Yvette’s DNA Surprise

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

but then I had the end of the day, it'll make sense because I just get lazy little moments where these are ha moment still going.

Oh my gosh.

I just remember as a little girl and deaf, my parents friends would always exclaim how different do the girls look how.

Exotic-looking is a fat?

Are you sure?

You know, her father's an array?

You know, your real father.

You know, how you would come up in conversation again?

I don't know how my mom held it together all those years.

Imagine spitting into a tube, sending off your DNA.

And unknowingly turning your life upside down for me and thousands of others.

This is our reality, I'm your host Alexis ourselves in July of 2021, I discovered that I am an NP e.

Someone who has experienced a non paternal event.

In other words my biological father isn't who I thought he was.

Was this podcast shares, the journeys of people who were shocked by a DNA Discovery.

Mostly through Modern DNA testing.

We're telling the stories of npes adoptees and donor conceived people and their families.

This is DNA

That was the first person I spoke to for the podcast and her vulnerability and Candor really moved me Evette experienced her DNA surprise and December of 2020.

And in this episode, she explains how layered these situations can be and how energen, arational, family secrets, and Trauma play out as well as how they affected.

At her.

Thank you for sharing your story of

it.

My name is Jose.

I am 36 years old and I am from Sydney Australia.

Can you tell

us a bit about your DNA, surprise story?

Where do I begin?

I'll start off with, I've been for a while.

I was talking to my husband about getting a DNA test and I kind of started bugging him a little bit more meat.

Last year, I've always wanted to know Why my mother's father is really dark.

He's Croatian.

And as we generally know, croatians are known to be quite Fair, blond hair blue eyes, but his family and himself there from one of the islands of Croatia and they're very dark.

So, he had black hair really, really dark olive skin.

Like really didn't like tan skin and A lot of them, some of my aunties and uncles, they almost look Indian.

Just they look very, very different to what a Croatian looks like generally.

So and growing up, I always look different to my family, so my dad he's British.

So I've Scottish and English descent.

My mother is Croatian and they're very fair.

And I when I started Getting into my late like, what like primary school early teens?

I noticed, every time I'd go out in the sun, I just tan.

Like I really get that Mediterranean tan and my sisters, my younger sister.

They're very fair blue eyes, fair skin, and they can't tan at all.

If they go in the sun they start burning within 10 minutes or as me I just start going around and Browner and Browner and I just started asking the questions.

Like why why, why do I tan and why can't my sisters and my mom would just always pass it open.

You just look exactly like a good grandfather, you've got his complexion and then I just remembered in school in science, learning this recessive and dominating Jean remember that envelope in science and I'd literally lay out my grandparents.

And it's like so I took my grandparents have blue It's from my dad's side.

My grandmother has green eyes, and my grandfather has brown eyes, and my mum's got hazel eyes.

Dad has Crystal Blue Eyes.

The hell did I get brown eyes and my hands very dark.

It used to be like a strawberry blond as a when I was about to, but I quickly went to a medium brown and then my hair in actually is almost black.

So all these questions just cut just started arising as a little girl and I always he's got mistaken as well as a little girl.

I always got mistaken for being people.

Would mistake me for being Aboriginal or South American.

I always got that just wouldn't be good when it because I was very tan line.

Always be choice in the sun always

Outdoors.

What did you say?

When people would ask you those

questions?

My dad's pretty sure my mom's Croatian and they look at me going.

Oh okay.

Thanks like they'd get really confused and that Throughout School, even my boyfriend's, what they would all have a complex just like, what is going on.

Like, this girl has an Anglo maiden name.

Hey, and with with she just looks very different to a family.

And so I met my husband and he is Greek.

And, and then we had a little boy and he's just absolutely gorgeous, but we, You look nothing like my dad and you know what they say?

Girls always look like their fathers and boys look like their mums.

