Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: This episode contains discussion of suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: It had taken me years to understand that not everyone
Speaker 1: was adopted and that babies did not magically appear in crips.
Speaker 1: My friend's mothers had swollen with pregnancy, and I had learned,
Speaker 1: at age ten, shockingly about the details of reproduction from
Speaker 1: the Breading Your Keyshn chapter of Our Dog Book. My
Speaker 1: heart stuttered in my chest as my fingers walked through
Speaker 1: the cards ad adoption, The Search for Anna Fisher by
Speaker 1: Florence Fisher. I wrote down the book's number and pursued
Speaker 1: it like a treasure hunt. Through the stacks. I pulled
Speaker 1: out a thick book with a green cloth cover. On
Speaker 1: the first page, the epigraph shook me. Oh, why does
Speaker 1: the wind blow upon me so wild? Is it because
Speaker 1: I'm nobody's child?
Speaker 2: That's Susan kiyo Eto, author of the recent memoir I
Speaker 2: Would Meet You Anywhere. Susan's is the story of an
Speaker 2: unfolding secret upon secret upon secret, one unlocking the next
Speaker 2: over the course of many years. It's also the story
Speaker 2: of courage and persistence and an overpowering desire to know
Speaker 2: one's own history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets,
Speaker 2: the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we
Speaker 2: keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a small town where my parents
Speaker 1: got this house right after I was adopted because the
Speaker 1: social worker told them that I had to have my
Speaker 1: own room, and prior to that they had lived in
Speaker 1: a one bedroom apartment. So they bought this house in
Speaker 1: this small little town in New Jersey, and we were
Speaker 1: the only Asian family in that town for a really
Speaker 1: long time. There was no black families or Latino families
Speaker 1: at that time. It was a very homogeneous town. So
Speaker 1: when I went to school, it was me just playing
Speaker 1: with the other kids in the neighborhood. On the weekends, though,
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of time with my Japanese American
Speaker 1: extended family cousins, aunts and uncles, and then we went
Speaker 1: to a Japanese American church in New York City, which
Speaker 1: took us an hour to get there, and we would
Speaker 1: spend like six hours. It was a marathon situation every week,
Speaker 1: which I objected to very strenuously. It was important for them.
Speaker 2: It was the three of you, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was an only child. I consider ms I'm biracial,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like my life felt very half
Speaker 1: in half, Like I had my school week life with
Speaker 1: all the people in this little town, and then I
Speaker 1: had my weekend life, and they were so different, but
Speaker 1: they were both really important parts of my existence.
Speaker 2: So you knew from as early as you can remember
Speaker 2: that you were adopted, is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Did you also know that you were half Japanese and
Speaker 2: half not Japanese?
Speaker 1: I did. I mean, I think I was very conscious
Speaker 1: from a very young age that I did not look
Speaker 1: like my parents. I felt different from them. So I
Speaker 1: was very aware. And then they would say too. They
Speaker 1: would say things like, oh, you're humbun humbun, which means
Speaker 1: half and half.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your mom, your adoptive mother, Kikuko.
Speaker 1: She's a character. She was a real tough cookie. She
Speaker 1: was like under five feet tall, but very tough, and
Speaker 1: she would put up with no nonsense, but very loving.
Speaker 1: She was born in Brooklyn, and you could tell from
Speaker 1: the minute she opened her mouth. She sounded like, I
Speaker 1: want to say, Robert de Niro, own taxi driver, although
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what that sounds like, but she
Speaker 1: would be like, what's the matter with you? Where you go?
Speaker 1: What's going on? She was just very rough. She grew
Speaker 1: up on the streets of Brooklyn with her two brothers,
Speaker 1: who were also very tough, and she had to stand
Speaker 1: up for herself when people would meet her. Her voice
Speaker 1: was not what one would expect coming out of her mouth.
Speaker 1: People were often like, wait, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And your dad, Massagie, what was he like?
Speaker 1: He was a salesman and the most gregarious charismatic. He
Speaker 1: was just larger than life, super friendly and like. He
Speaker 1: could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. He could sell you anything,
Speaker 1: and you would gladly buy a dozen of whatever it
Speaker 1: was he was selling. He was a traveling salesman. In
Speaker 1: his territory was the southeast, like Virginia through Georgia, Kentucky
Speaker 1: all that, and he would sell souvenirs to gift shops
Speaker 1: on I ninety five and Stucky stores, those little spoons
Speaker 1: that say state of South Carolina or Georgia, or those
Speaker 1: felt banners and anything like that. He would sell. Gift
Speaker 1: shops was his thing, and he would pack up his
Speaker 1: car with sample boxes and sell his wares.
Speaker 2: And so He'd be gone for chunks of time.
Speaker 1: Huge chunks, and I didn't really understand until I was
Speaker 1: an adult when he would say, I'm so lucky. Those
Speaker 1: guys they only get two three weeks of vacation a year,
Speaker 1: but I get twelve weeks of vacation. And that sounded impressive, right,
Speaker 1: But what I really put together was that meant that
Speaker 1: forty weeks out of the year he wasn't living at home.
Speaker 1: I knew that other dads would come on the commuter
Speaker 1: train from New York City and they would have dinner
Speaker 1: at home every night. And for my dad, it was
Speaker 1: like when he came, he would home for a week,
Speaker 1: and then he would be gone for two weeks and
Speaker 1: they would come back for five days. I think it
Speaker 1: really was hard on my mom.
Speaker 2: And your father fought in the.
Speaker 1: War, he did. He enlisted and was part of the
Speaker 1: four four second, which was the all Japanese regimen of
Speaker 1: the military, and he was in Italy for three years, and.
Speaker 2: That was considered to be a really legendary unit, right,
Speaker 2: the four to four second.
Speaker 1: Quite legendary and as they used to say, the most decorated.
Speaker 1: And another thing. As child, I was like, oh, fancyist
Speaker 1: the most decorated must have had the most medals, But
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that also meant the most casualties.
Speaker 2: When Susan is quite young, her mom casually mentions the
Speaker 2: name of the adoption agency from which they adopted her,
Speaker 2: Spence Chapin. Though this information is dropped into a conversation
Speaker 2: like it's no big deal, its implications in Susan's life
Speaker 2: are a very big deal. This information plants the seed
Speaker 2: of curiosity and long to know more about her origins.
Speaker 1: My parents spoke about the agency and also the social worker,
Speaker 1: Crystal Breeding. Yes it's a real name, Crystal Breeding, Like
Speaker 1: she was this legendary person in their minds. She was
Speaker 1: the person who brought me to them and who made
Speaker 1: it possible for us to be a family. And my
Speaker 1: dad had a picture of Crystal Breeding, the social worker,
Speaker 1: holding me in his wallet. He carried it around and
Speaker 1: he would open it up and he would show me, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's Crystal Breeding. She's why you're here. And both her
Speaker 1: name and the name of the agency loomed large in
Speaker 1: my imagination. So it wasn't a secret that I was adopted.
