Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. The
Speaker 1: landscape of my childhood really began with my parents childhood.
Speaker 1: My parents met when they were my mom was fifteen
Speaker 1: or sixteen. They married when she was seventeen, and my
Speaker 1: dad was I think, maybe a sophomore in college or
Speaker 1: maybe a junior in college. And my parents came from
Speaker 1: a predominant African American family in Nashville, Tennessee. My grandfather
Speaker 1: was a biomedical professor at Fisk University, and my parents
Speaker 1: grew up in the Civil rights movement time, of course,
Speaker 1: and this this idea of who you're supposed to be,
Speaker 1: especially as an African American, and this predominant society, I
Speaker 1: guess is the best way that I can kind of
Speaker 1: explain it. Your reputation mattered, what you looked like mattered,
Speaker 1: Everything on the outside mattered so much for being able
Speaker 1: to get along in society. That's Zoe Shaw, psychotherapist, life coach,
Speaker 1: motivational speaker, podcast host, and writer whose work is focused
Speaker 1: on empowering women. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is Family Secrets.
Speaker 1: The secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we
Speaker 1: keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 1: My mother, she was one of the first, I believe,
Speaker 1: the first African American to go through this predominantly white
Speaker 1: Catholic school after Brown versus Board of Education in and
Speaker 1: so she was taught very much that who you are,
Speaker 1: what you do, what is scene is still very important.
Speaker 1: So I was born in Nashville, Tennessee. My dad was
Speaker 1: in medical school at the time that I was. I
Speaker 1: was born, and I'm a second child. My mom was
Speaker 1: in college. My father utilized the Air Force to pay
Speaker 1: for his medical school, so after he graduated from medical school,
Speaker 1: they were stationed in Washington, d c. At Andrew's Air
Speaker 1: Force Base, and so that is where I went when
Speaker 1: I was one year old and lived there until I
Speaker 1: was about eight or nine. And I had a very sheltered, um,
Speaker 1: really just wonderful early childhood. And when my father got
Speaker 1: out of the Air Force, my parents decided to move
Speaker 1: to rural Maryland, a place called Smithsburg, Maryland, which is
Speaker 1: a really really tiny spot next to a slightly bigger
Speaker 1: the town Hagerstown. My father got a job at the
Speaker 1: hospital there, so he was an ear physician. What I
Speaker 1: didn't notice when I was young was that my parents
Speaker 1: had this idea. I think after the Civil Rights movement
Speaker 1: and things had quote changed so much in our society
Speaker 1: that they wanted to raise us without this concept of race.
Speaker 1: And they never spoke about color of skin or race.
Speaker 1: And even more important, my mother went out of her
Speaker 1: way to not speak about it. What do you think
Speaker 1: that was about for your mother? Was it the whole
Speaker 1: idea of it? Just it shouldn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I think it was more of were past, that we
Speaker 1: have gotten behind that, and I want my children to
Speaker 1: not have race be a part of their idea about
Speaker 1: how the way the world works, which sounds good on
Speaker 1: the level, right. It sounds good that they had this
Speaker 1: idea that that we are past that and that doesn't
Speaker 1: matter and shouldn't be a factor in our lives anymore.
Speaker 1: And like I said, had we continued to grow up
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. I think that it might have
Speaker 1: been fine because it never occurred to me. I was
Speaker 1: around other people with different colors and diversity, and I
Speaker 1: didn't feel different. I think that a lot of our
Speaker 1: previous generation was steeped in is also that white is better,
Speaker 1: and so we want better opportunities for our kids. So
Speaker 1: we want to send our children to the better schools,
Speaker 1: to the white school I don't think it's still much now,
Speaker 1: especially in cities anymore, because just because our you know,
Speaker 1: we are a melting pot now, but things are different
Speaker 1: back then, and my parents brought that with them. It
Speaker 1: was really about, I think, wanting the best for us,
Speaker 1: which would have been good had they not been decided
Speaker 1: to move to this place, a very rural, farming community.
Speaker 1: It was all white. There were also a number of Mennonite.
Speaker 1: My parents sent me to a Christian school, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm this little black girl showing up
Speaker 1: from Washington, d c. And the school of all white people,
Speaker 1: many of whom have never really interacted with with a
Speaker 1: black person. And so that was a really big you know,
Speaker 1: it was life changing and I learned a lot of
Speaker 1: things about how other people perceived me, and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot of things about blackness, and I learned a
Speaker 1: lot um that affected my self esteem, you know, as
Speaker 1: a child. That dawning realization, or maybe it wasn't dawning,
Speaker 1: maybe it was sudden, Like what did that feel like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was dawning because I didn't go and
Speaker 1: expecting that, and you know, me going into a sea
Speaker 1: of white people wasn't really an issue necessarily until the
Speaker 1: things started being said and the questions started being asked.
Speaker 1: The best way I can describe it as shame, I realized,
Speaker 1: or I began to feel a sense of Oh, these
Speaker 1: people think that I am not as good as they are.
Speaker 1: These people think that I am less than Oh, this
Speaker 1: is how they see me. So I think I think
Speaker 1: the best way to say it is shame, which in
Speaker 1: a healthy family of color or family of difference, parents
Speaker 1: are there and able to kind of reinforce some sense
Speaker 1: of good and pride and who you are. And that
Speaker 1: is something that my parents did not do because they
Speaker 1: did not want to talk about color or race. And
Speaker 1: so we, meaning my brother and my sister, knew very
Speaker 1: clearly that these were things we couldn't talk about with
Speaker 1: our parents, and there was nothing in our environment that
Speaker 1: allowed us to kind of work it out. We had
Speaker 1: to work it out within ourselves, and it wasn't even
Speaker 1: anything we talked about with each other either. Kids who
Speaker 1: grow up in families in which certain subjects are simply
Speaker 1: off limits quickly learn that they have to send for
Speaker 1: themselves to make matters more complicated. After a fairly garden
Speaker 1: variety church going Episcopalian upbringing. When the family moves to Maryland,
Speaker 1: Zoe's mom converts to an evangelical church, adding fuel to
Speaker 1: the fire. We started going to church where a pastor,
Speaker 1: you know, with a red face would shake his head
Speaker 1: and speak in tongues and people would uh, you know,
Speaker 1: raise their hands. And so I'm learning about who I am,
Speaker 1: you know, and what this means about the color of
Speaker 1: my skin. And then I'm in this environment where I'm
Speaker 1: learning about God in a very different way than I
Speaker 1: learned about him back when we were in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And I later also learned that the pastor didn't believe
Speaker 1: in the mixing of races. And so then the message
Speaker 1: I got was God loves you, but not as much
Speaker 1: as he loves the white people. And so all of that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a landscape that I grew up in,
Speaker 1: and it explains a lot about just my self esteem
Speaker 1: and you know, my family history going into my adolescence
Speaker 1: as things begin to unfold because you internalize that shame.
