WEBVTT - Making Yourself Up 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:09.560 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.560 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.040 that are cut from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:24.880 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.520 is Darcy Ballentine, Assistant professor in the Departments of English 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:35.000 and Black Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. Darcy's is a 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:40.199 story about bedrock identity and the troubles and complexities of deception. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.240 A secret is kept from her that shapes her from 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:48.279 the inside out and the outside inn. It's also a 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.280 story of the way so often the truth emerges in 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:57.320 profoundly unexpected ways. Darcy, tell me about the landscape of 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:58.400 your childhood. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.840 I love the way that you form like that question 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.160 because I often think of my youth in terms of geography. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.720 So I grew up in what was essentially a farming community, 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:15.119 even though my parents were not farmers in south western Ontario. 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.560 We lived outside of a small town called Sarnia. So 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:24.840 while we lived on a rural route, surrounded by wheat 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.320 fields and soybean fields and so on, in a big, 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:33.440 dilapidated red brick house, my parents did not farm, but 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.080 I think we ended up living there because there were 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.040 so many of us that they needed a really big 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.160 house in order to accommodate twelve children themselves and a 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.800 bunch of farm animals, a really really big family, which 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.960 I think was probably more common at that particular moment 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.880 in history, so we're talking nineteen sixties nineteen seventies. I 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.800 think a lot of people assumed that there were twelve 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:04.200 of us because my parents needed extra hands to help 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.560 with chores and you know, planting season and harvest season. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.680 But they just happened to have a lot of children, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.320 and I was the youngest of those twelve and the 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:15.600 only one who was adopted. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.079 You were adopted at the age of four and a 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.480 half and brought into this family. Do you have any 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.280 memories prior to age four and a half? 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.240 I don't. And the only reason that I know for 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.639 certain that I was legally adopted by the people who 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.600 raised me at four and a half is because at 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.680 some point after my adoptive mother died, I received a 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:49.320 copy of my legal adoption order, and so I can date. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.720 I can give a precise date to the moment when 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.280 I was adopted, But I don't have any memories of 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.720 my life before that moment, and I have to say 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.720 that a lot of my memories of childhood are either 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:09.200 vague or simply not there. I have a difficult time 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.240 recalling distinct memories of childhood, And of course I don't 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.440 think it's uncommon for adults to have difficulty recalling what 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.400 they did and what kind of person they were, and 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.440 particular events when they were very young. But I think 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:30.640 I must have developed a kind of mechanism to protect 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.160 myself from things that were difficult to have to remember. 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:40.480 So you knew that you were adopted. 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.600 I don't think I was told in so many words. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.720 And I think that before attending probably kindergarten, I didn't 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.840 have a very good idea of what made me different 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:56.680 than my adoptive siblings. But I guess over time I 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.760 sensed that there was something different, and I think it 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.120 was and until a little kid on the playground, probably 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.960 at recess, pointed out the fact that my skin was 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.640 a different color, that I began to realize that it 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:14.080 was that thing. It was color. I wasn't sophisticated to 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.200 have developed a language with which to talk about issues 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.479 of race and racial difference, but I could understand that 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.520 brown was different than white, and brown skin was something 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.160 quite different than white skin. So I think it was 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:32.599 quite a gradual process of coming into a realization that 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:38.000 there was something quite distinct and remarkable that was different, 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.280 that made me sort of stand out from everyone else. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.320 And I think it was from there that I began 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.080 to ask my mother questions. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.200 A couple things strike me. One is, given that you 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:54.920 were adopted at four and a half, was probably just 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.479 a matter of months from the time you came into 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.320 this family to the time you went to kindergarten m hm. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.120 And so in that. 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.320 Period of time, nothing about the fact that this large 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.760 family was white and you were black. Nothing about that 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.760 ever came up or was spoken about, not. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.520 That I recall now. The paper the documentation says that 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.839 I was legally adopted when I was four and a half, 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:25.040 but I could very possibly have been with them in 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.919 you know, the months before the legal adoption, and in fact, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.159 I think it's probably a requirement. I mean, I doubt 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.599 that I could have been identified as someone who needed 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.440 to be adopted and then was adopted within a matter 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.520 of weeks. So I'm guessing that the legal process of 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.599 adoption would have taken some time, and so I can't 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:51.440 say with any sense of conviction where I may have 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.040 been in the months before, or the years even before 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:56.320 I was legally adopted. 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.839 Many people may have this thought that if one knows 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.279 in some kind of clear way, you know where one 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.520 comes from. And there are documents, there's a birth certificate, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.000 there's family stories, there is a trail of breadcrumbs leading 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.040 back to one's origins. That in the absence of that, 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.960 I'm struck by the fact that you don't and you 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:19.280 can't know you. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.720 Know, was I three? Was I two? Was I four? 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:28.800 It's impossible to note that moment on the playground in kindergarten, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.680 which was the first time in your life that you 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.719 are aware of that someone said to you, you know, 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:36.880 why do you look the way you do? 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.880 Why is your skin brown? Is that a memory for you? 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.120 Is that it may be the first time it happened, 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.400 But is that something that you then really sort of 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.559 you didn't tuck it away. You went home and said 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.680 to your mother or your parents, why did this boy 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:52.240 say this to me? 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.440 It was a moment that really began what has been 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.880 a very long process of gradually asking questions. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.560 So how did your mother respond when you asked that question, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:07.280 what did she say? 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.320 I think that she probably said what a lot of 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.600 people at this historical moment would have said, which was, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.600 we don't even see color, and you're just like everybody else. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.680 And my guess is that that was in part out 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.640 of frustration. Maybe it was because she didn't know herself 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.920 what to say about racial difference and didn't want to 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.960 have that kind of conversation. And I'm sure in part 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.800 she also wanted to protect me from you know, school 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.240 ground bullies and so on. But it seems to me 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.960 when I think about those moments now, she as well 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:49.040 lacked a language for talking about the fact that this 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.440 young child that she had legally adopted was a black 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:59.640 child and that they're needed, or there should have been 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.600 a kind of conversation about that, the kind of conversation 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.960 that would initiate me slowly into the idea that racially speaking, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.320 I was different than the people who were raising me 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.160 and the people who were my adoptive siblings who surrounded me. 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:20.200 And later you would also receive comments from acquaintances or 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.040 even strangers along the lines of, You're so lucky you 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:25.400 were taken in by good people. 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.480 M Yeah, and again, I think that, at least in 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.000 my experience, that's been very common. And I'm still not 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.120 quite sure why that is the case. But I've even 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.720 had people in the last decade or so, people who 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.200 know me fairly well, people who have a lot of 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:48.119 world experience, who have traveled the world, who have friendships 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.880 and relationships with people of color, who will still say, 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.400 despite knowing my story, or at least part of my story, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.120 will still say, oh, well, you're still really lucky that 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:03.480 your mother took you in. And I'm not sure quite 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.080 what is at the core of that, other than a 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:13.360 still really pervasive sense that there is a goodness that 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.640 goes along with whiteness. And I think that in my 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.880 experience and in the experience now beginning to do research 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:25.440 into interracial adoption, that there has always been a sense, 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.079 at least in the Canadian context since the nineteen sixties, 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.840 which is the period that I'm beginning to look into, 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.080 there's always been a sense that children of color, orphans 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.200 of color, whether black, biracial, Asian, indigenous. Certainly in this country, 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.840 the history of indigenous adoption is very fraught that those 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.400 kinds of orphans, those kinds of children who have been 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.240 for whatever set of reasons, relinquished by the people who 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.080 gave birth to them are always better off with white 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:02.439 adoptive parents. And so, despite knowing part or all of 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.920 my story, I still encounter people that I know who 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:11.760 are part of my circle who will still say, You're 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.160 so lucky that good people, that these good people adopted you. 