Speaker 1: Clearly this woman had a lot to do with it,
Speaker 1: and they would talk about how she would come and
Speaker 1: do the white glove test in their apartment to make
Speaker 1: sure that they were up to snuff, and it was
Speaker 1: a big deal for them to have gone through this
Speaker 1: process with her, which took over ten years.
Speaker 2: When Susan's around twelve years old, she's in the library
Speaker 2: one day and her curiosity and longing lead her to
Speaker 2: the card catalog. Up until this point, she has known
Speaker 2: about her adoption, but not much about adoption in general.
Speaker 2: What is it really there, she discovers a book called
Speaker 2: The Search for Anna Fisher by Florence Fisher.
Speaker 1: It was a huge moment. I remember the feeling of
Speaker 1: the card catalog, those blonde wood catalogs and with the
Speaker 1: little cards, and when I saw adoption and that there
Speaker 1: was a book about adoption, it was like scary for
Speaker 1: me to look that word up, to be like, what
Speaker 1: does this even mean? Reading it, I was shocked. It
Speaker 1: was really radical, This whole idea of like I have
Speaker 1: the right to see my birth certificate, I have the
Speaker 1: right to know where I came from, And that was
Speaker 1: planted really early. That was planted at the moment I
Speaker 1: saw that book. And in the back of the book
Speaker 1: it said Florence Fisher is the founder of ALMAH, the
Speaker 1: Adoptee's Liberty Movement Association, which also sounded extremely radical. And
Speaker 1: I wrote to them immediately saying, help me. I want
Speaker 1: to be part of this. I want to know more
Speaker 1: about where I came from too, And they wrote back
Speaker 1: right away. This was all like with a typewriter, in
Speaker 1: envelopes and stamps and things. And they wrote back and said,
Speaker 1: we understand how you feel, but we really we can't
Speaker 1: help you till you're eighteen. As soon as I turned eighteen,
Speaker 1: I wrote to them again and they said, come on down.
Speaker 1: We can help. We have a support group and consultants,
Speaker 1: and we'll help you.
Speaker 2: During this time. Susan is a student at Ethica College.
Speaker 2: Perhaps unsurprisingly, she has found herself drawn to studying certain
Speaker 2: subjects that mirror her own life experiences. She is extremely
Speaker 2: interested in the psychology of family. For instance, she studies
Speaker 2: and writes papers on adoption. So when Alma tells her
Speaker 2: to come on down, she does. She also calls and
Speaker 2: visits the adoption agency her mother had mentioned all those
Speaker 2: years ago, it Spen's Chapin.
Speaker 1: I called and they said, yes, we have records that
Speaker 1: you came through our adoption agency, and Crystal Reading had
Speaker 1: long retired. She wasn't there anymore. But I met with
Speaker 1: somebody else and it turned out that it felt more
Speaker 1: like she was interrogating me than giving me information. And
Speaker 1: she spent a lot of time asking me about how
Speaker 1: was it growing up in your family? Oh, you had
Speaker 1: a dog, Oh, you went on vacations, you went to camp. Oh,
Speaker 1: you must have had a great life. And she really
Speaker 1: wanted to hear about what a success story I was,
Speaker 1: which is great for her. But then when it came
Speaker 1: to me asking questions, she was very stingy in her
Speaker 1: offering anything to me. But they have a phrase called
Speaker 1: non identifying information, so she gave me a few you
Speaker 1: little titbits. She said, your mother was Japanese, which I
Speaker 1: had known, and she just gave me a few little crumbs.
Speaker 1: And it was a really frustrating experience for me because
Speaker 1: I had been, of course, hoping for more answers and
Speaker 1: they were not to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you describe her as sitting on the other side
Speaker 2: of a desk from you and leafing through this big
Speaker 2: fat folder, and you know, it's almost as if she
Speaker 2: was going, Oh, I can tell her this and then
Speaker 2: again like, oh this little morsel. So at this point,
Speaker 2: you hadn't told your parents that you were doing this,
Speaker 2: so you write them a letter.
Speaker 1: Yes, I sent them this letter saying I love you,
Speaker 1: but this is something I have to do. And my mother,
Speaker 1: in her fantastic prickle accent, called up and said, what
Speaker 1: took you so long? We've been waiting for this. I
Speaker 1: was shocked because we hadn't ever talked about it. They
Speaker 1: had talked about Spence Japin, and they talked about other
Speaker 1: kids who were adopted, and every once in a while
Speaker 1: I would say, do you know anything about my mother?
Speaker 1: And they basically said they didn't know much, and they
Speaker 1: were just like, what can we do for you? And
Speaker 1: it blew my mind, And I think about it now
Speaker 1: and it blows my mind even more because I know
Speaker 1: so many adoptive families don't react like that. I've been
Speaker 1: in conversation with hundreds of adoptees now and I know
Speaker 1: that their reaction is unusual, and I feel so grateful
Speaker 1: to them. The support groups that the first thing you
Speaker 1: need is your adoption papers, your official adoption papers, which
Speaker 1: says the child X y Z will forever now be
Speaker 1: known as ABC, and this is the change of name.
Speaker 1: And my parents never had been given this. It was
Speaker 1: part of the sealed records, but they said sometimes adoptive
Speaker 1: parents had them and if they didn't, they could call
Speaker 1: the courthouse where it was finalized and ask for the papers,
Speaker 1: and that's what my mother did. So I said, this
Speaker 1: is something you can do for me. It's a suggestion
Speaker 1: that I heard and if it works, great, and they
Speaker 1: were like, sure, we'll do that, no problem, And so
Speaker 1: I told them what to say, and they called up,
Speaker 1: and then a week later I had my adoption papers,
Speaker 1: which had my original birth name, which none of us
Speaker 1: had ever known or seen before. It was Mika no Gucci.
Speaker 2: Susan endeavors down the road of next steps. First, she
Speaker 2: calls the hospital where she was born to get her
Speaker 2: birth records, but she has to concoct a story to
Speaker 2: make sure they release them, so she lies and tells
Speaker 2: them she's pregnant, which is why she needs her medical history.
Speaker 2: The hospital says, no problem, absolutely, we'll send those right
Speaker 2: over to your obgyn. Please give us their contact information.