Speaker 1: The shape of the shame is not just they think
Speaker 1: I'm not as good as they are, but if they
Speaker 1: all think I'm not as good as they are. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not as good as they are, then maybe I'm not. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that was always a question. There was always
Speaker 1: this seed of this little fire, the seed of indignation
Speaker 1: that knew better, but it was overshadowed for the most
Speaker 1: part and most of my you know, growing up years
Speaker 1: from nine until you know, twenty and so, yes, that
Speaker 1: question is always there. Am I not? Am I not
Speaker 1: as good? Well? Yeah, I mean I think when you're
Speaker 1: a child, you don't have any defenses against that. And
Speaker 1: as you said, if your parents are into place that
Speaker 1: you can go to unpack some of this stuff, then
Speaker 1: you're left, you know, we are left to contend with
Speaker 1: it on our own, and we don't have the tools
Speaker 1: for it. We don't. And you know, my parents, because
Speaker 1: I know, you know, like most parents do, is they
Speaker 1: do what they think is right, They do what they
Speaker 1: think is the best they felt. I think that they
Speaker 1: were going into this kind of environment and society to
Speaker 1: prove them wrong, that they were going to somehow teach
Speaker 1: our pastor that black people are just as good. But
Speaker 1: my parents had tools that we didn't have, and they
Speaker 1: didn't even give us any. And so I think what
Speaker 1: they did in some ways it could be respected. It's
Speaker 1: just the way they went about it that wasn't productive.
Speaker 1: Zoe attends a private school that's all white. Then she
Speaker 1: goes to a public junior high school where some black
Speaker 1: kids are busted in from other neighborhoods and come from
Speaker 1: backgrounds and environments that are very different from Zoe's. She
Speaker 1: doesn't quite know what to make of them, and they
Speaker 1: definitely don't know what to make of her, so they're
Speaker 1: mean to her and call her names. They called me Oreo,
Speaker 1: black on the outside, white on the inside. And I
Speaker 1: was in this place of desperately wanting them to um
Speaker 1: accept me and then also not understanding anything about who
Speaker 1: they were at the same time, and so I just
Speaker 1: kind of pushed myself away from them, and I felt
Speaker 1: like they were the mama bird who sniffs the bay,
Speaker 1: you know, the babies, and figures out there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with them and pushes them out of the nest. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of both of them pushing me away and
Speaker 1: me pushing them away, and then me grappling again with
Speaker 1: who am I right? I don't belong either place because
Speaker 1: I don't really understand them, and they don't really understand me,
Speaker 1: but then I'm not white and just really trying to
Speaker 1: struggle and find my place. And how do you metabolize
Speaker 1: that during that time? Does it make you retreat? Does
Speaker 1: it make you work harder and want to excel? It
Speaker 1: made me push myself away from them and attempt themhow
Speaker 1: to not identify with them? And I think the way
Speaker 1: that I dealt with it was to push them away
Speaker 1: and to attempt to assimilate and be accepted as much
Speaker 1: as I can. I think one of the benefits was
Speaker 1: that I was also a very excellent athlete. I fell
Speaker 1: tremendously and I poured a lot of myself into my athletics,
Speaker 1: and I put a lot of myself into my academics
Speaker 1: and found acceptance that way. I think that that helped,
Speaker 1: because you know, obviously I have succeeded um and got
Speaker 1: a lot of accolades from that, and that attention may
Speaker 1: be helped. But I think it also the way that
Speaker 1: it didn't help is that it didn't allow me to
Speaker 1: value and honor myself as a person who I was.
Speaker 1: It was for what I could do and what I
Speaker 1: could provide. When Zoe's fourteen, she meets a boy, an
Speaker 1: older boy named Finny at her brother's wrestling match. Z
Speaker 1: We had been interested in boys before, but many were white,
Speaker 1: and they said things like, if you weren't black, I'd
Speaker 1: date you. For Zoe, this creates uncertainty and secretiveness around
Speaker 1: who she's attracted to and who's attracted to her. Things
Speaker 1: were changing a little bit when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: such that a white girl would date a black guy,
Speaker 1: and that was a little more accepted, but white guys
Speaker 1: were not interested in dating black girls. I didn't ever
Speaker 1: see that happen, and so I understood that my skin
Speaker 1: color made me off limits, unattractive, and maybe not unattractive,
Speaker 1: but it had to be secret. If I was going
Speaker 1: to be in relationship with someone, it had to be secret.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to meeting Vinny. And this is a
Speaker 1: black guy. He's in college, he's attractive, and he took
Speaker 1: an interest in me. We just started talking and he
Speaker 1: asked me my phone number, and I tried to be
Speaker 1: coy and I told him my last name and that
Speaker 1: he could find me in the phone book, never thinking
Speaker 1: that he actually would. Um and we set our good guys,
Speaker 1: and a few days later he called me. We began
Speaker 1: a m We begin a relationship. It's interesting because I
Speaker 1: pause because I remember, you know, when he called me,
Speaker 1: one of the first things he asked me was how
Speaker 1: was your day? And that, in a very odd way,
Speaker 1: threw me for a loop because no man had asked me, ever,
Speaker 1: how my day was. Just think about that for a
Speaker 1: sec such a simple question, right, how was your day?
Speaker 1: And Yet for Zoe, this is something new, something she's
Speaker 1: not used to being asked, not even when she was
Speaker 1: growing up by her own father. My father was a brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant man, but he had a lot of pain, and
Speaker 1: he came from a very difficult um family situation, a
Speaker 1: narcissistic mother, and my father adored my mother, and he
Speaker 1: really didn't have any space in his life to love
Speaker 1: anyone else. And I say love in terms of an
Speaker 1: action bird. My father loved me, and I know he
Speaker 1: loved me, but we didn't really have a relationship, and
Speaker 1: he didn't really have much of a relationship with any
Speaker 1: of us, my brother and my sister. He was a workaholic,
Speaker 1: and so I also grew up with what I called
Speaker 1: baddie lust, which I didn't really discover until I was
Speaker 1: twelve and I visited a friend and we spent the
Speaker 1: night and got up in the morning, and her dad
Speaker 1: was like making us pancakes, and he knew my name,
Speaker 1: and he was asking us questions like he was interested
Speaker 1: in us, And I was fascinated. I had never seen
Speaker 1: that where a father was that interested in their child.
