WEBVTT - Bonus: Dani and Nora 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.760 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio High 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.400 Family Secrets Listeners. It's Danny here to share something I 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.560 think is really special. As we're hard at work creating 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.240 amazing new episodes for the seventh season of Family Secrets, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.400 I am so excited to be able to share with 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.840 you an episode from one of my absolute favorite podcasts 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.479 which tells the story of my own family secret in 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.640 a way no one has done before. And that's because 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.559 Nora McNerney and her hit show Terrible Thanks for Asking, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.600 is brilliant. She tells stories like no one else in 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.560 a way. Nora is like the godmother of my show. 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.200 When I was first starting out and had no idea 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.760 how to create a podcast, I reached out to her 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.720 and she walked me through the process with so much 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.880 kindness and generosity. We've become friends. I adore her and 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.520 felt completely safe in this far reaching conversation was her. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:22.280 So here's Terrible Thanks for Asking. Lacuna manuscripts a missing 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:27.640 piece of text, Lacuna music an extended silence in a 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:33.759 piece of music. Lacuna linguistics a lexical gap in a language. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:39.520 Lacuna law the lack of law or of a legal 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:46.000 source addressing a situation Lacuna histology, a small space containing 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:51.960 an osteo syte. In bone, there's an uneasy sense a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.000 person gets when something is missing, that gap in the text, 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:02.880 in music, in language, in law, in bone. We like 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.760 when the pieces fit together, and we like when we 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.520 have them all laid out neatly before us. And I 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.320 know that puzzle is a lazy metaphor to use, but 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:14.200 I'm going to use it many times in this episode 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:18.800 because I love puzzles and I am not great at them, 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.800 but I know we like when pieces fit together in music, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:27.040 in podcasts, in puzzles, in life. And today's episode is 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:31.440 about that gap, that chasm, that open and unfilled space, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.440 and what happens when it finally all comes together. I'm 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:41.320 Nora McNerney, and this is terrible. Thanks for asking. And 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:48.000 this is Danny Shapiro. I remember so little about my childhood. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.519 I think in part because I didn't have any witnesses 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.640 to it, and the two witnesses I did have to 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:02.960 it were my parents, and I was like a lost 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:09.800 to myself. UM didn't have a real sense of my 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.080 two feet on the ground like my I can't summon 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.240 what it felt like to be me as a child, 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.080 and that's been always true for me. I can remember 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.720 certain things or have certain flashes of images, but not 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.760 inhabit what it was to be me, you know, growing 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.280 up in this house in New Jersey with my two 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.880 parents and a lot of quiet, and you know, a 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.520 sense that there were secrets kind of hanging in the air, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.600 and that there was just so much that I knew, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.480 I knew, I didn't know, and I but you know 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:56.800 that feeling Nora, like that feeling of being lost to oneself, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:03.080 feeling like other kids had a sense of their families, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.200 in a sense of belonging in a sense of their 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:10.160 lives and of fitting in and of just having a 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.560 right to be there. I guess I would say I didn't. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.760 I didn't have that. I did have a feeling somehow 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.400 of a kind of special nous because I was, in 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.200 one way or another, always being told that I was 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.719 somehow special. But you know, specialness in isolation is a 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.760 very strange and painful place to be. What does it 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.240 even mean? Mhm. That's such a good way to put it, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.760 because what does it mean to be special? You're only 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.320 special in comparison to something. But if you don't know 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:48.680 what you're being compared to. What good does it do you? Yeah, 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.680 I mean I felt like a hothouse flower, like I 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.880 would die under the wrong conditions. I was very shivered 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.840 over by both of my parents and by really all 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.400 of the adults around me who were related to me, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.360 you know, really on my mother's side. But the feeling 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.599 that there was something very fragile about me and that 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.960 I might just kind of vanish, and that contributed to 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.039 that sense of special illness, you know, like like a 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:23.480 very delicate but perhaps not prepared for the elements in 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:29.120 some way, kind of little human being. Danny was the 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.320 only child of an Orthodox Jewish couple. She went to 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.240 a yeshiva, a Jewish day school, from kindergarten to seventh grade. 