Speaker 2: But Susan hadn't prepared to include this level of detail
Speaker 2: into her lie, so she reaches for the nearby phone
Speaker 2: book and randomly picks the name of a local obgim
Speaker 2: and provides that contact information. Well, great, the hospital will
Speaker 2: send the records. But now she's really in the belly
Speaker 2: of the lie and needs to figure out how in
Speaker 2: the world she will actually get these records from this
Speaker 2: random OBGYN of whom, of course she's never been a patient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So after I realized what I had done, I
Speaker 1: was really plorrified, like, now what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: Now this obgyn is going to have my records? And
Speaker 1: how am I going to get them? What is the
Speaker 1: next step? So I called that office and I continued
Speaker 1: my fabricated story of being pregnant and hearing that my
Speaker 1: mother had complications and pregnancy and it would be helpful
Speaker 1: and I needed to be seen, and so they made
Speaker 1: me appointment and then I went, and I really was
Speaker 1: in that moment in the doctor's office. They told me
Speaker 1: to take off my everything from the waist down and
Speaker 1: get up on the examining table with the stirrups and everything.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, Oh my gosh, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do here? And I thought, if I
Speaker 1: tell the truth, these papers, these records could just slip
Speaker 1: away and I'll never get another chance. This is it.
Speaker 1: And so you know how in a doctor's office there's
Speaker 1: a little folder container outside the door. So I I
Speaker 1: never took my clothes off. I just grabbed the file,
Speaker 1: put it under my coat and quickly walked out, and
Speaker 1: I said to the receptionist, I just need to get
Speaker 1: something from my car. I'll be right back. And I
Speaker 1: race walked out to my car and threw it in
Speaker 1: the seat and just drove off as fast as I could.
Speaker 1: And that was how I got those records which had
Speaker 1: my birth mother's name. I think about it now and
Speaker 1: I can't even believe that whole thing happened. I was like,
Speaker 1: I am like breaking the law. What am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Is this a crime? Is this? What am I going
Speaker 1: to jail for this? What did I do? I was
Speaker 1: terrified and my heart was pounding so hard. But then
Speaker 1: there it was. I had it.
Speaker 2: So now finally Susan has this pivotal piece of information,
Speaker 2: the name of her birth mother, Yumiko Nagucci. But when
Speaker 2: it comes to taking a next step to somehow using
Speaker 2: this pivotal piece of information, Susan solicits the help of
Speaker 2: one of her coworkers. She's working at a deli at
Speaker 2: the time. A man named Henry, whose personality seems perfectly
Speaker 2: suited for this kind of hunt for truth.
Speaker 1: He was somebody who was very detail oriented. He was
Speaker 1: really into UFOs. That was like his thing, and he
Speaker 1: had this system little cards or something where there were
Speaker 1: UFO sightings. He was like a fanatic in this very
Speaker 1: focused way. And he was like, well, what are you
Speaker 1: obsessed with? And I was like, oh, I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: finding my mother. And then when I told him, he
Speaker 1: was immediately interested and well, what do you know? What
Speaker 1: do you have? What do you got? And I told
Speaker 1: him about my whole story and how far I had
Speaker 1: gotten so far that I had my adoption record, I
Speaker 1: had the hospital record, I had her name, and that
Speaker 1: I was like, now what do I do. I'm stuck.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know the next step. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: give me what you got and I'll see what I
Speaker 1: can and he went and scoured every phone book from
Speaker 1: the country or something and found people with her name.
Speaker 1: I was flabbergasted. But it took hours, and I think
Speaker 1: I had narrowed it to a certain part of the country,
Speaker 1: and so he focused there. He founded her. So it
Speaker 1: turned out it was just a wild coincidence that I
Speaker 1: had already made plane reservations to go to the city
Speaker 1: over spring break to visit my high school friend. And
Speaker 1: so I totally lost my nerve at that point because
Speaker 1: I felt like I was so close and I was,
Speaker 1: and so I begged my friend to call for me,
Speaker 1: and she did and confirmed that this was indeed the person.
Speaker 1: And at first she did not have a good response
Speaker 1: to the phone call. She was not happy about it,
Speaker 1: and my friend, she said she sounded tipped off, and
Speaker 1: I was just crushed the fact that she would be
Speaker 1: upset at being contacted. When I was doing my research
Speaker 1: for my psychology family class and I was doing my
Speaker 1: paper on adoption, I read this book about adoptees in
Speaker 1: England who had open records and so suddenly in the
Speaker 1: seventies they were able to make contact. They had ten
Speaker 1: case studies and eight of them were horrible. Oh, this
Speaker 1: person found out that their mother had taken their own life.
Speaker 1: This person found out that they were in a psychiatric institution.
Speaker 1: They weren't happy endings. And I really tried to brace
Speaker 1: myself that I wasn't going to have a good outcome.
Speaker 1: I really tried to try on all these things and say,
Speaker 1: how would I feel if I found this, How would
Speaker 1: I feel if this happened. I tried them all on
Speaker 1: and ultimately decided it was still worth it. But I
Speaker 1: still wanted to do it. I tried to prepare and
Speaker 1: so then I flew to that city. And when I
Speaker 1: got there, my friend said that she had called and
Speaker 1: left a note saying that she would be willing to
Speaker 1: meet me, and she said, go to this hotel at
Speaker 1: this time and go to the room under this name.
Speaker 1: I was shocked.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. When Susan arrives at the Holiday Inn,
Speaker 2: the front desk tells her that Yumako Nogucci is waiting
Speaker 2: for her in her room. Shaken but excited, Susan gets
Speaker 2: in the elevator and goes up. She knocks on the
Speaker 2: hotel room door, and when it opens, there she is
Speaker 2: Susan is seeing her birth mother for the first time.
Speaker 1: It was really been out of body experience. I think
Speaker 1: one of the first things I noticed that we were
Speaker 1: exactly the same height, and then I started taking in
Speaker 1: different parts of her face, looking at her cheeks and
Speaker 1: her nose and her lips. And feeling like there was
Speaker 1: something there that I recognized. She had this impeccable haircut
Speaker 1: and beautiful nails, and just a beautiful suit with fancy
Speaker 1: jewelry that looked like it came out of a museum.
Speaker 1: It just dazzled me. My adoptive mother dressed very plainly,
Speaker 1: and it was just very different. I think she was
Speaker 1: very utilitarian in her dress and her style, and my
Speaker 1: birth mother to me, just seemed glamorous. I was blown away.
Speaker 1: I also could tell that she wasn't like, Hey, come
Speaker 1: on in, I'm happy to see you. It was tense.
Speaker 1: She felt completely betrayed and felt that she had been
Speaker 1: promised I suppose by the agency that this was going
Speaker 1: to be her secret, and that it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: come out and nobody would know.
Speaker 2: She says to you, this was all supposed to be secret,
Speaker 2: and she's upset. Something that was supposed to be secret
Speaker 2: has been laid bare. This wasn't her narrative how things
Speaker 2: were going to go. She also tells you during that
Speaker 2: meeting that you never crossed her mind. In twenty one years,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of twists and turns in your interactions
Speaker 2: with your birth mother, and you know, it's sort of
Speaker 2: like that old thing that people say of everything you
Speaker 2: need to know about like the person that you marry,
Speaker 2: if you go back to your first date, it's all there.