Speaker 1: You know. My father would often ask me how old
Speaker 1: I was, and he didn't know the names of my friends,
Speaker 1: you know, and he definitely didn't ask you how your
Speaker 1: day had been. No, no, he didn't. So you know,
Speaker 1: I had this combo of self esteem issues, identity issues,
Speaker 1: daddy lust and it was just the perfect storm for
Speaker 1: meeting Vinny. And then he was black, but he didn't
Speaker 1: know that I wasn't, you know, like the other people.
Speaker 1: And eventually, as he got to know me, he just
Speaker 1: accepted me, and he would joke about the things. He
Speaker 1: would say, you know, you grew up in a bubble,
Speaker 1: or he somehow accepted the fact that I us been
Speaker 1: I didn't know my culture like I should, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't like everybody else. We'll be right back. Zoe
Speaker 1: and Vinnie have both grown up in religious homes. Where
Speaker 1: shall we say, sex before marriage is frowned upon a
Speaker 1: great deal of emphasis is placed on purity, especially purity
Speaker 1: for women. I knew very clearly that my mother was
Speaker 1: a virgin when she married my mother. My parents were
Speaker 1: sure to let me know. It's funny because I don't
Speaker 1: know if my dad was. Nobody ever talked about that is,
Speaker 1: the fact didn't seem to matter as much. But my
Speaker 1: mother was a virgin when she married my father, and
Speaker 1: of course I was expected to do the same. But
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. Me and I, you know, developed a
Speaker 1: sexual relationship, and within a year of dating, I became pregnant.
Speaker 1: And you were how old I was fifteen when I
Speaker 1: became pregnant. You know. When I met Benny, I actually
Speaker 1: lied to him about my age then he was must
Speaker 1: have been eighteen. I told him I was fifteen, even
Speaker 1: though I wasn't really yet. I was probably, I don't
Speaker 1: know a few months from that. And we started dating
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen. So you can't fathom telling your parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just that's just not something that you're
Speaker 1: going to do initially, right. I was actually very much
Speaker 1: praised for being the easy, good girl, and I always was.
Speaker 1: I got good grades, I didn't give my parents any trouble.
Speaker 1: I obeyed them, and so this for me too, now
Speaker 1: become pregnant, you have disobeyed them, and probably the worst way,
Speaker 1: in my opinion at that time, UM was really devastating
Speaker 1: for me. On top of just the shame of what
Speaker 1: I had done. So I could not figure out how
Speaker 1: to form those words to tell my parents. Back then,
Speaker 1: there were not you know, pregnancy test you could just
Speaker 1: pick up at the drug store. And so I I
Speaker 1: skipped school and I went to a pregnancy clinic, Crisis
Speaker 1: pregnancy clinic, where they confirmed that I was pregnant. I
Speaker 1: told Benny and we planned to get an abortion. Now
Speaker 1: I was also the child who had walked in anti
Speaker 1: abortion marches, and um, remember we're an evangelical Christian, we
Speaker 1: don't believe in abortion. My mom and dad donated to
Speaker 1: Jerry Fallwell. They were like a premier, silver gold whatever,
Speaker 1: donators to Jerry Fallwell's pregnancy home and his mission to
Speaker 1: save babies. So I also came out of that that
Speaker 1: culture her. And so here I was at fifteen now
Speaker 1: deciding I'm willing to get an abortion because I can't
Speaker 1: do this. I can't tell my parents, I can't ruin
Speaker 1: my my life. You know, I've done the simple thing,
Speaker 1: and I have to hide it. And so we planned
Speaker 1: to do that, and then he saved up his money
Speaker 1: and um I he picked me up from the school
Speaker 1: on the day that we had scheduled the appointment and
Speaker 1: he drove me to the clinic. Then he stayed in
Speaker 1: the in the waiting room and I went inside. And
Speaker 1: when you go in, there was you know, a group
Speaker 1: of other girls, and we had to do this little
Speaker 1: group where they quote counsel you before you get the abortion.
Speaker 1: And in the beginning, the nurse passed out these little
Speaker 1: pills to everyone and said to take this medication. I
Speaker 1: guess it was going to relax you or something prior
Speaker 1: to the procedure. And the first thing I did was
Speaker 1: I looked at her and I said, well, this pill
Speaker 1: hurt the baby. And I remember she looked at me
Speaker 1: with this expression of do you know you're just kid
Speaker 1: what you're getting ready to do, and you're asking me
Speaker 1: if this skill is going to hurt the baby. And
Speaker 1: it was also the first inkling for me that I
Speaker 1: was a mother who was already kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: this fetus as my child already concerned. So here I
Speaker 1: am carrying these two you know, the echonomy is walking
Speaker 1: myself into the abortion room. And I got on the
Speaker 1: table and the doctor came in, and um, they began
Speaker 1: to set up and need his ultrasound, and and he
Speaker 1: did make a mention that I was really far along,
Speaker 1: but that he could still do it because the baby
Speaker 1: was small. And before I could, even before I could
Speaker 1: process my thoughts, my words just tumbled out and I
Speaker 1: sat up and I just said I can't do this.
Speaker 1: I've changed my mind. And the doctor was very irritable,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me and he, you know, just said,
Speaker 1: you know, you've wasted my time and you're too far along,
Speaker 1: and if you come back here, I'm not treating you,
Speaker 1: and good luck, although I felt like he was wishing
Speaker 1: me something other than luck. And I literally jumped off
Speaker 1: the table, grabbed my socks and shoes and ran out
Speaker 1: of there into the lobby. And then he's looking at me,
Speaker 1: why do I like, is it over already? And I
Speaker 1: told him I'm not doing it. I changed my mind,
Speaker 1: and he, you know, he was really just wonderful and
Speaker 1: he was like, okay, Um. He put his arm around
Speaker 1: me and we walked out of the place, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what to do from there. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I tell that story, I'm always cognizant of the
Speaker 1: woman who has gotten the abortion, because in that moment,
Speaker 1: I know because of the history of me and my parents,
Speaker 1: and my family and and and my religion, and all
Speaker 1: of those things led me to be in a place
Speaker 1: where I couldn't do it. But I just want to say,
Speaker 1: because so many of us have our own shame and
Speaker 1: secrets around um things with sex and abortions and and
Speaker 1: things like that, that there's just no judgment because we
Speaker 1: all we all make our choices largely because of our
Speaker 1: influences that were not even fully aware of, And so
Speaker 1: I just have no judgment for any woman who who
Speaker 1: would and has and will make a choice like that.
Speaker 1: When Zoe and Vinnie leaves a clinic, his arm protectively
Speaker 1: around her, z he has a fantasy she and Vinnie
Speaker 1: will run away and find a castle with all live
Speaker 1: happily ever after. But as with most fantasies, reality comes
Speaker 1: crashing through, and the reality is that Zoe has volleyball
Speaker 1: practice and school. The reality is that she has parents
Speaker 1: at home who have no idea what's going on. The
Speaker 1: reality is that Zoe is still pregnant. I don't think
Speaker 1: that I had any idea what I was going to do.