Hmm my son looks like me and he looks like my husband as well for nothing like my dad and I actually asked my mother a few years ago, he's my dad, my real dad, and she denied

it so you suspected it

before.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then I kind of I trusted her and say, okay, so I took till tippity NHS because I thought I really want to know what my grandfather's ethnicities, the suspicions of Turkish, you know, just those those kind of suspicions arrives because of that region and what history has told us.

So a week before Christmas, my husband got his test first and here's all added up really nicely great with a bit of Middle Eastern because he's quite White dark looking for a Greek and so the he was really excited about that and and that I got my, my results.

So I open them up and, you know, basically majority of it was Croatian like, you know, the 40, 40, something percent and of, yeah, that's obvious that I had about had a bit of German and I thought, oh, that must be from a bit from maybe a great grandfather from the Balkan region.

And maybe my dad because he's so fat.

Blond hair blue eyes, fair skin.

And I saw Of Eastern European.

I thought maybe this.

Maybe, maybe there's a bit of slaw vehicle something, but from the Croatian side and then I saw 19% Sicilian, and I Know It Sicilian.

What's this Sicilian?

From a little babies from my grandfather and then I try to scroll down to see how much British I had.

Always the Scottish.

Where's the English?

And I just looked at my husband and I said, I don't know what's going on.

Where's the Scottish?

And British Union goes look, maybe let's have a look at your matches and see and my eye and a part of me just died.

Like I recognized all these Croatian matches, but my top matches were these Italian last names and I just died.

I just met who were these people.

What are they doing on my list?

I thought maybe there's a mistake.

That's what I was.

So nice.

Skills, did you think it was a mistake?

That was, that's what I did.

I was like this.

Yes.

There must be.

There must be a mix-up

somehow, awesome.

I got ruined by this this test and, you know, something's happened and maybe it's got mixed up, but then I thought, no, but I can see cousins from my mother's side that have taken the test.

So I was just in this massive blur and so I messaged my mum going.

There's something not right that my test looks a bit funny and so I texted her and then I run my dad and I said, Dad, do you have German and Sicilian?

And he went quiet, he went quiet.

And he said, no, he goes, I'm British.

I'm Scott like dad's English, my mum's Scottish and he goes, I'm going to go and check the family tree over the weekend and I'll get back to you.

And I said, are you sure this like something in the family?

That's something that I absorbed more, you know?

No, I just thought it has to be that, right?

And he came back to me and he said, event node, this isn't right.

And so, we took a paternity test.

And, yeah, he wasn't my, my father, and I just crumbled.

And I went into this deep depression because my mom didn't get back to me.

So I thought maybe she's contacting My, My, My real father.

And I thought maybe he's got to come to my place on Christmas Day and go.

Hey, I'm your yes, and he didn't come and then she came over just after New Year's Day and told me everything.

I like as in like who my biological father was so turns out.

It turns out when I was around the time I was conceived.

She was dating someone from her work, a man twice her age and she fell pregnant with him and then she Palms it off to my dad because she was dating him as well.

And they've got married very quickly.

Quickly now, did

did your dad know or did he?

He taught she told him the day before she saw me.

She saw a way to say though.

He had no idea

growing up.

He didn't know.

He had no idea.

He had no ID

and did she know

she knew.

Okay, she knew she knew she knew and there's a lot of things that I've learnt this.

That I wasn't a mistake.

So, it wasn't just a one-night stand.

Or I and my suspicions were that for a while.

That I think she got herself purposely pregnant and it just align really well with my dad in the picture and just said all this is your daughter so it's bad.

It's So turns out my biological father passed away almost 14 years ago.

And I've got four older siblings that he had with his first wife and I think the most heartbreaking part is my older sister has and I think my siblings other siblings of know they've known about me for the last 15 years.

Oh, so he knew your below?

Yeah, they're live.

Oh yeah.

Okay, I saw actually, when I was 18, I was working at this shop and a man came to my shop, and he goes, our hi.

My name is Peter.