Speaker 1: So true.
Speaker 2: I do think that's true of first dates and marriages,
Speaker 2: but it's true of it seems true of your relationship
Speaker 2: with your birth mother. That kind of everything that then
Speaker 2: plays out for the rest of your relationship is already
Speaker 2: present in that first bunch of hours that you spend together.
Speaker 1: Everything. Yeah, it was like a microcosm of the next
Speaker 1: forty five years. We went through so many different seasons
Speaker 1: and phases during that one meeting. But I think when
Speaker 1: I started showing her pictures, like childhood pictures, because you know,
Speaker 1: here I was twenty years old and she hadn't known
Speaker 1: what had happened to me since I was born. So
Speaker 1: I brought family pictures also, so I could show her
Speaker 1: this is the family I grew up with, this was
Speaker 1: my life. And I think that made her happy. I
Speaker 1: think there were things that she felt that she connected to.
Speaker 1: She was glad. She was glad to see that I'd
Speaker 1: had the life that I had, and I think it
Speaker 1: softened her quite a bit. And also she didn't know
Speaker 1: that I was adopted by Japanese American parents. They knew
Speaker 1: that she was Japanese, but she didn't know where I
Speaker 1: ended up, and so she had no idea that I
Speaker 1: was raised in this family. And I think there was
Speaker 1: something about that that made her really happy, that softened her,
Speaker 1: and she became more comfortable as we found that we
Speaker 1: had things in common, and as we got to know
Speaker 1: each other, we started to develop a little connection. We
Speaker 1: had lunch and then we were walking around a little
Speaker 1: bit and there was an ice cream stand nearby, and
Speaker 1: we both simultaneously ordered the same flavor of ice cream,
Speaker 1: and we both looked at each other, what did you say?
Speaker 1: And we just started laughing and making jokes about, oh,
Speaker 1: is this genetic ice cream preference? And I think we
Speaker 1: were starting to get excited about the ways and that
Speaker 1: we were connected. Even though it's like totally random, you
Speaker 1: and I might have the same ice cream preference, but
Speaker 1: it felt really meaningful at that moment.
Speaker 2: You me and Susan share more meaningful moments, and the
Speaker 2: softening in their dynamic continues. You may tells Susan she
Speaker 2: has a family, she has children. Of course, this is
Speaker 2: the first time Susan is hearing that she has half siblings.
Speaker 2: She learns she has a half sister and a half brother.
Speaker 2: Umi shows Susan a picture of her daughter. In the photo,
Speaker 2: she's wearing a monogram sweatshirt. Susan looks closely at the name.
Speaker 1: That was a pretty shocking moment when I see this
Speaker 1: picture and the sweatshirt says Mika, which is of course
Speaker 1: my birth name, and it was shattering. It was a
Speaker 1: shattering I did not know what to make of it.
Speaker 1: I had been almost trying that name on internally, like
Speaker 1: what would have been like if that was my name.
Speaker 1: I'd been playing with it inside my mind, and when
Speaker 1: I saw it on this other girl, I was just
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was shocking.
Speaker 2: Did your birth mother explain that to you at the time.
Speaker 1: She did. She said, well, I really liked that name.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to use it if I had a girl,
Speaker 1: and so that's the name I gave you. But then
Speaker 1: I realized that you hadn't been able to keep that name,
Speaker 1: and so I could use it again. It was a moment,
Speaker 1: it was big.
Speaker 2: And you also learned that you have a half brother
Speaker 2: whose names ca And before the end of this first
Speaker 2: visit with your birth mother. You asked her about your
Speaker 2: birth father.
Speaker 1: She says that he's very friendly and gregarious and that
Speaker 1: he knows about me, and that he knows that I've
Speaker 1: contacted her, and I was like what. I was completely
Speaker 1: shocked by that. And then she said, yeah, he thought
Speaker 1: about you. He reminded me of you. This also completely
Speaker 1: floored me because first she had said that she hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about me, and then she said that he actually
Speaker 1: had thought about me. And I had this immediate feeling
Speaker 1: of I want to know this person. I want to
Speaker 1: know this person who tried to remember me to her,
Speaker 1: and she just said no, and I wanted to know more.
Speaker 1: But that was all that was going to happen at
Speaker 1: that moment. It took me the entire day to work
Speaker 1: up the courage to ask about him. It was, of
Speaker 1: course one of the first things on my mind, but
Speaker 1: it was the very end of the day. And that
Speaker 1: was a big bombshell that came when she said that
Speaker 1: he thought about me.
Speaker 2: And it also seems that she did more than evade.
Speaker 2: It was a real mood changer, like she really didn't
Speaker 2: want to have that conversation with you, right, or certainly
Speaker 2: not create some sort of introduction or path towards that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, things have been getting very friendly up until that point,
Speaker 1: and then the mood definitely changed.
Speaker 2: A few months pass and on Mother's Day, Susan arranges
Speaker 2: for her parents and grandmother to meet Umi. They all
Speaker 2: go out for sushi. No one is talking about the
Speaker 2: gravity of the situation, the importance of this meeting. Instead,
Speaker 2: everyone is just on their best behavior, having a light,
Speaker 2: friendly lunch.
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. It
Speaker 1: was surreal. At one point, she goes to the restroom
Speaker 1: and my grandmother's like, oh, your mother's very pretty, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, what And the fact that she's calling
Speaker 1: you me my mother and my mother is sitting right there.
Speaker 1: They were just all really friendly to each other. I
Speaker 1: think they felt a bond because they're all second generation
Speaker 1: Japanese American, so they had that in common. It was
Speaker 1: a real connector, and I think that if either they
Speaker 1: hadn't been Japanese or she hadn't been Japanese, it would
Speaker 1: not been as comfortable.
Speaker 2: At one point during lunch, u Mei turns to Susan
Speaker 2: and tells her how extremely lucky she's been to have
Speaker 2: grown up in this family. The word lucky is tricky
Speaker 2: for an adopted child to hear. When lunch ends and
Speaker 2: Susan goes off on her own, she weeps.
Speaker 1: Angela Tucker she's an amazing adoptee writer and she just
Speaker 1: wrote a book called You Should be Grateful. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a message that adopted people here all the time,
Speaker 1: You're so lucky, you could have been languishing in an orphanage.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a message that feels mixed. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you can't be lucky unless you've been unlucky. First adoption
Speaker 1: is born out of crisis. Somebody does not get adopted
Speaker 1: unless there's a crisis that happens that necessitates that. So
Speaker 1: I think there's that and the fact that she said
Speaker 1: that I didn't know what to do with that. And
Speaker 1: as much as I would agree, as much as I
Speaker 1: felt lucky and I love my family and I loved
Speaker 1: my parents, it was like, wait a second, what are
Speaker 1: you saying here? I mean, I think it gave her
Speaker 1: a sense of relief that her choice for me had
Speaker 1: turned out well. I think she was feeling glad that
Speaker 1: things had turned out the way that they had, But
Speaker 1: it was also really hard to hear. And then also
Speaker 1: the fact that it was Mother's Day and she said,
Speaker 1: I have to get back to my family. So all
Speaker 1: of these things combined, my head and my heart were
Speaker 1: just swirling and breaking, and it was a hard thing
Speaker 1: to put it all together. There were just so many
Speaker 1: things happening at once, and.