Speaker 1: I think I just went straight into a sense of denial,
Speaker 1: and so I literally said nothing, and I continued on,
Speaker 1: and I finished my volleyball season. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: reaching to get a ball and landing flat on my
Speaker 1: stomach and feeling the baby pressed into me so strongly,
Speaker 1: and remembering, oh, okay, there's someone there. It was in
Speaker 1: December when I started track practice, and by then I
Speaker 1: was able to wear sweatshirts, was getting cold on in Maryland,
Speaker 1: and I was almost discovered once at track practice because
Speaker 1: my coach was gonna put this device around my stomach
Speaker 1: to do these lifting things, and I remember slowly taking
Speaker 1: off my sweatshirt and looking at him to see if
Speaker 1: he noticed. Over time, my mom figured it out. She
Speaker 1: asked me one day, Zoe, are you pregnant? She literally
Speaker 1: just said those words, and I'm sure there were plenty
Speaker 1: of signs um and even still I couldn't tell her yes.
Speaker 1: So I allowed my poor mom to me to another
Speaker 1: pregnancy center, where another kind lady told us that I
Speaker 1: was pregnant. How far along were you when your mother
Speaker 1: asked you that question? I must have been four or
Speaker 1: five months those around December, and I was doing may
Speaker 1: so and there at the clinic. I had this idea
Speaker 1: that somehow my mom being there would make this all
Speaker 1: go away, that maybe I wasn't really pregnant and she
Speaker 1: would tell us that. But of course that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I sat there and she told me what I already knew,
Speaker 1: and my mom was quiet. I thought about what happened
Speaker 1: in the abortion clinic, because in the abortion clinic, because
Speaker 1: I was under age, the woman asked. The woman said,
Speaker 1: you can't get an abortion at fourteen without your parents consent.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking, oh, okay, well great, well I'm
Speaker 1: going home. That's solved. And then she said, well, wait,
Speaker 1: if you sign this paper and it says that you
Speaker 1: know you fear that if you disclose your pregnancy to
Speaker 1: your parents that you will be hurt in some way
Speaker 1: or abused or something, then you can sign that and
Speaker 1: it's fine that the law allows that. And I remember
Speaker 1: feeling so horrible and guilty for signing that paperwork, but
Speaker 1: I kind of rationalized it in my mind. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: if I tell my parents, you know, Bill drop dead
Speaker 1: and we won't have any parents to take care of us,
Speaker 1: and somehow that will be dangerous. So okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to sign it. But the contrast of my mom's actual
Speaker 1: response and the pregnancy clinic was quiet, sad and disappointed, um,
Speaker 1: which is is typical for my mom. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I just sat there with shame and sadness, and I
Speaker 1: felt very much a burden in that moment. On the
Speaker 1: way home from the clinic, Zoe and her mom make
Speaker 1: a stop. They go to Dairy Queen, which used to
Speaker 1: be a wonderful treat when Zoe was a child old,
Speaker 1: but now all that childlike wonder is gone. Over ice cream.
Speaker 1: Zoe apologizes to her mom and tells her she wishes
Speaker 1: she could go away just so her parents won't have
Speaker 1: to deal with her predicament. Zoey's mom tells her that
Speaker 1: she and her father will talk about it. Her mom
Speaker 1: doesn't say much else, she remains quiet disappointed. In the
Speaker 1: coming weeks, her parents tell Zoe that they will in
Speaker 1: fact be sending her away, having had pre marital sex
Speaker 1: and becoming pregnant. They see Zoe as a bad influence
Speaker 1: on her younger sister, so plans are made off she
Speaker 1: will go to a pregnancy home, and so I had
Speaker 1: to go. And you know, in my mind at that time,
Speaker 1: I understood, because I understood that I was tainted. I
Speaker 1: understood that, you know, I had done this sinful thing,
Speaker 1: and that I deserved this. Was Bennie still in your
Speaker 1: life at that point? He was, Yes, Benny was still
Speaker 1: in my life. Um. And I remember feeling disappointed because
Speaker 1: remember my fantasy about us running away to a cast
Speaker 1: bowl together, and I wanted him to somehow swoop in
Speaker 1: and and say, you know, no, this is my child
Speaker 1: and I want to marry you. And I were not
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let this happen. And none of
Speaker 1: that happened. He was very much an agreement. I later
Speaker 1: found out, maybe seven ten years later, that my father
Speaker 1: had gone to Vinnie in private and said, if you
Speaker 1: contest any of this, I will accuse you of statutory
Speaker 1: rate and you know, basically I will destroy you if
Speaker 1: you can test any of this. We are doing this
Speaker 1: because he was he was over He was nineteen at
Speaker 1: that time and I was fifteen. He said, we are
Speaker 1: doing this in Zoey's best interest, and so he agreed.
Speaker 1: And of course I didn't know that at that time,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like he didn't care. But yes,
Speaker 1: we were still together. And I started preparing to leave,
Speaker 1: and my parents told me that they were going to
Speaker 1: tell everyone that I was going to boarding school. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing stories from my mom about girls who got
Speaker 1: in trouble and what happened to them. And from my
Speaker 1: mom's experience, if a girl got pregnant as a teenager
Speaker 1: and her society at least she disappeared. You didn't see
Speaker 1: her anymore. And so I think that on some level,
Speaker 1: my mom was just continuing what she understood to be
Speaker 1: the way that you deal with these things. And so
Speaker 1: my parents um packed me up and they took me
Speaker 1: for five hours away to Lynchburg, Virginia to Jerry Fallwells
Speaker 1: Liberty god Parent Home for pregnant women, and um that's
Speaker 1: where I spent the duration of my pregnancy. So my coach, UM,
Speaker 1: my teachers, the school, our church, family, everyone was told
Speaker 1: that I went to reading school. Now I was told
Speaker 1: that my siblings are also told that I went to
Speaker 1: boarding school. I later found out maybe three years ago,
Speaker 1: I found out that my parents had actually told my
Speaker 1: siblings that I had a psychiatric breakdown and I had
Speaker 1: to go to a psychiatric hospital. In some ways, this
Speaker 1: is understandable because number one, my parents probably wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have sent me to a boarding school for no reason.
Speaker 1: But probably the most important is that they couldn't visit me,
Speaker 1: And so my parents had to come up with a
Speaker 1: reason why they couldn't visit me, and their reason was
Speaker 1: because I was in a psychiatric hospital. So your siblings then,
Speaker 1: for all of those years following, had their own secret
Speaker 1: that they kept. Correct. Yeah, I mean secrets, create secrets,
Speaker 1: create secrets. It's really something they do. They do. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in a moment with more family secrets. Zoe
Speaker 1: is terrified when she arrives at the pregnancy home, but
Speaker 1: she also feels deserving of this as her punishment. She
Speaker 1: understands why she's been banished. Most of the other girls
Speaker 1: there are from low socioeconomic backgrounds. It's very institutional, and
Speaker 1: yet again Zoe feels out of place. Despite this, there's
Speaker 1: a camaraderie among the girls, though the air circumstances may vary.
