Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 5

Published Jul 11, 2019, 4:00 PM

In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community.

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Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. As I tore the nation from my book Inheritance, I've heard from so many about your own family secrets and realize that what we are creating for each other on this podcast is a community, a community for those who are looking for a safe and supportive space to unburden themselves. To that end, we've created a number for listeners to call in to record stories to share here in this space. This week, I'd like to share a few of those stories from our community. Thanks for listening. My family's secret is UM something that actually ended up being the reason that I was born. My grandfather had fallen in love with this woman and they had conceived a child out of wedlock. Her parents wouldn't let them get married, so they took her away um to have the baby and put the baby up for adoption. This was I think very early sixties to late fifties, and uh they they didn't need his signature or anything back then. So my grandfather has a child my mom got pregnant with me very young. Um also was not married. And uh, that's when my grandpa told us his secret for the first time. My grandmother didn't even know, and he took my mom out and she was contemplating her options, and my grandfather said, I have a child who has a big place for adoption. It is the worst experience I've ever had to deal with and live with. Please keep your baby, and I don't help you it. That's really what happened to UM. My grandfather is very much my father in a lot of ways, especially in angry years before my dad became a part of life. And Uh, I've been trying to find my uncle. Uh, we know that the baby was a boy, and we've all gone on the DNA websites and I've just been waiting for a hit and hoping for a hit someday. That's my family's secret. Hi, And my family's secret starts with my grandfather on my mom's side. He never knew his grandparents from his dad's side, so his paternal grandparents. I took it upon me to do the genealogy and try to find out who his family was. Eventually we were able to find them out, But along the way we found out that his dad had been married previously and had a child from that first marriage. When I went over to my grandparents house to share this information, of all the ancestors we were able to find, you know, his grandparents and beyond, and then also this information about long lost sister that we thought he never knew about. Um he just said, oh, I thought it was a brother that I had, which my grandma and I kind of looked at him in dis police since he had never shared this information if anyone, and come to find out, you know, he was an only child, so he thought, and his parents and other family members were of the mindset that children should be seen and not heard, so he would just only overhear things but could never ask questions, and if he did, he would be told, you know, we'll talk about that when you're older, which they never did. So now our project is trying to find out more about the sister. We know that she passed away in the mid nineties, and now we're trying to find family relations on her side that we can connect with and find out more about her and what may have happened with that relationship, why the dad never had contact with her again why they got divorced and she was never a part of his life. Hi, I am calling to UM leave a little bit of that family secret story UM that has recently come to light. UM and Tinnah had some light on some past events that have happened in my life. I am almost thirty years old, and when I was in sixth grade, I remember my mom coming up and telling me, after my parents had had some real difficulty and my dad had moved out for a bit, that things were going to change. Of course, assumed divorce, UM time goes on, nothing happens. I don't have the courage to ask about it. They stayed together until in the junior in high school and I finally asked her, were you guys going to get a divorce? And she simply responds the yes. And when I asked, why did you not, she said because of you kids. I am the oldest sibling of a few of us, UM. And fast forward to now, as an almost thirty year old, my parents are having some more marital difficulties and during this process, my dad decides to send us a letter telling us about the fact that he cheated on my mom. When UM, I was back in sad sixth grade and kind of left us all in a three page long letter. This story about a necessarily had um the process of telling my mom and quite a convoluted story UM that kind of shed some clarity on a lot of events throughout my childhood and adolescence. It's been an overwhelming thing to know about and to hear UM. I kind of read the letter initially it met was met with shock and lots of tears obviously as well, and then kind of has been a process of being very glad that I know giving a lot of clarity to past events, and kind of this ongoing process of feeling really fresh hurt and fresh anger for something that happened so long ago, and kind of processing what that looks like now in my life as an adult and my relationship with my parents and the perspective I have on a lot of things that happened throughout my life. So UM, there is a little bit of my story. Thank you so much for this podcast. It's been really relatable in a lot of ways, even though the stories are different for every person. To thank you. If you'd like to share your story, call one eight eight eight secret zero and record your story. We won't be able to run all the stories, but we do want to shine a light on as many as we can. The number again is one eight eight eight Secret and then the numeral zero. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Family Secrets

Family Secrets. We all have them. And while the discovery of family secrets can initially be terrify 
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