Speaker 2: To go back to the microcosm that began with that
Speaker 2: very first encounter with Yumi, there was this constant kind
Speaker 2: of giving and then taking away, and then giving and
Speaker 2: then taking away, very likely not conscious, but always there,
Speaker 2: so that the minute you start feeling like warm or
Speaker 2: cozy or comfortable or familiar, then something reminds you that, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not like that at all. The world keeps turning
Speaker 2: for Susan. She has a career and she's in a relationship.
Speaker 2: She's in sporadic touch with Yumi. They correspond and see
Speaker 2: one another occasionally. She exchanges gifts with her and her
Speaker 2: parents during the holidays. One day, Yumi writes to Susan
Speaker 2: and says she's coming to New York on business and
Speaker 2: would like to see her. Susan starts cleaning her apartment
Speaker 2: right away, preparing for Yumi's visit, but a few days
Speaker 2: go by, and she doesn't hear from Yumi again to
Speaker 2: make plans. Maybe she's changed her mind, maybe she's not
Speaker 2: going to come at all or even reach out. But
Speaker 2: just as Susan's thinking this, she sees a message from Yumi.
Speaker 2: I'm at the Plaza Hotel. The message says, come over. Naturally,
Speaker 2: that's what Susan does.
Speaker 1: I see that she's brought a stack of books. She's
Speaker 1: a reader, she loves to read. And we have room
Speaker 1: service and we have ice cream, and it all feels
Speaker 1: so cozy and just fun. And we're talking about things
Speaker 1: that I don't talk with my adoptive mother about. We
Speaker 1: don't really have this comfortable way of talking about, like
Speaker 1: if I have a boyfriend or if I'm interested in someone.
Speaker 1: My adoptive mother was just really uncomfortable with those kinds
Speaker 1: of topics. But Umi was just easy to talk to,
Speaker 1: and I felt like we had things in common, and
Speaker 1: she was like, you should read this book and what
Speaker 1: about this? And have you seen this movie? And it
Speaker 1: just was It was just really comfortable and fun to
Speaker 1: be with her, and also very confusing. What is this
Speaker 1: my friend? Is she my mother? Who is this person?
Speaker 1: But I was enjoying it while we were there. It
Speaker 1: was this cost of waiting for that moment, you know,
Speaker 1: just waiting to hear from her and not knowing if
Speaker 1: it was going to happen. And then of course the
Speaker 1: moment she calls and she's so happy and she's like,
Speaker 1: come on down, come on down at the plaza that
Speaker 1: I would forgive anything, do you know? It wasn't even
Speaker 1: about forgiving. It was like, of course I would do anything.
Speaker 1: I would meet you anywhere, I wouldn't meet you anywhere,
Speaker 1: I would go anywhere. I would do anything. For five
Speaker 1: minutes and.
Speaker 2: You stay over, and what happens the next morning.
Speaker 1: The next morning, it's just all business and very much Okay,
Speaker 1: we're done here, We're done here. I'm going home, and
Speaker 1: we're done, and it's over. The kind of the moment
Speaker 1: has disappeared, and I just I got to leave.
Speaker 2: You describe it as reminiscent of what behavior would be
Speaker 2: like after an ill advised one stand.
Speaker 1: It felt so much like that. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the secrecy of it, feeling like I'm meeting
Speaker 1: somebody in secret. I can't tell anybody, They're not going
Speaker 1: to tell anybody, and it's like, oh, is this what
Speaker 1: people do when they're having an affair or having a
Speaker 1: one night stand or something. Is this what that's like?
Speaker 1: It felt like that.
Speaker 2: Five years later, Yumi calls Susan to tell her she's
Speaker 2: in the hospital with complications from a hysterectomy. Susan buys
Speaker 2: a last minute plane ticket and gets to the hospital
Speaker 2: as fast as she can. In the lobby, she's asked
Speaker 2: if she's immediate family, and she has the jarring realization
Speaker 2: that Umi would probably say no to this and would
Speaker 2: want Susan to say no to this too. So Susan
Speaker 2: says no, as she asks herself, what is my role here?
Speaker 2: Who am I here? She calls you me from the
Speaker 2: lobby to tell her she's downstairs, and Yumi tells her
Speaker 2: to come up.
Speaker 1: So I go to her room and he's very weak.
Speaker 1: I bring up some gifts and she says, look out
Speaker 1: the window. Do you see that JC Penny out there?
Speaker 1: And I'm like yes, And she tells me to go
Speaker 1: to the j C. Penny for an hour and then
Speaker 1: to come back. And I'm completely confused. And she says,
Speaker 1: Nika is coming and I'm going to tell her. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell her about you and I'm just flabbergasted,
Speaker 1: like completely unprepared for that, and she says, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it now. It's the right time to do it,
Speaker 1: because you're here and she's coming. And so I go
Speaker 1: to the j. C. Penny and I'm pacing like a
Speaker 1: mad person. And I come back and my half sister
Speaker 1: is standing in the hospital room looking completely shocked as well.
Speaker 1: And then my birth mother gives us some money and says,
Speaker 1: go have dinner. She's too tired to continue to visit.
Speaker 1: So we leave and we go or a restaurant, and
Speaker 1: I think neither of us had been prepared for that moment.
Speaker 2: At dinner with Mika, she asks Susan if she knows
Speaker 2: who her birth father is, and I say.
Speaker 1: It, well, I know a few things about him, and
Speaker 1: I tell her a few details, and Mika says, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it's this guy. Maybe it's this person, And I
Speaker 1: just of course grab onto that, Oh you think it's
Speaker 1: that person, And then I hold that in my mind
Speaker 1: and believe that. But she said unfortunately he died, So
Speaker 1: in the moment, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to know who my birth father is. And then but
Speaker 1: he's not here. Anymore. And that was another one of
Speaker 1: those mini roller coasters that just happens in a moment,
Speaker 1: and then we start to get to know each other
Speaker 1: as people, and then I have a sister for a
Speaker 1: little while.