Speaker 1: They're all kind to one another, but still, there's more
Speaker 1: going on at the pregnancy home than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: I felt like we were all taking time bombs in
Speaker 1: a way, because there was this other layer of secrecy
Speaker 1: within the Liberty god Parent Home because it was also
Speaker 1: directly attached I mean all of it housed together with
Speaker 1: an adoption agency. So the goal, of course was for
Speaker 1: you to come in, have your baby, place your baby
Speaker 1: for adoption through their adoption agency, and leave. And we
Speaker 1: are we weren't allowed to communicate with the girls who
Speaker 1: had left um and so you know, you would make
Speaker 1: friends with somebody, and when they got close to do date,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd wake up in the morning to check
Speaker 1: and see is your friend gone? Did they disappear? Are
Speaker 1: they still here? And there wasn't communication afterwards, and they
Speaker 1: didn't want us to because you know, to some extent,
Speaker 1: they didn't really want us to be able to hear
Speaker 1: about what's it like on the other side once you've
Speaker 1: given your child away. Why was it called the Liberty
Speaker 1: god Parent Home? What was the god parents part of it?
Speaker 1: The god parent home? The idea was that they are
Speaker 1: saving babies and essentially kind of becoming their god parents
Speaker 1: and taking care of babies. You know, I have a
Speaker 1: number of mixed failings about all of that part, partly
Speaker 1: because I was a part of that Liberty Godparent Home
Speaker 1: didn't save any babies. Although I understand the drive with
Speaker 1: people who are anti abortion to want to save babies.
Speaker 1: I understand that. But Liberty Guard god parent Home didn't
Speaker 1: even accept you in the home until you were past
Speaker 1: the period where you could even have an abortion. And
Speaker 1: then there's of course the other whole idea of that,
Speaker 1: of the fact that you know, a baby raised by
Speaker 1: a single mom. Isn't you know, that's not okay that
Speaker 1: we should take these babies and put them in home,
Speaker 1: you know, with two parents. But you know, it was
Speaker 1: the nineteen well, early nineties at that point. It's so
Speaker 1: interesting because you just said it was the early nineties.
Speaker 1: You could have said it was the early nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: You're right, because it was. Actually it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the nineteen fifties. It was it was that
Speaker 1: time period. But yeah, and I very much felt like
Speaker 1: I was caught up in that now looking back, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of after we moved to to Higgerstown, so that
Speaker 1: was the culture, you know, and the understanding is that
Speaker 1: I'm going to place my baby for adoption, and you
Speaker 1: had some agency, so to speak, in the choice of
Speaker 1: adoptive parents. So you know, when you say agency, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting word because never once did anybody say you
Speaker 1: have to do this and you have no no choice.
Speaker 1: It was always we're going to help you make your decision.
Speaker 1: And there was no help with how could you bring
Speaker 1: a baby home? How could you not place your baby
Speaker 1: for adoption? But there was this idea that you were
Speaker 1: making this choice and they were going to help you
Speaker 1: make this choice. Now, my mom did send me a
Speaker 1: letter that was very clear when I was in the
Speaker 1: home that if I were to try or want to
Speaker 1: bring this baby home, that our relationship as mother and
Speaker 1: daughter would forever be changed. Um And ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the guilt and shame that I took
Speaker 1: with me after this whole process was a feeling like
Speaker 1: I had somehow chosen my mother over my child. And
Speaker 1: for me, that didn't feel okay. But I felt that
Speaker 1: I had to choose her over my child because I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do anything differently. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how I could leave and run off to the castle
Speaker 1: and take care of, you know, my baby. So you know,
Speaker 1: we had therapy and we had a process of making
Speaker 1: your decision, and then you know, when I said what
Speaker 1: what I was supposed to say? Which is our place
Speaker 1: my baby? Then they presented me with a book with
Speaker 1: pictures of really kind looking couples, and I remember thinking
Speaker 1: of that time. My parents would never pick a babysitter
Speaker 1: for me by looking at a bunch of pictures of girls,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm picking parents from my child by looking
Speaker 1: at a bunch of pictures. And maybe it's a paragraph
Speaker 1: about who they are. And so I picked the nice
Speaker 1: looking couple and waited for my baby to be born.
Speaker 1: When Zoe goes into labor, she's in a therapy session
Speaker 1: at the home. Her therapist, Jamie, is the one who
Speaker 1: takes her to the hospital. No one else is available. Jamie,
Speaker 1: a young social worker in her twenties, shuffles Zoe into
Speaker 1: her cool little sports car, but first she puts a
Speaker 1: plastic bag on the car seat, just in case Zoe's
Speaker 1: water brakes. And so I'm getting in this you know car,
Speaker 1: sitting on this plastic bag. I'm, you know, sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm in store for. But Jamie,
Speaker 1: bless her heart, sat with me through probably at least
Speaker 1: half of my labor, at least four hours, until my
Speaker 1: mom could drive to get there. Now, prior to my
Speaker 1: mom getting there, a nurse had given me some um
Speaker 1: pain medication. It was just a pill. Nobody offered me
Speaker 1: an epidural. Nobody offered me anything else that They did
Speaker 1: offer me some pill, and I took the pill and
Speaker 1: it did seem to help a little bit. By the
Speaker 1: time my mom got there, I was really in the
Speaker 1: throes of labor and Jamie took off, and I had
Speaker 1: asked for something for the pain, and my mom just
Speaker 1: shook her head, just just shook her head. Now what
Speaker 1: did you make of that shake of your mother's head.