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.800 All around her were kids who dressed and prayed and 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:46.119 looked alike, and there was Danny. I was very fair, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:51.440 sort of pink cheeked and blue eyed and very delicate looking, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.119 and a lot was made of that all the time, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.360 both by my family and by other adults around me, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.440 and by teachers and by other children. It really was 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:08.240 commented on all the time that I didn't look like 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.760 I was Jewish, and that I didn't look like I belonged, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:16.080 and that somehow the the message underneath all that was 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:21.120 you're not one of us, and you're from someplace else entirely, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.600 you know, there was just this feeling of like complete 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.039 and utter being kind of alien, like an alien hothouse 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.880 flower creature. I think what made it even more complicated 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.760 is that I knew that it was meant as a compliment, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:43.160 but it somehow felt like an insult. Because I adored 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.599 my father, I felt very much like being part of 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:53.040 his world and being part of his family was a 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.279 tethering kind of rooted thing. UM. I very much wanted 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.200 to feel that way, and I didn't feel that way 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.680 about my mother. I was not connected to her. UM 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.880 such a strange thing for a daughter to feel about 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.320 a mother. But we really were kind of like a 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.760 total mismatch, and I tried. I loved her, she was 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.680 my mother, but I didn't relate to her, and I 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.600 didn't feel that I was like her at all. I 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.160 felt like I was like my dad, and I wanted 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.760 to be part of his family. And so when somebody 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.280 would say to me, you don't look Jewish, or you 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.239 don't you don't look like your cousins, or you don't 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.200 look like you belong in this group of people. It 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.320 would feel insulting to me or hurtful. But I did 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.200 understand that what they were saying is, oh, you're so pretty, 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.520 Oh you're so fair. Um, oh you you know you 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.800 look like you know, I mean in Judaism, and it's 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:49.240 a really it's tricky territory because there's kind of a 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.680 self hating aspect of that. You know, there's the the 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.640 realm of the the chicksa is the word that is 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.760 always used, and you know, Jewish boy ways are raised 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.480 to kind of stay away from but revere. You know, 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.280 the chicksa goddess. You see all of Woody Allen, you 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:16.160 see Philip Roth. And that's what I looked like. And 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.400 that was something that I was supposed to be flattered by, 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.000 but instead felt kind of that it was I didn't 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.960 understand it, and and it was hurtful to me in 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.880 some way. It is natural to want to fit in, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.840 especially when fitting in means fitting into your family and 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.840 into your culture. And people who are lonely who want 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.000 to fit in do not need to be told the 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.960 ways that they don't fit. And when it is pointed out, 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.079 whether it is that your shoes are the wrong brand 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.360 or your hair is the wrong color. It wouldn't be 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.640 surprising if you wanted to throw your shoes in the 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.880 trash or grab a box of hair dye. But when 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.240 the thing that doesn't fit is just you in general, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.719 and there's no way to chameleon yourself into the right form, 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.760 that feeling can just boomerang back into you. Just what, 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:12.320 and it's your problem now? And not fitting in is 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:17.560 Danny's problem. I absolutely internalized it and felt that there 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:22.040 must be something very wrong with me. And that is 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.560 something that I carried with me through my childhood. And 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.880 you know, I don't know that I wore it on 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.200 the surface. When I've encountered people who I went to 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:35.400 grade school with or I went to high school with, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.080 they didn't see me that way, which I find completely fascinating. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.760 They saw me as somehow confident or somehow you know, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.000 are surprised by the degree to which I felt like 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:55.280 I didn't belong. I think I also had a pretty good, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:02.880 a pretty solid mask or you know, a veneer um. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.240 You know, I didn't wear any of this on my sleeve. 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.400 There weren't the external things that sometimes happened with kids. 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:15.480 You know, I didn't show my anxiety. I didn't have uh, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:20.200 you know, ticks. It was all much more subtle than that. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.320 And I didn't talk to anybody about it. I wasn't 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.360 somebody who spoke a lot about my feelings. I kind 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.600 of buried them, and they just became more and more 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.880 toxic to me. I found this whole box of many, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.280 many things that my mother saved, and it was like 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:41.000 the most radioactive box. And there was this one list 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:46.560 that my mother had clearly had me make and I 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.000 sign it and it's like a confession. It has a title, 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.760 and the title is six reasons of why I should 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:56.439 be happy. And I can't quote you the whole thing, 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.120 but the first, you know, on the list were things 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.000 like I have a dog, I have a mother who 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:09.240 drives me everywhere, I have everything I need. And this 