Speaker 2: You may recovers and Susan goes back home, but there's
Speaker 2: another visit to see her soon after. You may tell
Speaker 2: Susan that there's someone she wants her to meet, Barry,
Speaker 2: a very old friend of hers, so flies out again
Speaker 2: to go have dinner with them. This is the evening
Speaker 2: in which the story of Susan's first hundred odd days
Speaker 2: of her life unfold. Barry, this man she's never met
Speaker 2: until tonight, tells her things she's never known.
Speaker 1: So I learned that she had actually been visiting Barry
Speaker 1: and his wife while she was pregnant with me, but
Speaker 1: they hadn't known that she was pregnant. In fact, she
Speaker 1: had said that nobody knew, which I found so hard
Speaker 1: to fathom when I was pregnant, because I was enormous,
Speaker 1: and I was like, how could you even keep this
Speaker 1: a secret? But she said, well, I didn't eat, and
Speaker 1: I wore a really tight girdle and really loose clothes,
Speaker 1: and nobody knew as far as she could tell, nobody knew,
Speaker 1: and so she was visiting them, and she went into
Speaker 1: labor when she was in a park near their house,
Speaker 1: and a police officer took her to the hospital and
Speaker 1: either he or someone at the hospital called Barry and said,
Speaker 1: your house guest, your friend is in the hospital, and
Speaker 1: she had instructed them to say she was getting her
Speaker 1: she had had appendicitis attack and she was getting her
Speaker 1: appendix out. So of course you're horrified when you think
Speaker 1: your house guest is in the hospital with emergency surgery.
Speaker 1: So they rushed to see her, and a nurse who
Speaker 1: had not been told the appendix story said, oh, mother
Speaker 1: and baby, you're doing just fine, and they were stunned.
Speaker 1: They had no idea, and she swore them to secrecy,
Speaker 1: and they promised that they would never tell anybody, and
Speaker 1: they didn't. She had been under anesthesia when I was delivered.
Speaker 1: They call it twilight sleep. It was a kind of
Speaker 1: drug that they did back in the day, so she
Speaker 1: hadn't really been conscious when I was born and she
Speaker 1: hadn't seen me. I had to stay in the hospital
Speaker 1: for a couple months because I was really underweight.
Speaker 2: Barry and his wife went to see baby Susan then
Speaker 2: Mika in the NICU, but Umi did not. As soon
Speaker 2: as Umi was cleared to leave, she did without seeing
Speaker 2: her baby at all.
Speaker 1: And then when I was able to be discharged, she
Speaker 1: was the one who had to take me out of
Speaker 1: the hospital and bring me physically to the agency. So
Speaker 1: she did that and that was the first time she
Speaker 1: had seen me. I was like two and a half
Speaker 1: three months old, and so she took me in a
Speaker 1: taxi and that was like the first time she had
Speaker 1: really seen me. She described giving me a bottle and
Speaker 1: I just had no idea about any of this. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know that story. You know. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things that it's so profound to like just not
Speaker 1: know how you came into the world. And it's one
Speaker 1: of the things I called not adopted privilege. It's like
Speaker 1: a kind of privilege to just take for granted that
Speaker 1: you know what time you were born, or you know
Speaker 1: the circumstances, or you know about when your mother went
Speaker 1: into labor, or you hear about things. There's all this
Speaker 1: lore about when someone's born and people talk about it,
Speaker 1: and it's something you just internalize as part of your
Speaker 1: life story. And I didn't have any of that. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any idea about any of it, So hearing
Speaker 1: it as an adult was really stunning. And that this guy,
Speaker 1: Barry had been the only person who had known that
Speaker 1: I even existed and.
Speaker 2: Who had met you. He was part of the first
Speaker 2: day of your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was even more than she was. I mean,
Speaker 1: she burst me, but she hadn't seen me until I
Speaker 1: was two and a half months old, and he had
Speaker 1: and he had carried this, he had kept this, and
Speaker 1: he had kept her confidence this whole time.
Speaker 2: In the ensuing years, Susan and her partner John get married.
Speaker 2: You Mei and Mika both come to the wedding. Of course,
Speaker 2: Susan's parents and family she grew up with are all
Speaker 2: there too, and for a brief shining moment, there's the
Speaker 2: sense that there's a kind of extended family, even though
Speaker 2: not everybody is privy to the nature of it. It
Speaker 2: seems to Susan like maybe this is how it's going
Speaker 2: to be moving forward, this big extended family. It seems
Speaker 2: like maybe she can have it all. Susan and John
Speaker 2: decide to start a family. Susan becomes pregnant but suffers
Speaker 2: from preoclamsia and loses the baby, who she's already named
Speaker 2: and already loves. Susan lets Umi know at the beginning
Speaker 2: of her pregnancy that things are rocky and that it's
Speaker 2: looking like it's not going to be okay, but Yumi says,
Speaker 2: oh no, don't worry, it's going to be fine. I
Speaker 2: know it's all going to be fine. But it's not fine.
Speaker 2: And adding to the pain of the loss is the
Speaker 2: pain of Yumi not following up with Susan to see
Speaker 2: how things are. A week goes by and she does
Speaker 2: not check in. Susan's parents are there being parents, and
Speaker 2: her husband John is there being a husband, but her
Speaker 2: birth mother doesn't think to reach out and support her
Speaker 2: during this week of crisis. Invariably, this calls into question
Speaker 2: what is a parent. It's a noun, but it is
Speaker 2: also a verb to parent.
Speaker 1: You know, when I think about it now, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was cold or harsh, or thinking or unfeeling,
Speaker 1: But I think the whole time I've known her, she's
Speaker 1: really wanted to firmly defer that role to my parents.
Speaker 1: She didn't want that role, She never wanted that role,
Speaker 1: and she made her decision. She made her choice. I
Speaker 1: am not her mother. I'm not going to be her mother,
Speaker 1: and I was really surprised and really hurt that she
Speaker 1: didn't check on me. Maybe as a friend, I mean,
Speaker 1: like a friend might have checked in. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I think I was thinking of her at that
Speaker 1: time as my mother, and my mother is not checking
Speaker 1: to see how I've gone through this experience, and I
Speaker 1: think she really had relinquished that role from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Did you feel at that time, up until that time
Speaker 2: that you had two mothers?
Speaker 1: I really wanted that. I think I really wanted two mothers,
Speaker 1: and I wanted what they both were to me in
Speaker 1: their own ways. I wanted them both to be my mother,
Speaker 1: and I think it wasn't until much later that I
Speaker 1: accepted that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: Susan and Umi continue to have a relationship akin to
Speaker 2: a very slow tennis match. Every once in a great
Speaker 2: while the ball bounces. There's a bounce when Susan receives
Speaker 2: an invitation to Mika's graduation party, but she's invited to
Speaker 2: attend as a quote unquote family friend that will be
Speaker 2: her cover. Secrets upon secrets upon secrets Susan was u
Speaker 2: Mei's secret, but now Yumi makes it Mika's secret. Mika
Speaker 2: becomes the secret of you Mei's secret. Because Kaz, Susan's
Speaker 2: half brother and Mika's full brother, still doesn't know about
Speaker 2: the truths of Susan's existence, Umi wants to tell him
Speaker 2: when Susan is there in person at the graduation party.