I am a friend of your mom's, oh my, oh my, okay.

And we got talking for a bit and I remember any of his men with a he was very tall like 6 foot, 3 or 4, And he had a, he had a big nose, and a very like a, like an Austrian or German accent and then he left like, so I look, I've got to go back to work.

I'm finished my shift, I mean, my break and I went back into work and I run mum after my shift going, who is Peter like, why did you why you telling you him where I work, why you're selling your friends, where I work, okay.

And she did this.

Nervous laugh.

That was my biological father

so you did meet him but I didn't

know.

And I'm so heartbroken and tormented by that because My older sister has sent me photos of him and I look exactly like him.

I look exactly like him.

Like I've got a just and I look exactly like his mother my biological grandmother.

And I just thought what did my mom say and do over the years to stop us from knowing each other?

Like, was it some sick game for her?

I just don't know.

And I'll never know because I don't talk to her anymore and I just, I just don't understand like how she could have been so cruel, especially when I was asking because, you know, we're always taught growing up to never lie.

And if you lie, you get punished right?

So and he's my mom, she told me the biggest lie and what really broke my heart.

The most is that her mom, my grandma.

You As well.

And her, mum was like a mum to me.

And I was just so heartbroken and I did try and confront her, and she denied it, and it's just broken that family now because they can't hold accountability for what's happened, but it's been such a big chain.

He's

my heart is hurting for you.

And also I aiso relate to So, what do you think that you're saying, because that's the same thing happened to me, most of my extended family knew, and I

call my gosh, so that feeling of betrayal

extends, so much further, and it's

crushing, isn't it?

It's so

crushing off, I feel for you.

I so feel for you.

So are your your parents that raised you are they still married

nice?

Like I divorced when I was Is 14 and that's I guess where she could have said something after.

Like it's just I haven't found out after this surprise DNA test.

My husband actually asked my mother's well, like he said, he's sure that starts not your real, quite not her.

Real dad like they don't look alike and of course you went all quiet and try to deflect.

That.

And so it's been very heartbreaking at but then it's so it turns out my life, my biological father here.

He was born in Vienna in Austria and his mother, so she's actually part check in part Jewish.

Hmm.

Okay, and my grandfather also hurt.

His father was Sicilian.

So that's where the Sicilian comes

from.

And even more traumatizing, hey, did not know his father.

He's parents.

My grandparents had a fling involve or two and he never knew like, I think he came to us to Vienna to visit the city met my grandmother must have had a bit of it, you know, war horse hoof Wing, which, which was very common back then.

In and then he left and she never saw him again.

And that's where the Sicilian came from.

And so I thought, you know what this is intergenerational trauma here for me, but like a repeat of History.

So to help me just get through the pain and the great actually started looking for my grandfather.

Oh, wow.

And were you able to find him?

Well, now could you

look In light of final stages of confirming who like, like just to, you know, like put the icing on the cake.

So that's been amazing.

How did you find him?

I got a search angel in a sicilian, genealogy group, and these I was ready to pay for a genealogist in the admin.

She said, no, I don't want you to pay.

I know someone that can help you.

And my gosh, this woman is like literally an Earth Angel.

Oil.

And she's so black and white and just said, look, let's just break it down and, and let's see what you have.

And then she, she found him and he passed away a few years ago.

My grandfather.

He passed away before I was born.

So, okay.

But I know my lineage and I guess what has been really helpful for me is, I'm in contact with some cousins from the Sicilian side who have been.

So Amazing.

And I think for me that has what's been amazing because the stories because my family the Sicilian family, a majority of them moved to America during the diaspora in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

So hearing the stories of my great-grandparents working in the cotton fields in New Orleans to you know, much Some of my cousin's in Buffalo getting into the mafia, all these stories to shape us who we are because I know they got a bit of grief in America who they were being yes Sicilian and, and it kind of just reminded me of me growing up and feeling different and not fitting in for how I look, even though I do looks like some of my Sicilian relatives.

