Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that
Speaker 1: are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,
Speaker 1: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I've heard from
Speaker 1: so many about your own family secrets and realize that
Speaker 1: what we are creating for each other on this podcast
Speaker 1: is a community, a community for those who are looking
Speaker 1: for a safe and supportive space to unburden themselves. To
Speaker 1: that end, we've created a number for listeners to call
Speaker 1: in to record stories to share here in this space.
Speaker 1: This week, I'd like to share a few of those
Speaker 1: stories from our community. Thanks for listening. My secret is
Speaker 1: that I am withholding information from two of my grandchildren
Speaker 1: and about how their father died, and that from one
Speaker 1: of them, from the youngest one, that his father is
Speaker 1: even dead. Um. The youngest one is emotionally not stable,
Speaker 1: and according to their separate psychologists and psychiatrists, they say
Speaker 1: that they are not ready to hear the details of
Speaker 1: how their father died, and the youngest one is under
Speaker 1: the belief that his father just left him. I tried
Speaker 1: to reassure him, but the secret is my son was
Speaker 1: actually murdered by their mother. He was murdered by his wife,
Speaker 1: buried by their uncle, and it was all months before
Speaker 1: she was dug up and given back to us. They
Speaker 1: do not know that their uncle was convicted of this
Speaker 1: murder and that their mother still walks free and it's
Speaker 1: actually the murderer of their father. So that's my secret.
Speaker 1: I love the podcast, been listening since the beginning and
Speaker 1: never thought I would ever have anything that fell into this.
Speaker 1: But today I was informed by one of my siblings
Speaker 1: that they had been a d n A test and
Speaker 1: our father, his family does not show up as we
Speaker 1: thought it would. Her mother is there. We have separate
Speaker 1: mothers with mothers there um, but she isn't. So now
Speaker 1: I've chosen to take this bat as it's called, and
Speaker 1: to find out, if to confirm her what her speculations are.
Speaker 1: So that's my family secrets. Talked to my wife's and
Speaker 1: my kids to make sure that they understand it why
Speaker 1: I am doing this, and but we've always been open
Speaker 1: about board about it u from the beginning. So it
Speaker 1: was quite white a spectacular tale to find out from
Speaker 1: her um, to not find out that the name I
Speaker 1: carry does not actually maybe belong to me, but we
Speaker 1: were raised by them, so um, I guess it shouldn't
Speaker 1: change anything in the long run, but it just is
Speaker 1: an odd skeleton defined in the closet. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your time. When I'm was eighteen and I smoked pot
Speaker 1: for the first time, the smell was new to me,
Speaker 1: but then again, it wasn't. The smell was that of
Speaker 1: my father. I remember the smell very well, and it
Speaker 1: smelled like his house, his car, and his clothes. And
Speaker 1: I realized at that point that my father smoked pot.
Speaker 1: Not really a big deal. Um that Christmas when I
Speaker 1: was a p and I told him that I smoked pot,
Speaker 1: and I know that he did because of the smell.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, he had lifted up a paper
Speaker 1: plate from underneath of his coffee table. He had always
Speaker 1: told me, well, one time he had to All he
Speaker 1: had to do was tell me one time. I always
Speaker 1: listened to my father. He had always kept this paper
Speaker 1: plate underneath the coffee table. And when I asked him
Speaker 1: one time when I was a kid, what is this
Speaker 1: and I went to grab it, he's in his rat poison.
Speaker 1: Don't touch it. And never touched it or thought of
Speaker 1: it again. So that Christmas. When I told him that
Speaker 1: I knew he smoked pots. I could smell it. He
Speaker 1: reached down unto the coffee table, wrapped it, grabbed that plate,
Speaker 1: put it up on the coffee people and there were
Speaker 1: whirling papers. Pot grinder proceeded to roll up joints and
Speaker 1: we smoke together again. And UM, I wasn't totally shocked.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit of a rebel. But after
Speaker 1: we got stoned, my father took me outside when he
Speaker 1: wanted to show me something, and he took me into
Speaker 1: his workshop. He was very proud of the workshop he built.
Speaker 1: It was a tiny ship that he built on top
Speaker 1: of the septic tank. He went into the shed. It
Speaker 1: was nighttime and as I walked inside, the floorboards were
Speaker 1: glowing when I opened the floorboards. When I walked in,
Speaker 1: I could see their light coming from under the floorboards,
Speaker 1: and I said, I thought there was a septic tank.
Speaker 1: He lived up the floorboards and underneath it was a
Speaker 1: giant row house. I found out that night that my
Speaker 1: father was a drug dealer. Hi. I um halfway through
Speaker 1: Danny's book and find it very touchy. I knew that
Speaker 1: my moment had me and UH wasn't with my bio
Speaker 1: dat um classic one night stand, I suppose, and I
Speaker 1: had really built up a picture in my kid as
Speaker 1: a kid, but we never ever talked about it. Um.
Speaker 1: And in her last year of life, when she was
Speaker 1: signing of cancer, when I was going four, Uh, I
Speaker 1: just never was able to talk to her about it.
Speaker 1: So it took me a couple of years to um
Speaker 1: bring up the record, the adoption record. And when I
Speaker 1: reached out to my birth father, uh, he really wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in a relationship. So I found that really interesting
Speaker 1: and really poignant. UM when Danny said, you know, the
Speaker 1: secret was me So it's Facebook, Um, you know on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn with his person last name, it was really Uh
Speaker 1: it's a matter of googling. But it's just so strange
Speaker 1: that I have this entire biological out of my family
Speaker 1: out there and none of them know I except my
Speaker 1: bio dad and constantly his wife. So I've really struggled
Speaker 1: with kind of reconciling myself that we'll never have a relationship,
Speaker 1: and he's calling the shocks, and I'm just not sure
Speaker 1: whether to reach out to any of the other members
Speaker 1: of my biological family. I was raised by my mom,
Speaker 1: she was married, she had kissed with my adoptive father.
Speaker 1: I'm really close to the family that raised me. However,
Speaker 1: it feels like there's this missing hole because personality wise,
Speaker 1: even from one message, I could just tell I'm just
Speaker 1: so much more like my bio dad. I have nothing
Speaker 1: in common with my adoptive father. He's a great guy,
Speaker 1: but that connection of like how our brains work, is
Speaker 1: there for sure. Yeah, if you'd like to share your story,
Speaker 1: call one eight eight eight secret zero and record your story.
Speaker 1: We won't be able to run all the stories, but
Speaker 1: we do want to shine a light on as many
Speaker 1: as we can. The number again is one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight secret and then the numeral zero. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.