Speaker 1: I just internalized it as I deserved this, I needed
Speaker 1: to feel it. I needed to experience all of the
Speaker 1: pain of what I had. You know, this was my
Speaker 1: punishment that I shouldn't be relieved of this experience. And
Speaker 1: I think, probably to some extent, that is true. My mother,
Speaker 1: though in her defense, she had all three of her
Speaker 1: children without pain medication, But in that moment, I perceived
Speaker 1: it as no, you don't get to have at And
Speaker 1: I just remember the deep shame I felt in that
Speaker 1: moment when my mom shook her head no, And I
Speaker 1: went through the rest of my labor. You know, without
Speaker 1: any pain medication, and so my daughter was born, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was just such a sober, just a sober,
Speaker 1: such a sober experience. You know, there was no excitement,
Speaker 1: there was no congratulations. You know, they weren't smiled. I think,
Speaker 1: no matter how old you are, when you have a child,
Speaker 1: you're not prepared for the aftermath, you know, the war
Speaker 1: zone that your body is. But I think there was
Speaker 1: a level of trauma that was probably increased after that
Speaker 1: experience because I was so young, and um. I just
Speaker 1: remember seeing my body, you know, the day after and
Speaker 1: just thinking what what have I done? And the thing
Speaker 1: with the home is once you have the baby, they
Speaker 1: want you to leave as soon as possible. They don't
Speaker 1: want you to stay for obvious reasons. They don't want
Speaker 1: you to connect with the baby, they don't want you
Speaker 1: to change your mind. And my mom was totally on
Speaker 1: board for all of that. The social worker from the
Speaker 1: agency came and said, it's better if you just leave
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. I remember there was this doctor,
Speaker 1: that's young doctor. Um. I was in the room and
Speaker 1: my daughter, I named her Kaya. Her name is different now,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if I was holding her, if
Speaker 1: she was in the bassinet that he just kind of
Speaker 1: flew into the room and he was like a breath
Speaker 1: of fresh air, and he was all smiled, and he
Speaker 1: congratulated me, and he said, what a beautiful baby I have,
Speaker 1: what a wonderful mom I'm going to be. He did
Speaker 1: all of her vitals and just wished me the best
Speaker 1: and left the room. And I remember thinking he didn't
Speaker 1: see in the file, he didn't see that I'm placing her.
Speaker 1: And I remember just thinking, I hope that he never
Speaker 1: reads that. I hope that that stays a reality somewhere
Speaker 1: in his mind forever, because he was the only brightness.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody else was just bar all the nurses
Speaker 1: and everybody that came in because they knew that I
Speaker 1: was placing her. So we packed up really quickly, and
Speaker 1: I did that walk. I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how better to explain. It was just like a walk
Speaker 1: towards death, almost, you know, I was conscious of every
Speaker 1: single step as I was left the hospital that I
Speaker 1: was putting distance between myself and my baby. Zoe and
Speaker 1: her mother head downstairs to leave the hospital. So we
Speaker 1: waits by the exit while her mother goes to get
Speaker 1: the car. And then suddenly her mom zips around the
Speaker 1: corner in a brand new vehicle, a shiny red Pontiac Fiero,
Speaker 1: a push present for her daughter, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: of course, it's a two seater. I couldn't bring a
Speaker 1: baby home if I wanted to. And she presented me
Speaker 1: with my present, which I suppose was supposed to be
Speaker 1: for my sixteenth birthday, and I remember thanking her and
Speaker 1: hugging her and crying. Although I wasn't crying because I
Speaker 1: got a new sports car. I was crying, of course,
Speaker 1: because of all of what was transpiring in that moment.
Speaker 1: And we got in my new sports car and we
Speaker 1: drove away. Before we got home, we stopped at a
Speaker 1: hotel and we had to stay there for a few days,
Speaker 1: and my mom bought girdles to put around me so that,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody could tell that I was pregnant when
Speaker 1: I got back home. And I went back home, and yes,
Speaker 1: I did my very best to try to pretend like
Speaker 1: everything was normal. And a couple of months later, my
Speaker 1: mom took me to a restaurant um and sat down
Speaker 1: and told me that the home that I had picked
Speaker 1: for my daughter, that the parents had changed their minds,
Speaker 1: and all this time I thought she was with them.
Speaker 1: And I found out that she and fact left the
Speaker 1: hospital to go to foster home because that was the
Speaker 1: way they did it. Then that the baby doesn't go
Speaker 1: directly into the foster home. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: has to do with paperwork or whatever, so she left
Speaker 1: or I'm also not clear if maybe there wasn't actually
Speaker 1: a family, you know, I don't know that information. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: my daughter was a few months old and had been
Speaker 1: raised by strangers who were never going to keep her. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm living in this three story, you know, home with
Speaker 1: this family, and my daughter's in foster care. So my
Speaker 1: mom told me that the parents changed their mind and
Speaker 1: that they had another set of parents, and I had
Speaker 1: to sign some paperwork two agree that this next set
Speaker 1: of parents could have her instead. And I remember looking
Speaker 1: at my mom and I remember saying, can we just
Speaker 1: go get her? Please? Can we just go get her?
Speaker 1: And my mom said nothing, She just shook her head
Speaker 1: and I didn't say anything else, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I kicked myself for a while after that because I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was little, I would beg my
Speaker 1: mom if I wanted to go stay at a friend's house. Mom,
Speaker 1: Please please please. I learned how to say, you know, please, please, please,
Speaker 1: until sometimes she'd give it, and I kind of I
Speaker 1: kind of kicked myself because I feel like I didn't
Speaker 1: fight hard enough. I said it, but I know that
Speaker 1: that there was so much shame in that it was
Speaker 1: hard for me to even ask her please. And you know,
Speaker 1: when she denied me, I guess there just wasn't enough
Speaker 1: fight in me to try to push more. Do you
Speaker 1: think it would have made any difference. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I doubt it. Time marches inexorably forward. Zoe goes to
Speaker 1: college and eventually marries a man twenty years for senior.
Speaker 1: Her daddy lust, the kind women so often feel when
Speaker 1: their own fathers have been withholding dictating her choices. She
Speaker 1: does tell her husband about her secret history, but his
Speaker 1: response isn't exactly freeing. He basically just wants to pretend
Speaker 1: that it never happened. Sound familiar. Now, As a therapist,
Speaker 1: Zoe understands so much more about the choices we make.
Speaker 1: They tend to underscore the feelings we already have about ourselves.
Speaker 1: In this case, his reaction just deepens the red in
Speaker 1: her scarlet letter. They move forward, leaving the past in
Speaker 1: the past and start their family life, having two sons
Speaker 1: and then a daughter. And of course, you know, after
Speaker 1: giving up my daughter, there's always a part of me
Speaker 1: that wanted to have a daughter um of my own
Speaker 1: that I could keep, and so we were all so
Speaker 1: very excited. I feel like, both my mom and I
Speaker 1: and everyone in the family this was going to be
Speaker 1: the only daughter, because my brother had three sons and
Speaker 1: I had had two sons, and I think there was
Speaker 1: a sense of exoneration when we found out I was
Speaker 1: having a girl. But unfortunately, when my daughter was born,
Speaker 1: we didn't know at the time, but she was born
Speaker 1: with the severe genetic disorder called crowd Willy syndrome, and
Speaker 1: she was in the nicke and barely surviving for many weeks.