Speaker 2: So Susan attends and prepares for this big reveal, but
Speaker 2: then it now happens. Yumi has apparently decided to keep
Speaker 2: the secret contained. As Kaz is heading out for the evening,
Speaker 2: Yumi asks to get a photograph of the three of them, Mika, Kaz,
Speaker 2: and their family friend Susan. It's unclear why Yumy's doing this.
Speaker 2: Is it to make Susan feel better somehow? Is it
Speaker 2: for you Mei herself? Whatever the case, Susan is completely
Speaker 2: taken aback. She dissociates and wonders why exactly she came
Speaker 2: to this party and what exactly just happened. There's yet
Speaker 2: another bounce about five years after this incident, when Susan
Speaker 2: is invited to Kaz's wedding again. She's invited and attends
Speaker 2: as a family friend. By this time, Susan has had
Speaker 2: her first child, Molly, so she brings her along. At
Speaker 2: one point, Umi is carrying Molly around and then something
Speaker 2: happens which leaves Susan in a state of profound disappointment
Speaker 2: and sadness.
Speaker 1: Kaz also has a baby at that point, and they're
Speaker 1: just a few months apart, and somebody assumes that Mollie
Speaker 1: is the baby of him, and she says, no, this
Speaker 1: is not my grandchild. This is my house guest daughter.
Speaker 1: And it was the moment. It was like a turning
Speaker 1: point where I think, up until that point, I had
Speaker 1: felt like I would do anything to have this relationship,
Speaker 1: Like I don't care how much I have to lie.
Speaker 1: I don't care how much I have to pretend I'm
Speaker 1: someone else. I don't care. I'm not carrying this on
Speaker 1: to the next generation. I'm not going to tell her
Speaker 1: that she has to lie about who she is. I
Speaker 1: was suddenly so protective of my child and seeing that
Speaker 1: if we had to keep going like this, like I
Speaker 1: would have endured anything on my own behalf, but not
Speaker 1: for her. And that was the first time where I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I can't do this.
Speaker 2: So did you cut off contact with you me at
Speaker 2: that point, No.
Speaker 1: I didn't enough contact, but I felt myself withdrawing.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.
Speaker 2: A few years pass and Susan has her second child,
Speaker 2: another daughter, Emma. Around this time, she joins a group
Speaker 2: that becomes very important to her, a group of Asian
Speaker 2: American adoptees. In the group, she learns a lot about
Speaker 2: the mental health of adoptees and the suicide rate among adoptees.
Speaker 2: The data is just staggering. She also in this group
Speaker 2: connects with a man named Mark. He too is biracial
Speaker 2: Asian and adopted, so he and Susan find familiarity and
Speaker 2: connect with one another. And then Mark dies by suicide.
Speaker 2: This is another turning point for Susan, a breaking point.
Speaker 2: Not only is she dealing with the loss of her
Speaker 2: good friend, but also the need to know as much
Speaker 2: as she can about her birth father resurfaces. Yumi is
Speaker 2: the only one carrying this information and she has never
Speaker 2: given it to Susan for all these years. Susan's in
Speaker 2: her mid thirties now. It's been fifteen or sixteen years
Speaker 2: since she first met Yumi, and in all that time,
Speaker 2: she's learned nothing else about her birth father, so she
Speaker 2: writes a note to Yumi, asking her again for more
Speaker 2: information and positing the possibility that it's this person that
Speaker 2: Mika had mentioned to her those years earlier. When she
Speaker 2: speaks to Yumi about this, she says, point blank, I
Speaker 2: need to know this.
Speaker 1: She cut me off. She was like, how dare you
Speaker 1: imply such a thing? How dare you ask? Fifteen years
Speaker 1: of trying to be very patient in hoping that we
Speaker 1: would get close enough or that are relationship would get
Speaker 1: to a point where she felt like she could tell me,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, I haven't brought it up.
Speaker 1: In fifteen years since that first meeting, I have not
Speaker 1: brought it up, and I've been just patient, and I
Speaker 1: just want to let you know I'm still interested. I
Speaker 1: still want to know. And she was just like, I
Speaker 1: don't think we should be in contact anymore. I had
Speaker 1: this feeling that if the person who brought me into
Speaker 1: this world didn't want contact with me, that maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in this world. I think I was very
Speaker 1: confused and very distraught, and I felt like I had
Speaker 1: done it. I had brought this on myself. If I
Speaker 1: had just kept quiet and not asked, we would still
Speaker 1: be in somewhat of a relationship. You know, I just
Speaker 1: felt like I had destroyed it. It was really devastating.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something about the concept of the
Speaker 1: primal wound or being relinquished as a baby, and that's
Speaker 1: a hard thing to deal with. It is what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know about my private one. I don't even know.
Speaker 1: But there's something else about knowing someone for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: knowing your mother for fifteen years, and then having her
Speaker 1: turn her back. That to me was like more devastating
Speaker 1: than being left as a baby, because I feel like
Speaker 1: I understand why people do that. I understand why she
Speaker 1: did that, But this other thing of like having known
Speaker 1: her for over a decade and then having her say
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to do with you anymore, I
Speaker 1: couldn't really deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you got pretty much the same correspondence from Mika,
Speaker 2: who also said I don't want to have anything to
Speaker 2: do with you. So the feeling seems to be like
Speaker 2: the world and your place in it sort of trembled
Speaker 2: a little bit right then, like a little bit of
Speaker 2: a fault line that opened up, And I was really
Speaker 2: fascinated by something that pulled you back, which was that
Speaker 2: you learned about this drumming circle.
Speaker 1: Tycho. Drumming was something that I didn't even think about
Speaker 1: it until recently that my dad had taken me to
Speaker 1: in New York City and Brooklyn when I was in
Speaker 1: high school, and I was completely captivated by and then
Speaker 1: forgot about until I heard that there was a group
Speaker 1: near me, and so I decided to go, and it
Speaker 1: really pulled me out of my depression grief. It was
Speaker 1: very physical, and the drums are really huge, and the
Speaker 1: drum sticks are also really big and very heavy, and
Speaker 1: you just have to you use your whole body. There's
Speaker 1: like dance involved. You're shouting while you're doing it, and
Speaker 1: it brought me back into my body in a very
Speaker 1: physical way. And the teacher described it as these drums
Speaker 1: are supposed to replicate the sound of heartbeat, mother's heartbeat,
Speaker 1: and it spoke to me and I just felt like
Speaker 1: I was reclaiming my body and reclaiming myself in certain ways,
Speaker 1: aiming being Japanese American. It was extremely healing.