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.800 So now you're out in the world going to school, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.160 you're fielding comments that then when you come home are 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.200 being sort of shut down. And in an essay that 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:37.680 you wrote, you describe turning increasingly inward And I'm wondering 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.200 what did that feel like for you and look like 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.240 for you as you were you in that stage in 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.120 sort of elementary school and middle school heading into becoming 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.000 a teenager, that inwardness, how did it express itself? 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.679 Well? I think that I became quite a loner. I 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.800 did not have a big group of friends. I was 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.760 not part of the cool kids, the kids who took 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.480 music classes, the basketball team, anything like that. I really 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:12.160 isolated myself and I took up running for a few reasons. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.880 But one of those reasons was to sort of give 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:22.320 myself a space in which physically and intellectually I could 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.080 begin working through some of the issues that I was 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:29.079 grappling with, so I would go on long runs down 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.640 country lanes by myself rather than joining a team or 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.679 becoming part of a group of people, a group of 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.000 young people who were meeting regularly. And I think that 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:46.640 I realized during the COVID nineteen lockdowns that the kind 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:53.680 of desperation and sense of wondering whether there could be 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.040 something different than what I was experiencing at the moment 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.600 when I was a young person reasserted itself, or at 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.160 least I felt the same kind of desperation about my 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:11.000 plight during COVID nineteen, after George Floyd was murdered and 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.480 so on, as I felt to a certain extent when 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.680 I was a younger person. That is to say, I 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.800 felt a kind of creeping desperation, a relentless kind of 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.679 worry and stress that this might be all that there is, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.880 and that I might never get out of this plight 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.160 that I found myself in, and I might never be 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.520 able to have a way to figure out what this 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.600 blackness of mine means and what it means to grow 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.880 up in a context that, from my perspective then as 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.080 a kid, was entirely white. I mean, I grew up 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.480 in the country. I went to a small town school. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.040 My country neighborhood was, from my perspective, all white. I 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.640 don't recall myself meeting anyone else who was black until 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.840 I think I was in grade eight, and I believe 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.240 a family moved into the town and a couple of 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.680 children from that family ended up at the school that 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.360 I was at, And even that was shocking to me, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:23.760 because I had been socialized into believing a certain kind 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.520 of whiteness, and I believed in all the stories about 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.400 blackness and black people that I had been socialized into, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:36.040 and so I was really anxious to suddenly see a 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.439 couple of other black people at my school, and I 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.280 did not know what to do with that. I was 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.439 not interested in being friendly with them. I don't remember 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.319 their names. I don't think I ever played with them 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.959 or had a conversation with them. I suppose I figured 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:57.120 out a way to exist as invisibly and as quietly 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.920 as possible on my own, rounded by whiteness, and so 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.839 when there were suddenly a couple of other black kids 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:09.319 at my school, I found it very disconcerting and didn't 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.840 know what to do with it. I've gone to therapy 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.720 several times over the years to try to work out 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.920 a variety of different issues. But I always come back 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.800 to the running because it is a kind of therapy, 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.640 and it allows me to get in touch with my 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.040 body in a deeply corporeal sense, and then also to 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.960 give my head the time and maybe the extra oxygen 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.720 as well to sort of work out all of these 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.600 issues that I guess I didn't have a context in 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.640 which to work them out when I was younger, which 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.400 is why I ended up in the academy, because I 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.200 felt like there was so much I was not taught. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.320 And then in the you know, in the ways in 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:58.160 which I was schooled and experienced school from kindergarten to 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.720 you know, the end of high school was a particular 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.160 kind of learning. So you know, we didn't study any 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.840 kind of black history, not even Black Canadian history, not 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.800 even the history of you know, really historically important black 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.480 communities on the East Coast of Canada and the West 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.400 Coast of Canada. And you know, we weren't reading the 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:25.000 work of black authors or Indigenous authors, and so I 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:30.240 felt like I needed to unlearn everything that I'd been taught, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:35.240 both formally and informally and then teach myself how to 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.200 think differently, not just about the world, but how to 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.640 think differently about myself and myself in the world as 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:43.400 a black woman. 