Speaker 1: And I felt this crushing sense of I am being punished,
Speaker 1: and now my daughter is being punished. Of course, God
Speaker 1: wouldn't give me a healthy baby girl. Of course, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a trick. And I sat with that for
Speaker 1: many years, and so yes, then you know, I dove
Speaker 1: into being a mom of a special needs child and
Speaker 1: trying to grapple with that in all of my shame
Speaker 1: and my guilt surrounding that for a number of years.
Speaker 1: Here Zoe is again faced with intense shame and the
Speaker 1: sense that she's being punished, as well as a profound loneliness,
Speaker 1: the isolation that comes from raising a child with special needs,
Speaker 1: and to this the heavy guilt she still carries from
Speaker 1: her secret child, the healthy daughter she had given birth
Speaker 1: to years ago. All moms, you know, we have our
Speaker 1: own built about all things with our parenting. If I
Speaker 1: had not eaten this, if I had done this differently,
Speaker 1: you know, if if if with any issues that our
Speaker 1: kids might have, but and special needs moms, I think
Speaker 1: have another layer of that. And then I additionally had
Speaker 1: another layer on top of that that wasn't healthy for me.
Speaker 1: And it certainly wasn't healthy I think for for my
Speaker 1: daughter for an number of years because I just parented
Speaker 1: her with just so much guilt. But yeah, that those
Speaker 1: layers were definitely there, and they were in silence because
Speaker 1: none of my friends knew. My very best friends, she
Speaker 1: and I went through both of our early pregnancies together,
Speaker 1: and she thought that we both went through our very
Speaker 1: first pregnancy together. So yes, nobody knew, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of that was very much kept in secret, but
Speaker 1: so we manages. She's strong, stronger than her secrets. She
Speaker 1: built her very busy family life and is thriving in
Speaker 1: her career as a psychotherapist as well. And one day, well,
Speaker 1: one day, her birth daughter finds her and reaches out.
Speaker 1: Her name is Sarah. She found me through Facebook. Um,
Speaker 1: she actually found her father first because I was private
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I don't remember how she found out his
Speaker 1: name because it was a closed adoption. There were letters
Speaker 1: that went back and forth for the first year too,
Speaker 1: and identifying information was blacked out, but sometimes they went
Speaker 1: felt great about blacking out some of the things. I mean,
Speaker 1: someone in the agency would just go through with the
Speaker 1: marker and just black things out and then they'd spend
Speaker 1: it off, you know. Um, so maybe that's how she
Speaker 1: was doing some detective work. Clearly correct. Yes, And she
Speaker 1: found him. And I was homeschooling my kids in the
Speaker 1: middle of a normal homeschool day and I get a
Speaker 1: call from Denny, who I rarely ever heard from, um,
Speaker 1: and he said, I have our daughter on the line.
Speaker 1: And I remember I just just my feet just left
Speaker 1: from under man. Before I knew it, I was just
Speaker 1: plopped straight down on the ground, um, and I heard
Speaker 1: her voice and she said Hi, as simple as that
Speaker 1: eighteen years later, you know. And so we started a conversation.
Speaker 1: And I remember I went into my closet and I
Speaker 1: shut the door, and I thanked down on the closet
Speaker 1: floor and I was talking to her and whispers because
Speaker 1: remember nobody, my kids don't know, um, that they have
Speaker 1: a sibling out there. Um. But Sarah and I began
Speaker 1: to get to know each other, and eventually we met
Speaker 1: for the first time. I told my husband and he was,
Speaker 1: you know, not very interested in any of it, and
Speaker 1: certainly didn't want us to tell the kids. UM. So
Speaker 1: we told the kids that I was going on a
Speaker 1: business trip, and I went on my business trip and
Speaker 1: that my daughter for the first time. What was it
Speaker 1: like to meet her? Oh, you know, I was at
Speaker 1: the airport and I was downstairs and she was coming
Speaker 1: from upstairs. I was waiting for her, and I was
Speaker 1: looking at the escalator, kind of waiting, and it almost
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy, but I don't felt like she
Speaker 1: was descending from heaven. I could see her just coming
Speaker 1: slowly down on the escalator. It was just I can
Speaker 1: only say, maybe it was like coming home. I saw
Speaker 1: parts of her in parts of a vinny. And the
Speaker 1: interesting thing though, is that I was so shut down.
Speaker 1: I think from so many years that I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to emote. I wasn't able to cry. I saw her
Speaker 1: and we hugged and I smiled, and she was crying,
Speaker 1: and I just felt this damn like this wall. And
Speaker 1: I remember, are feeling Zoe, why can't you cry? Why
Speaker 1: can't you feel anything? Um? And I mean I know
Speaker 1: now and I understand the process, but um, in that moment,
Speaker 1: I couldn't. Later, when we were talking in the restaurant,
Speaker 1: I you know, as we begin to talk about things,
Speaker 1: I was able to kind of attach to some emotion,
Speaker 1: but in that moment I just felt so closed up.
Speaker 1: Well it's it's understandable because you had been taught that
Speaker 1: again and again and again. The only way to survive
Speaker 1: is to close it off and shut it down exactly.
Speaker 1: Zoe tells her mother that Sarah has found her. She
Speaker 1: lets her know she plans to meet her birth daughter.
Speaker 1: She isn't exactly asking for permission, but Zoe and her
Speaker 1: mother seemed to reach a tacit agreement that the secret
Speaker 1: needs to remain secret. That Zoe won't tell her kids. Later,
Speaker 1: Sarah also reaches out to Zoe's parents. They are her
Speaker 1: grandparents after all, and they begin to develop a relationship
Speaker 1: of sorts, not exactly like family, more like family adjacent.
Speaker 1: How did they receive her? My parents are very polite.
Speaker 1: I don't know that i'd say they were overly welcoming,
Speaker 1: But there wasn't any negativity. There wasn't I don't think
Speaker 1: that there was any desire to push her away. My
Speaker 1: parents are very well mannered, polite people, and so they
Speaker 1: met her, and they welcomed her. When I say welcome,
Speaker 1: I don't really like that word, because they didn't welcome
Speaker 1: it her into our family. They weren't going to tell
Speaker 1: anybody about her, but they were willing to meet her.
Speaker 1: So they still intended to absolutely keep this a secret. Yes,
Speaker 1: For a few years, Zoe continues to get to know Sarah,
Speaker 1: meeting her clandestinely, sneaking away telling her kids she's going
Speaker 1: to visit a friend. But then Zoe's father dies suddenly
Speaker 1: of a heart attack, and now, as happens with secrets,
Speaker 1: another layer emerges. Because Sarah is going to go to
Speaker 1: her grandfather's funeral. Of course, she is she's now twenty
Speaker 1: one years old, and there's a very good chance that's
Speaker 1: always children will cross paths with her, you know, in
Speaker 1: the midst of my dad dying so suddenly and me,
Speaker 1: you know, needing to fly to the East coast, and
Speaker 1: you know, my husband didn't want me to bring the
Speaker 1: kids because one of the first things he said was,
Speaker 1: is Sarah going to be there? So, you know, I
Speaker 1: called Sara and let her know that my father had passed,
Speaker 1: and of course she expected to be at the funeral.