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.360 was clearly an assignment that I was given of, you know, 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.120 coming up with reasons why I should be happy. And 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.079 the thing that was so striking about them, and it's 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.679 like in a child's handwriting. It couldn't have been more 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.920 than you know, six years old, seven years old. You know, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.000 I have piano lessons, and it just felt like I 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.240 was almost being coached, like, here are reasons why you 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:35.280 should be happy, as opposed to let's understand what's really 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:39.319 going on. Yeah, let's explore why you could be sad, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.600 right right, But it was never okay to be sad, 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.360 to be upset, to be angry. And so I think 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.720 I really learned like that, Veneer. I learned that there 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.760 was a kind of composure that I could And this 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.560 wasn't conscious. I mean, let me just be you know, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.280 really clear. This was not something I sat down and thought, 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.000 how do I appear composed? It was more like composure 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:07.160 was survival um that if I could find a way 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.360 to sort of moved through the world and moved through 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.560 my family in a kind of composed way and not 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:20.560 reveal my my sorrow, my guilt, my fear, my anxiety, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.160 that that was going to be you know, the way 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:30.120 through for me. It is a way through, but not 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:36.160 the healthiest way through, because that sorrow, that guilt, that fear, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:42.000 that anxiety, they royal beneath her composed surface. Danny does 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.800 all of the right things in the right order, right 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.200 up until she's sent to college, and anyone who knew 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.880 me at Xavier University from two thousand to two thousand 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.640 and five can tell you that this is a period 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.920 in life where many of us, many of us try 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.360 on different versions of ourselves like paper dolls, trying to 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:04.720 see what fits and what will stick. But that feeling 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.480 that she's different, that she doesn't belong it stays unsaid, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.240 and it leaks outsideways as Danny flails through her teens 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.920 and twenties. But Danny isn't simply doing keg stands in 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.079 the basement of a former morgue and falling out of 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.240 a stolen grocery card on the way home like some 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:27.760 people on today's podcast. She's unraveling in a very New 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.440 York City in the eighties kind of way. She has 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.400 an affair with her college roommates married father, she gets 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.559 into acting. Both of her parents die when she's still 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.280 in her early twenties, and then she's not alone like 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.360 she was as a little girl in that big house 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:57.599 in New Jersey. She's alone, Lauren Gough wrote in the 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.800 novel Fates and Furies, green is for the strong who 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:06.240 use it as fuel for burning. The death of Danny's 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.360 parents become the fuel that propels her out of that affair, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.360 out of acting and back into college and then grad 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.360 school and into a career as a novelist, building worlds 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.560 and stories and characters and finding the right place for 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.040 every piece. Danny falls in love and gets married, and 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.160 builds a career and has a son, and together their 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.520 family of three are their own universe, far from that 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.120 world where she grew up, feeling simultaneously pressed between the 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.640 slides of a microscope and gazing through the lens at 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:44.520 her community. Here in this farmhouse in Connecticut, many decades 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.920 removed from the little girl who was forced to write 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.480 a gratitude list with a list of published books and 0:14:50.640 --> 0:15:00.640 essays and articles a mile long, she is home. I'm 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:05.800 fifty four years old. I'm a writer of many books, 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:11.160 a professor of writing. I'm married for twenty plus years. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:17.040 I have a seventeen year old son, and have really 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:24.800 built a life I love. And I am genuinely content 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:31.200 to the degree that contentment is possible. There's always a 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:38.240 sense that I have that somehow, not everything clicks into place, 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:43.280 not everything makes sense. There's some kind of subtle disconnect 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:45.840 that I've learned how to live with. It's just the 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:50.280 way it is. But I am the happiest and the 0:15:50.320 --> 0:16:06.040 most fulfilled that I've ever been in my life. I 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:11.040 live in rural Connecticut in house I love, you know, 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:15.360 with my husband and my son and a dog, and 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.320 my husband who's also a writer and a journalist and 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.160 a filmmaker. And he's a former foreign correspondent, so he 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.160 really has the journalistic instinct, and and he's also an 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:31.000 early adopter of technology, always kind of early to the 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:38.320 party on all things technological. Danny's husband, Michael, is about 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.880 to be an early adopter of at home DNA tests. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.240 They're ubiquitous now. I'm pretty sure you can get them 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.040 at target. But at this point these tests are just 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.880 gaining steam and all across America. We were thrilled to 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:53.960 be able to prove that actually you should kiss me 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.720 because I am Irish, or definally know our heritage after 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.440 a private adoption as a child, or to you just 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.760 you know, hand over our personal DNA to a giant 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.480 data company. Whatever. Michael and Danny already know everything there 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.280 is to know about their own heritage, but it could 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.919 be an interesting experiment. So Michael tells Danny, Hey, I 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.240 ordered some of those DNA tests. You want to do one? 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.800 And I could so easily have said no. To this day, 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.840 I'm marvel that I said yes. It was just in 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:27.960 the spirit of, like, oh, what the hell. You know, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.399 the testing companies bring their prices down every year, right 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.600 around the holidays, and it was not a big ticket item, 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.720 and I thought, well, you know, okay. So he sent 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:43.280 away for two of these tests, and they arrived, and 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.240 you know, as many people know, you have to spit 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.440 into a plastic vial. They sat on my kitchen counter 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.360 for weeks actually, because they were that unimportant. And then 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.040 at some point one night after dinner, he you know, 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.639 opened mine and he told me to spit in the 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.359 vial and and I did. And I felt sort of 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.919 vaguely ridiculous and like why am I doing this? And 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.800 how much spit do you need? And but I did it, 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.480 and and he sealed mine up, and he sealed his 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.080 up and sent them back off, you know, to be evaluated. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.760 And a while later, I don't know, six weeks eight 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.760 weeks later, one night we were watching TV after dinner, 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.080 just sitting there and he had his laptop sitting on 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.159 his lap, as he often does, and and he said, oh, 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.240 your results are in. And I didn't even know what 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.800 he was talking about. It wasn't like there was any 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.679 since I have had at all that I was waiting 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:46.040 for these results. But he opened my results and started 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.600 looking at them. I wasn't even looking at them. I 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:53.639 was incurious, and he was like huh. I was like, 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.720 huh what And he said, well, look like it says here. 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.240 Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems to be 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:06.560 saying here that you are fifty percent Eastern European Ashkenazi. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:08.560 And I was like, well, that's ridiculous, that's not right. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:15.000 I mean, I'm probably Eastern European Ashkenazi. Both of my 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.359 parents are from that background. And he's like, yeah, it's weird. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.879 But I just thought like there were no, like even 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:29.360 faint warning bills. I just thought there must be some mistake. 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.480 Testing company must you know, have mixed up my results 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.359 or gotten it wrong, or maybe all people are a 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:39.080 little of this and a little of that. We're just 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.639 learning that now. I just had no nothing. But it 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.120 actually did from my husband. I think it's set off 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:51.640 a little bit of his journalistic kind of m also science. 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.880 I mean he was like, yeah, the science of this 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.480 is pretty clear. Um, they don't make they don't really 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.679 make mistakes. And he didn't say that, but when you 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.040 take one of these tests, you can opt in, and 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.720 most people do to see other people that you share 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.360 DNA with that you're related to genetically, and almost everybody 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.800 opts in. And I did. And a little while later, 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.040 maybe a week later, Michael, my husband, I'm sitting there 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.960 having tea with a friend and he comes in to 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.879 where we're sitting and interrupts and says, you have a 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:33.560 first cousin on your ancestry dot com page. And I 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.679 was like, yeah, I have lots of first cousins and 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.159 he said, no, no no, no, like you have a first cousin. 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.200 Who isn't for your first cousin? I mean, you don't 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.840 know who's on here? And he points to this icon 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.440 and I'm basically my mood at that moment is irritated. 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.040 He's interrupting my tea date with this, like, what do 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.600 you mean first cousin? I want to just finish having 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.919 my tea with my friend. And he points out this 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:06.040 little blue icon blue for boys, actually blue for boys 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.680 and pink for girls. The only way we could possibly 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.760 know that's right, that's right. There's no you know, there's 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.840 no yellow or lime green. So there's a little blue 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.439 icon and it only has initials on it. It doesn't 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.240 have a name, it just has initials. And it's not 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.360 somebody that I know that I at that point, I'm 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.479 certain that the testing company has just simply mixed up 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.320 my results with the results of somebody else who is 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.879 wondering what this first cousin isn't appearing on their page 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:41.240 and there must be a mix up. Still, no no 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:45.639 alarm bells, no danger, danger feeling at all. But my 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.000 husband starts exploring this a little bit more and he 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.960 sees that there is a name connected to um the 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.679 first cousins initials. There's actually a name, and he starts 0:21:57.760 --> 0:21:59.600 kind of digging into that name, and he's not really 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.919 getting anywhere, and finally he says to me, you know, 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:04.479 you know, we could really get to the bottom of this. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.400 Michael's pitch is to reach out to Susie, Danny's much 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.440 older half sister, her father's daughter from an earlier marriage. 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.879 That two of them had not grown up together, but 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.280 Susie was someone that Danny had always admired. She was 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.160 intelligent and sophisticated, part of a world that was wildly 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.679 different from the one that Danny grew up in. I 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.640 kind of revered her in a lot of ways. We 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.480 had not been close for a number of years. Susie 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.639 and my mother hated each other, which was something that 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:45.240 always left me feeling of very divided loyalty. And after 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.840 my mother died, we hadn't talked in a few years. 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:50.840 But Michael said to me, why don't you reach out 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.680 to Susie. Do you think she's done a DNA test? 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.560 And I remembered that she had told me years earlier, 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.720 she being an even more of an earlier after adapter 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:03.920 of technology. Then my husband is that she had done 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.440 one of the early back when it was pretty unusual 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:12.080 DNA home tests, mostly for health reasons, wanting to know 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:14.760 if she had, you know, any genetic diseases that she 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.080 could know about. So I sent an email this is 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:23.879 now happening very very quickly. It's nighttime. We had been 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:25.720 out to dinner with friends. I had told them the 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.000 whole story about how there was this crazy thing with 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:30.320 this first cousin, and the friends we were out with 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.159 later told me like they went home and said, Danny 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.879 doesn't know what what's about to happen to her because 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:38.320 Danny really didn't know what was about to happen to her. 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.359 I still thought, this is just, you know, kind of 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:44.399 nutty stuff. This is your husband just like chasing a 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.119 rabbit hole. You're like, are you bored? Are you between projects? 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:54.199 But like that, get a life. Yeah, totally totally just 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.040 a feeling of like, this is this is just too much, 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:01.960 this is this is like a conspiracy theory almost um. 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.040 But I did reach out to Susie. I sent her 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:06.959 an email asking if my memory was correct that she 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:11.000 had in fact done DNA testing and if so, did 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:15.160 she have any information regarding that? And I heard back 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:19.680 from her within an hour that yes, she had done 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:25.119 DNA testing and that she was actually away she was 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:29.440 at a TED conference in um Canada, but that she 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:31.520 would look on her computer that she had with her 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.600 to see if she had her results with her, and 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:40.040 another email saying she indeed did, and there's a site 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:45.040 that exists that she knew about and that Michael also 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:48.800 knew about. That's called um jet match, and jet match 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:53.639 exists entirely for the purpose of comparing DNA results. So 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.720 you can upload a kit number you know your name 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:00.080 isn't on it or anything like that. Just your your 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:04.240 kit number of your d n A results and the 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.720 kit number of someone else's DNA results, and see how 0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:13.000 closely you are related. And that's when everything went kind 0:25:13.000 --> 0:25:17.080 of at warp speed. So Susie sent her kit number. 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:20.600 Michael knew about this technology. We were leaving the next 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:24.240 day on a trip. I was upstairs packing and putting 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:27.480 everything in its proper place. All of a sudden, here 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:33.560 Michael like running up the stairs with his laptop, and 0:25:33.600 --> 0:25:38.000 I think the moment that I saw his face, I 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:43.400 began to hear warning bills because he looked that kind 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:46.080 of wide open look I had only seen on his 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.560 face a couple of times. I saw it on his 0:25:48.640 --> 0:25:51.840 face the moment our son was born. I saw it 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:55.800 on his face. I came home one day and my 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:58.879 mother had been terminally ill. But I like, he was 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:01.200 standing on the porch and I looked at his face, 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:04.639 and I knew my mother had died. I had seen 0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:08.080 it on his face in moments of like huge before 0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:11.399 and after kind of moments good and you know, the 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:14.960 most beautiful and the most terrible, and and what I 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:17.840 saw in his face was that. And he sat down 0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:20.679 next to me, and he pointed to this whole series 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:23.679 of numbers on his computer screen and I was like, 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.240 I don't know what this means. And he pointed to 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:28.879 a line and he said, right there, and there was 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:31.280 a series of letters, a series of numbers. And I 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:33.800 said what is that And he said, that's your most 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:38.520