But probably more so on the Croatian side and now my paternal mother's side.

Like I just see so much resemblance but I guess it's just all these stories and then even the stories of my father growing up even after WWII just the the poverty, the fear of they could have been taken to one of the camps at any given time.

So it's just Thank phenomenal, in that sense.

Just understanding who I am and my lineage.

And I think one of the biggest thing was I connect with the color and, and we've really connected, and she actually had a surprise DNA test with a very similar story to me.

Didn't know she was Sicilian her father passed away years ago.

We actually look similar as well.

It's just so crazy.

Crazy.

It's just wild how

common this is.

It is yeah.

So common even within your family.

In the

family and it's just really I think it's just been so nice and comforting to know that I'm not the only one in the family that has gone through the years.

So it's just been, it's been really good in that kind of sense of like as horrible as it is to go through it like that. the whole experience, but I guess just knowing just knowing that they're like, but not a perfect family and there's, there's a secrets and the lies and I did kind of feel like When I was embarked on the in Journey of finding my grandfather, I had a feeling I was going to unravel more than I did, and I did and but it's I'm just so glad I have because it's just a healing and I

guess coming from from especially being brought up bulk and like, I never identified with the British at all, I could never connect with it.

I swear I felt with Whispers as a little girl when would that be at family?

Gatherings like this is not your family, you don't belong here.

But with my Croatian side I felt home.

I was brought up by my grandparents but they really taught me a lot of The Valleys or family and how important family is.

And I think that's what I really held close to my heart whilst doing all the genealogy stuff this year and it just really helped me distract me from the Yeah, this is even to this day, I still go to, to my husband, I can't believe that.

I just can't believe I'm mixed race, like all these years, I thought I was white.

And, and, and I'm not like, I'm truly mixed-race.

It's just like, I feel like I've just got the best of the Mediterranean and, and then some Union in Europe, and it's just been such a while, right?

Right.

Just to understand it all.

Yeah it's I think you know we're about

the same age so I think you spend your whole life believing something and then you just have to retrain your brain to accept another truth.

And you know for me it's the same.

Every now that I just look around and I'm like is this real?

Did this really happen?

No.

And then you know you have to go through the acceptance process all over

again.

Oh absolutely so much learning.

I'm learning and I've been in touch with my older sister.

She's been amazing because I actually found my biological father's obituary online and and reached out to her and then she wrote back to me and she said, whatever questions you have asked me and because I was so apprehensive like, is this the even for real?

Yeah, come for all the sick.

Yeah, so I want to ask

you about that.

So you found out in December of twenty, twenty amidst locked down the pandemic, kind of, the height of everything globally.

Have you connected with your other before older?

Siblings are Lee just my older sister?

So yeah, we were emailing back and forth a lot and then we have spoken in August and then we Face times in September.

We look similar.

I look I look a bit like my both of my sisters like a both got a very similar face structure from our from our biological father but my brother's they look more like their mum.

But yeah I'm sure like it's going to take time because I'm still getting my head around it.

That I've got four older siblings and I've got a ton of nieces and nephews

What did they know about you?

You said that, they'd known about you for 15 years.

What did they know?

So my older sister reached out to our father biologic, my biological father about a 30 year or so like when he was dying because he died of lung cancer, okay, she just asked him, is there any other siblings?

And he goes yes, you have a younger sister called of that and he's like, she's like, God does she know about me?

And can I meet her?

Can I call He's like oh, you know, that's up to her mother to decide and so it's just been and and the coincidences like not only do I look like my biological father we have a very similar personality Like Our Fate was got the same favorite dishes.

Same favorite interest like a love reading.

I I love history.

I love politics, like everything I did at Uni.

He loved all of that.

So, have you been able to find some connection to him through your sibling?

Your older

sister, and start learning about him.

Absolutely the stories, the stories is just incredible.

And then when we face tongue eyes, I remember when we just waste.