Speaker 1: You know, my mother was in shock. Um she was
Speaker 1: not obviously in a good place at all. And I
Speaker 1: get home to Maryland and it's the day before the funeral,
Speaker 1: and my mind is racing, and I remember saying to
Speaker 1: my mom, I'm going to tell my children about Sarah
Speaker 1: and my mother. She looked at me, but she didn't
Speaker 1: look at me. She looked through me. And remember her
Speaker 1: eyes were just dead, and she just turned around and
Speaker 1: walked upstairs. And I remember that's the first time I
Speaker 1: felt I felt like a child, because I felt like
Speaker 1: I was making this decision all by myself. And it
Speaker 1: was the first decision an opposition that I was making
Speaker 1: all by myself, and I did. I gathered my kids
Speaker 1: up and I brought them upstairs and I told them,
Speaker 1: I have something to tell you. You have an older sister.
Speaker 1: Remember those words, you know you have an older sister.
Speaker 1: There are five simple words, and they escaped my lips,
Speaker 1: and I remember just feeling like I wanted to grab
Speaker 1: them and pull them back. And I watched, you know,
Speaker 1: the effect of them on my kids, and you know,
Speaker 1: initially they were just like what and they were excited,
Speaker 1: and I asked me tens and times of questions. Over time,
Speaker 1: I saw a donning in my thirteen year old eyes
Speaker 1: that was like, oh, my mother's alied to me. But
Speaker 1: that took some time, and that took some working through
Speaker 1: with him. So I told them, and I remember feeling like,
Speaker 1: on some level, like this way have been lifted off
Speaker 1: and I am becoming a adult for the very first time.
Speaker 1: I knew my husband would be horribly upset, and I
Speaker 1: chose not to ask him before I told him afterwards,
Speaker 1: and that started a whole another cascade of of of
Speaker 1: problems in our marriage. Um but I felt so reborn,
Speaker 1: and then the next day I had to tell my family.
Speaker 1: So we had the actual funeral at the church so
Speaker 1: we showed up at the church and Sarah was there,
Speaker 1: and um, she sat in front of us with my kids,
Speaker 1: and for the first time I had all of my children,
Speaker 1: all five of them with me sitting there at my
Speaker 1: dad's funeral. Nobody knew who she was. I didn't introduce
Speaker 1: her to anyone. There's just a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: just a lot of sadness and and and all the
Speaker 1: things that happened at a funeral. Well, after the funeral,
Speaker 1: we went to my sister's home and that's where our
Speaker 1: family was, so my extended family, my aunts and uncle
Speaker 1: is my everybody. And Sarah came and I took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, and in the middle of everybody standing there
Speaker 1: in the living room, I said, I have somebody I
Speaker 1: want to introduce you to. My mother just kind of
Speaker 1: snuck away and I told them, you know, this is
Speaker 1: my daughter, Sarah. I gave birth to her when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen years old, and I placed her for adoption,
Speaker 1: and I want you guys to meet her. Even as
Speaker 1: I say it, it just makes me feel kind of
Speaker 1: breathy because it was such a huge monumental thing for
Speaker 1: me to do. And I know that my mother never
Speaker 1: would have done it. She would have been fine to
Speaker 1: just pretend like Sarah was a friend. And the very
Speaker 1: last thing I could or would do would be allow
Speaker 1: my daughter to participate in this secret. She knew she
Speaker 1: was a secret, but I wasn't going to ask her
Speaker 1: to participate. Hate and holding the secret. And somehow, for
Speaker 1: some reason, I don't know if it's a combination of
Speaker 1: my father dying or just the reality of what I
Speaker 1: was going to be continuing in my life and perpetrating
Speaker 1: with my children if I didn't tell the truth and
Speaker 1: speak the truth. And so I did it so powerful
Speaker 1: in the period ongoing, you know, from then, you know
Speaker 1: that that sense of having put down a burden that
Speaker 1: maybe assumed a kind of greater and greater and greater weight,
Speaker 1: because I think somehow secrets just get heavier and denser,
Speaker 1: they take more maintenance, and they extend and and create
Speaker 1: more need for more kinds of secrets. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like cracks in the ice just getting you know, going,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of fanning outward. And I'm wonder how
Speaker 1: it's felt once you were able to put down that burden,
Speaker 1: both you know, with your family, with your extended family,
Speaker 1: and most of all, with yourself. Two have lived so
Speaker 1: long with something so profoundly secretive and and not be
Speaker 1: doing that anymore. I know people have said this before,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it's so cliche, but you don't
Speaker 1: really understand the weight of the burden until the burden
Speaker 1: is taken off. It's two things that happened. I think
Speaker 1: it's like those five words. I felt, you know, my
Speaker 1: whole license. I was fifteen years old. If I had
Speaker 1: spoken those words, that somehow the world was going to
Speaker 1: fall apart, but everything would you know, would be destroyed,
Speaker 1: That I destroyed people, I destroyed my family, that all
Speaker 1: these horrible things would happen, and that I said those
Speaker 1: five things and nothing happened. And so part of it
Speaker 1: was like a realization that I was holding the secret unnecessarily.
Speaker 1: I was holding the secret and an attempt to honor
Speaker 1: my parents, an attempt to honor my husband, and it
Speaker 1: was all for nothing, and the secret of itself had
Speaker 1: created damage. And so I think that in addition to
Speaker 1: the beautiful weight being lifted, it was that realization that
Speaker 1: ultimately nobody cares. You know, people, you know, we hold
Speaker 1: these secrets for for years and years, and we we
Speaker 1: build them up to be something so much more than
Speaker 1: they are. And yeah, people hear them and they might
Speaker 1: go wow, and maybe they'll murmur for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: But I've been holding that secret for decades, and someone's
Speaker 1: going to talk about me for a minute. And so
Speaker 1: I think it was that realization of the futility of
Speaker 1: of keeping it, and yet I had done it for
Speaker 1: so many years, and that just became, I think, a
Speaker 1: driving passion for me to just continue in my authenticity,
Speaker 1: continue on this path and and help other women as well.
Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Molly
Speaker 1: z Achor is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is
Speaker 1: the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd
Speaker 1: like to share, please leave us a voicemail and your
Speaker 1: story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is
Speaker 1: one eight eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You
Speaker 1: can also find me on Instagram at Danny writer. And
Speaker 1: if you'd like to know more about the story that
Speaker 1: inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Inheritance. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.