I couldn't understand how that could be, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.559 because my father was dark skinned, dark hair, and had 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.360 kind of a mysterious background, deeply even serious. But nobody 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.600 knew really what his his genetic background was, and he 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:17.440 was the reason I wanted to get my d n 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.160 A in the first place, to find out where he 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.840 actually came from. We thought maybe he was Jewish, we 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:27.880 weren't sure so when I saw Irish, I was completely shocked, 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:29.600 and I looked at my husband and said, I went 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.399 on Earth, how can this be? And I looked back 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.120 through some of my relatives that I had never heard of, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.840 of course, you know the old story, and one of 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.120 them had the same last name as my father's mentor 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.160 in the fifties. I was sixty four at the time. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.160 I'm the youngest of four. I contacted some of these 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.200 people after the shock war off and told them this, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.440 and I was told that there was a journal entry 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.760 by the wife of my biological father that I found 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.480 now that her biggest regret in her life was when 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.440 she rented the upstairs or which she let her husband 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.040 turn the upstairs into an apartment and rented it to 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.760 that young woman, her husband and three children while I 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.240 was number four, and so my father's mentor as my 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:19.960 biological father, he was fifty to my mother's thirty at 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.440 the time, and so he's long gone. My mother was 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.120 nine before when she died in two thousand eighteen, so 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.960 she was dead by the time I found out this information. 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.520 My birth certificate father lived to seventy nine, had no 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.280 heart problems, had cancer, and lived a very good life, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.239 and I had a wonderful relationship with him and my mom. 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.320 I don't think he ever knew. But my biological father 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:48.760 dropped dead of a massive heart attack of the age 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.480 of sixty one when I was seven years old, and 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.600 I did know him. We called him Papa. He came 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.960 to the house and he hung around. He always brought 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.480 me presents as a little kid. And we moved from 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.920 that state to another state when I was five years old, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.560 and I never saw him again, and I just knew 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:18.560 him as a family friend. Hi, Danny, I first just 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.679 wanted to thank you. I owe you a great debt 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:27.840 of gratitude, not only for inheritance, but for this community 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.360 that you've created through family secrets. It's occurred to me 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:37.040 often over this past year that the only thing worse 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.880 than having to go through something like this and being 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:47.240 isolated and traumatized is doing it alone. So I just 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.080 wanted to thank you for giving voice and space to 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:57.760 all of us. I found out last June, after thirty 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:02.520 five years, that a father that raised me, my dad, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.880 whom I adore, was not my biological father, through a 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.320 three in the test. My sister had taken one a 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.760 year prior to me, and when the results came back, 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:18.520 it identified us as half sisters, similar to how you 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.600 expressed in Inheritance. I was very confident that there has 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.440 been some sort of mistake, but of course there wasn't. 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.800 I texted a screenshot of the ancestry that was broken 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.560 down into European countries to my dad and he responded 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:42.640 by saying, whose DNA is that, um, which sort of 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:48.200 stemmed this crazy twenty four hour period. I've always had 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:53.240 a really strained, tenuous relationship with my mom, and despite 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.400 not having contact with her at the time, I called 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.600 her and asked flat out if there was a possibility 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.440 that this could be true. In her usual manner, she 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.480 responded by asking how dare I accuse her of such 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.760 a thing and how she could have possibly raised such 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:15.480 an ungrateful child. As the months went on, I became 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.280 more and more fixated on finding out who my biological 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.240 father was UM, sort of getting to the bottom of 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.120 that despite my mom not sharing the information with me. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.760 So my husband was kind enough to offer to hire 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.440 a private investigator to try and find out who that 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.000 man was. I have three kids, and one day at 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.800 the pediatrician's office, building out for hims. I realized that 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.440 all of their life and all of my life, I 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.560 had been giving an inaccurate biological history for all of us. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.200 Though that sort of stemmed my interest in finding out 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.359 who the person was. One night, when my husband and 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.400 I went out for a date night, people are in 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.599 the car and our neighborhood and told me that the 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.920 private investigator had found my biological father. He started by 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.640 telling me that the man was deceased, which devastated me. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.480 I was just totally distraught, knowing that I was never 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.200 going to get to see his face. But then my 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.839 husband asked if I remember telling him about the lake 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.800 I used to go to as a young child, and 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:27.880 I instantly knew the name that was about to come 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.680 out of my husband's mouth before he said it. It 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.000 turned out that it was the name I thought, and 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.000 my biological father was what my mom always told us 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.720 was a family friend. I spent time with him until 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:43.800 I was about seven years old and we moved to 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.720 a different state. So the memories I have of him 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:52.760 are very murky, which saddened me because I knew him. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.400 But I can't pull up the memories that I have 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.960 of him. I do remember by the way that he smells, 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:07.200 and I also remember as a child loving him, so 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:12.000 I do find some comfort in that. About a month 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.440 or two ago, my sister gave me a huge box 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.600 that she had taken from my mom's garage. Going through 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.000 it slowly and meticulously, in my basement, I found a 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.000 bunch of old slides, and as I held a couple 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.400 of strips up to the light coming through the window, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:33.840 I thought that it might be photographs of my biological father, 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.840 at least what I thought I remembered him to look like. 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.640 I know it is starting to sound crazy and like 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.440 some sort of movie, but I live with the fact 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.320 every day that this saga is actually my real life. 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.200 I took the slides to a local photo store, and 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.280 because of the pandemic, they told me that it was 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.640 going to be a while. They were very backed up. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.440 So for about a month, I opened my email every 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:07.960 morning anxious about what I might find. Until one afternoon 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:13.480 I opened up my email and the photos were there. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:18.480 I and I found myself looking into the eyes of 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:24.680 my biological father. So in the same flies that I 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:29.280 had digitized and found the pictures of my biological father, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.160 there was a photograph of my five year old six 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.000 year old self sitting on the lap of a teenage 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.320 girl and standing next to us with another teenage girl 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:47.280 whose profile I recognized instantly because it looked so much 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:52.600 like my own. Since then, I've found the contact information 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.120 for one of my half sisters. It turns out I 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.160 have three other half siblings other than the two that 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.400 I've grown up with. I've written her an email over 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.199 and over and over again, and I'm sitting on it. 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.120 Mostly I think out of fear because I feel like 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.520 sixteen and seventeen and eighteen. When I look back into 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:19.240 those photos, I just feel like teenagers have an awareness 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.720 about their parents behavior that a toddler or an elementary 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.520 school child wouldn't have, and I'm nervous and afraid about 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:32.480 what I might find out when I contact them. Um 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.240 fourteen months into this, I'm keenly aware that I just 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.080 have only begun this journey. It breaks my heart every 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.000 day when I look at my kids and I know 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:49.360 that my dad is not biologically carried in them. But 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.839 I am hopeful that some good will come out of this. 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.040 And I just thank you again for giving me a 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:21.880 community and the place to voice my story. If you'd 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.560 like to share your story, call one eight eight eight 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.120 Secret zero and record your story. We won't be able 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:30.920 to run all the stories, but we do want to 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.240 shine a light on as many as we can. The 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.520 number again is one eight eight Secret and then the 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:53.680 numeral zero. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.560 the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:57.880 listen to your favorite shows.