Speaker 2: The years churn by with no information about Susan's birth father.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, her adoptive father passes away, after which
Speaker 2: her mother moves in with Susan and her family. Susan
Speaker 2: is at a juncture in her life where she feels
Speaker 2: she needs to take the mystery of her biological paternity
Speaker 2: into her own hands. She hires a private investigator to
Speaker 2: find out more, to find out anything. What's so interesting
Speaker 2: about the timing of you're hiring the private investigator in
Speaker 2: the year after your father died is that it's almost like,
Speaker 2: maybe now it was okay to search an earnest in
Speaker 2: some way because you were so close with your father.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also felt like my birth mother and I
Speaker 1: were not in contact at that time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: there's nothing left to lose, and also felt like she's
Speaker 1: clearly not going to tell me, and I have to
Speaker 1: take this into my own hands if I'm still interested
Speaker 1: in doing this.
Speaker 2: The private investigator, however, HiT's a dead end. He even
Speaker 2: calls Yumi at one point and has a conversation with her.
Speaker 2: He comes back to Susan telling her that Umi has
Speaker 2: absolutely no interest in this and there's nothing else for
Speaker 2: him to do. Susan's defeated, and another long stretch of
Speaker 2: time passes nearly fifteen years. It's twenty seventeen and now
Speaker 2: DNA tests exists and they cost under one hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: so she sends away for one, which leads her to
Speaker 2: make a series of discoveries, some larger than others.
Speaker 1: So it was three years where not much happened because
Speaker 1: I think with every year that goes by, more people
Speaker 1: enter the database. And so at first there was like
Speaker 1: hardly anything, and I gave up on it. And then
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's a genetic genealogist, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't make heads or tails of this.
Speaker 1: I'm getting all these seventh cousins or whatever. And she said, well,
Speaker 1: let me take a look, let me look at your
Speaker 1: DNA situation, and so I gave her access to my
Speaker 1: ancestry and then I got a call from her, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and she said, you've got a close match
Speaker 1: and I'm going to look into this. And I think
Speaker 1: I had going to have something for you. And then
Speaker 1: a couple hours later, she's like, I think we nailed it.
Speaker 1: We found him. And then she told me that he
Speaker 1: had died in twenty fourteen, just three years before. But
Speaker 1: she said he's got a sister, and his sister looks awesome.
Speaker 1: I found her social media presence and it looks like
Speaker 1: she's a progressive, wonderful person, and I think you and
Speaker 1: she would really get along. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: So she had found a phone number for this person,
Speaker 1: and I called her up and I said, I think
Speaker 1: that your brother might be my father, and she said what,
Speaker 1: And then in the next breath she said, well, welcome
Speaker 1: to the family. And I almost can't even I can't
Speaker 1: even talk about without crying because it's just it was
Speaker 1: so not my experience for this thirty five years. She
Speaker 1: wanted to know everything about me. She was so ecstatic,
Speaker 1: so happy to know me, and I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what to do with it. It was so the opposite of
Speaker 1: everything I had experienced.
Speaker 2: And with Auntie Liz, there were no secrets. It was
Speaker 2: the opposite of secrecy, right suddenly, Yeah, she wanted to
Speaker 2: introduce you to everyone. And welcome to the family wasn't
Speaker 2: just a phrase, it was she enacted it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was big. I went there to meet her
Speaker 1: and it was I don't know, I can't even describe.
Speaker 1: It was such a warm and complete welcome. I had
Speaker 1: to let you, may know, I didn't have to but
Speaker 1: I decided to let her know by the way, I've
Speaker 1: made this discovery through DNA, and I just want to
Speaker 1: let you know that it's been confirmed. And that was
Speaker 1: the next breaking off of this is terrible news. And
Speaker 1: it was another period of I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: to you again. We need to not be in contact anymore.
Speaker 1: And you finally got what you wanted. Go good for you,
Speaker 1: and I got this feeling of I've lost her irrevocably,
Speaker 1: this is it, she'd done, and I'm getting this other family.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't really focus on that because it was like,
Speaker 1: at what cost was this that this just happened? What
Speaker 1: was the cost? I've got this family, They're so wonderful
Speaker 1: to me, they're so welcoming, and it cost her and
Speaker 1: I just had to deal with that again.
Speaker 2: Today. Susan is in her sixties. She's a grandmother, a mother,
Speaker 2: a wife, a niece, an author, and an activist. She
Speaker 2: has a very full life, but the secrets that followed
Speaker 2: her for so long still leave their mark. Many elements
Speaker 2: of her story have been clarified over time, but her
Speaker 2: story is not over.
Speaker 1: It's not over. There are still things that I'm living
Speaker 1: through right now.
Speaker 2: What strikes me is that after a lifetime of being
Speaker 2: a secret, of being compelled and forced to keep a
Speaker 2: secret to be the secret, that the impetus to shape
Speaker 2: the story, tell the story, own the story. Is why
Speaker 2: you didn't own your own story. You didn't have the narrative.
Speaker 2: You didn't have those first hundred days. There was so
Speaker 2: much that you didn't know. I love what you said
Speaker 2: about non adopted privilege because there are things that people
Speaker 2: walk around just assuming are a certain way and don't know, oh,
Speaker 2: any other possibility.
Speaker 1: It's a knowledge that you take for granted, and unless
Speaker 1: you don't have that knowledge, you don't even think about it. Ever,
Speaker 1: you don't even think about it until you don't have something,
Speaker 1: you don't realize what it's like not to have it,
Speaker 1: because it's just something. It's like oxygen. You just breathe
Speaker 1: it part of your life.
Speaker 2: Here's Susan sharing one more passage from her memoir. Here
Speaker 2: she comes as close as she ever will to her
Speaker 2: genetic father, but at least now she knows.
Speaker 1: It traced his name with my fingers. It stabbed at
Speaker 1: me that his death date was no longer than an
Speaker 1: arm's length into the past, had come so close to
Speaker 1: knowing him thirty seven years of searching, only to miss
Speaker 1: him by thirty six months. What would he have done
Speaker 1: with the news of my existence. Maybe it was just
Speaker 1: as well. It could have been a crushing disappointment. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was best this way to be embraced by my
Speaker 1: enthusiastic aunt, a relative who had no secret past, no
Speaker 1: shame or regret. Still, I felt a swirl of overwhelmed
Speaker 1: emotion and numbness as I knelt in the damp grass.
Speaker 1: I unwrapped the cellophane from the chrysanthemums and laid them
Speaker 1: down next to his name. The harsh wind bit through
Speaker 1: my fleece coat. I didn't say anything out loud, but
Speaker 1: inside my head I said hello and goodbye.
Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly's Accur is
Speaker 2: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also
Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder and if you'd
Speaker 2: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
Speaker 2: check out my memoir Inheritance.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.