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.640 When Darcy is a young teenager, her mother takes her 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.240 on a summer trip to the West Coast to visit 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.600 her oldest sister. This sister doesn't come home often, and 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.360 the trip is billed as a special visit, especially since 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.320 that sister's last trip home had been cut short. Darcy 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.080 is excited about the trip. This kind of travel just 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.240 doesn't happen in their family. It's unusual. This should have 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.360 been a clue, but it wasn't, because we cannot suspect 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:16.840 what we cannot imagine. 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.920 So the trip, yes, was billed as a really exciting 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.160 trip to the West Coast, but it was prefaced by 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:31.120 an event that happened the Christmas before. So several of 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.520 the older kids in the family had already moved away 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.640 from home, and the oldest girl in the family had 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.000 long lived on the West Coast and probably elsewhere. But 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.440 I don't really know a lot about her life, but 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.200 she came home for Christmas, and I believe that she 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.200 came home with one of the other older sisters who 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.400 was also living in the western part of the country, 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.920 and the younger kids who were at home. We were 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.360 very excited because we didn't see them all that frequently, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.119 and we were thrilled that they were both home. My 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.200 mother was preparing foods and Christmas cake, and we weren't 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.280 at school, and we would go to boggaining. The older 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.639 kids took us to boggaining and ice skating, and so 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.119 it was all a really exciting time. So we the 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.360 younger kids in the family, all went to bed earlier 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.160 than the older kids in the family on Christmas Eve, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:32.080 excited of course for Christmas morning, getting up lining up 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.919 outside the door to the living room, which would always 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.200 be closed. We'd have to line up outside the door 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.399 in order of age, so I would be the first 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.679 at the door when it was opened, and then the 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:45.920 door would open and we'd all pour into the living 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.440 room and open our Christmas gifts. But when we woke 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:54.359 up that morning, the oldest sister in the family was 0:17:54.400 --> 0:18:00.120 not there, so of course we were all incredibly baffled, 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.560 maybe a bit concerned, but I think that personally I 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.200 was too young to be concerned. I was just disappointed 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.120 that she was not there, and confused as to why 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:10.840 in the world she would not be there for the 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.719 most exciting day of the year. And I'm not quite 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:20.879 sure when I was told the story about why she 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.119 was not there, But the story was that she'd received 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.200 a phone call sometime after we were in bed, and 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.159 it was her work, calling her back to the West Coast, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.160 and so the story was that she had to pack 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.920 up her things and immediately go back to Vancouver. Now 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.080 I didn't have a great sense of precisely where Vancouver was. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.879 It all seemed pretty exotic and wonderful to me, so 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.840 I think I didn't go through any logical process as 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.640 to how in the world would she have gotten from 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.000 our house way out in the country where she would 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.600 have had to have fought her way through snowbanks just 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.680 to get to the end of our driveway and into 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.359 a taxicab if there had been the possibility of getting 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.399 a taxicab that late at night, and there wouldn't have 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.200 been any trains to take her from Sarnia to Toronto 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.640 at that time of night, And how could she have 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:30.760 changed her tickets so quickly to fly back to Vancouver. So, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.919 of course, as an older person, I realized that this 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.000 was just an impossible story. I'm not quite sure how 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.520 it all happened, but nonetheless, she was not there on 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:46.240 Christmas morning, and much much later on, I was told 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.080 that I, for some reason, was the lucky one in 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.280 the family who was going with Mom to Vancouver for 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.679 the summer holiday, which would have been I think we 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:59.879 would have gotten out of school at the end of 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.600 June and school would not have resumed until the beginning 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.560 of September. So I got out of school, packed my bags, 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:16.000 flew to the West Coast with Mom. I was really 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.320 excited about being there, really excited about spending time with 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.919 my big sister. And I think it was only a 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:29.000 couple of days into the trip that she and I, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:34.159 meaning the person I thought was my sister, she and I, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.040 I believe, went for a drive somewhere. She was living 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:45.919 someplace in downtown Vancouver, which was really eye opening to 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.320 me because the landscape I grew up on was deeply rural. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.639 You know, it was not uncommon to see tractors and 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.920 combines and cows and horses and pigs and so on, 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.160 So it was really interesting to be in downtown. And 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.600 I believe that the two of us went for a drive, 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.520 and it was nice, it was summertime, and I seem 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:14.120 to recall the sound of trickling water, So I'm assuming 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.199 that we were I don't know, maybe beside False Creek 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.840 or a body of water close to the downtown where 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:26.119 she lived. We were not sitting there for all that long, 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:31.000 So I believe that she simply said, I'm your real mother. 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.960 And I think she would have used that term, I'm 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:38.520 your real mother, not your biological mother or your birth mother, 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:43.000 but I'm your real mother. And there was so much 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:48.880 distance between my idea of where I may have come 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.600 from and this big sister sitting beside me that I 0:21:53.840 --> 0:22:01.399 could not logically connect the two things, and whole being 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:06.320 really stunned and not knowing what to say, and I 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:12.080 think feeling a combination of shock and for some reason, embarrassment. 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:13.200 I don't know why. 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.560 Well, you go in one moment from the story that 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.400 you've understood to be true of yourself all your life, 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.639 which is that you were adopted by these good people, 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.320 by these good white people, and you're so lucky, and 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:32.919 you have all of these many many many older adoptive 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:38.240 brothers and sisters two in one moment, whether you could 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:40.879 have processed it in that moment or not, which I 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:44.760 suspect you could not have. That your oldest sister was 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.800 your mother, and that that meant that the adoptive parents 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.080 who had raised you were your grandparents, And that meant 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:55.680 that all of the brothers and sisters who you had 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.520 grown up with thinking that they were your adoptive brothers 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.600 and sisters were actually your aunts and uncles. 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:05.600 Yes, and I'm not quite sure how long it took 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:10.440 me to begin thinking about that and the rippling effects 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.679 of this new information and what it meant in the 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:18.560 wider context of my entire family, in the entirety of 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.879 my young life. But yes, eventually it dawned on me 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.760 that Mom and we all called my adoptive father Pop. 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:30.440 It dawned on me that Mom and Pap were not 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.679 only my maternal grandparents, but they had lied to me 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:39.320 all this time, and that really changed my relationship with 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:41.160 them and with the entire family. 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:56.520 We'll be right back. In the wake of this enormous revelation, 0:23:57.080 --> 0:24:00.879 Darcy finds herself physically unable to even look at these women. 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.200 Her sister is now her biological mother, her adoptive mother 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:09.080 is now her grandmother tangled up in the thorns of 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:11.960 this new configuration, she recoils. 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:16.159 I couldn't bear to be touched by them. And I 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:22.240 remember it was possibly the afternoon of or maybe the 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:27.720 day after this big revelation my sister and now I 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:30.840 had this new knowledge that she was by biological mother 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.560 was cutting my hair, I believe, on the back porch 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:38.200 of the house that she was probably sharing with some others, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:44.000 and as she was, you know, sort of moving from 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:47.719 my side to my back to cut my hair, I 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:54.080 recall distinctly moving away from her touch. And I don't 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:56.879 know quite what that is about. I mean, we have 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:01.400 never been a touchy feely family. Parents did not hug 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:06.119 us or express their love for us. That's just not 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:10.320 who they were, and I think in this moment after 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.480 the revelation, there was perhaps a desire on their part 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:18.000 to reaffirm the fact that they cared for me and 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:21.040 loved me. But I was not interested at all. So 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.199 I had a really visceral response to the news and 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:29.520 then to their proximity in the same room. I didn't 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:32.399 want to be around them, and I demanded to go 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:36.000 back home. And I think it was probably intended that 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:40.200 I spend the entire summer in Vancouver, or perhaps that 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:44.919 I stay behind and begin a new life there. But 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:47.159 I was having none of it. I just wanted to 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:51.040 go home to the familiar, to the landscape, to the sounds, 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:53.800 to the people that I knew and that I'd grown 0:25:53.880 --> 0:25:56.240 up with as brothers and sisters. 0:25:57.240 --> 0:26:00.679 And it's also left to you to tell or not 0:26:00.800 --> 0:26:05.360 tell your brothers and sisters who don't know anything about this. 0:26:05.920 --> 0:26:11.679 It's on you to either continue to keep this a 0:26:11.800 --> 0:26:16.480 secret about yourself or to speak it right right. 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:20.520 And I was probably not a sophisticated enough young person 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:25.600 to go through any kind of intellectual process to determine 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:28.000 whether it was beneficial to keep the secret or to 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:30.919 reveal the secret. I think I was so deeply in shock, 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:35.879