We, I'm opened up the cameras and I said to her are.

So I wasn't just a little bit late.

I was just cooking some You know, something like that.

It's just probably cooking for dinner.

So I'm cooking goulash.

It's one of my favorite meals and she just stared at me.

She went.

Oh my God, that was dad's favorite meal.

Wow.

And then she, I normally wear glasses and she pointed out my classes was.

I had them on that that day and she goes.

I've ever really nice classes and I said, oh, I've always wanted glasses.

Since I was a little girl, I had a lazy eye and we'll show where I got that from.

Is just stared at me and she goes, Don't have a lazy eye that's where you got to get my ass.

So I had Goose Bumps because not only is it important to know our roots and our ethnicity, the medical stuff like the 35 years.

I've been talking about someone else's medical history, that's not even mine.

That's incredibly painful.

That's another one of the things that I found, I was surprised by how much that

hurt its ultimate betrayal ultimate, even with

the best of Is it still creates a lot of

hurt of course, and it was one of the biggest things when I run my GPA to tell her what happened, and can you please update my medical history?

It's just like, yep, done.

This all makes sense.

Now like, you know, just

You think back to every form?

You fill out everything.

Everything

is so many layers.

It's just so like I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror after the after what happened.

I just couldn't recognize myself in my coma.

You?

It's so different.

So different.

Now, it's very different for me now, but I think it's just so much grief.

Like, the grief of not knowing, well, the grief of losing that ethnicity.

T, I actually quite liked the Scottish, ethnicity, our client, like the Scottish people, so a little bit paint when that was gone.

But, and then not knowing my, my, my biological father and then not knowing my, my grandmother like she, she lived until the 90s but she died in Vienna, but it was, so they could have been an opportunity mmm-hmm even to talk to her on the phone.

And just just so many things and then and then knowing I'm the these me away from these cities.

I would have never been Jewish not with my mum's side of the family.

They're very stoic Catholic, but I didn't realize how important it is for Jewish people to know their Roots.

Just when I'm, you know, looking in genealogy groups and just researching the faith on me.

Line or and I've even tried to reach out to synagogues here in Sydney going.

Hey do you have any like groups for people that have just found out?

They've got Jewish ethnicity and the land, we don't have anything like that.

Oh but you can come to our classes to learn the Facebook.

I don't want to convert, right?

Just want to understand myself if it is so difficult to even

you want like Judaism 101 or something like just to learn the basic.

So I just look how I just look at a long line.

And I think I pay attention now, more to two things that I never really did in specially like with Sicilians still as I can, I guess, I love cannoli, I've always loved cannoli but then the very doesn't love Italian desserts and I've always loved The Sopranos because of their attitude and just, you know, having to stick up themselves in such a crazy world and but they're very family orientated.

But then I have this long Enos like, I'll never have any ideas that will teach me, the little recipes of, you know, the secret ingredients and stuff.

And that really hurt me because I do know how to cook, Croatian food, and I have been surrounded by the matriarchs in that side of the family.

So I don't have anyone.

But then my search Angel, she's actually started giving me recipes to cook and when she gave it to me, I just started crying.

It's like,

For people that don't know who might be listening, can you talk about what a search Angel is, and what they

do is so much.

So I think you can get a search angel in.

There's certain like, DNA detective or search Angel groups, or surprise, DNA groups.

Basically a search Angel is, if you're looking for a particular family member, they will actually look at your DNA.

Also, now look at your matches and then they will create a tree with your with your matches and then they will figure out who your family member is in, like, whoever you're looking for.

So, I think it would have been impossible.

I would probably will not have found my father.

If I did not know who he was, because he had a different last name, to my grandfather and then the story this those are tall story about him.

That was Not sure, and he had, he had a different name.

He gave my grandmother a different name and we for certain that he was a US Soldier like an Army soldier from WWII to because we found this man's draft cards and his army details when he signed up for the war in 1942 and then he left the Army in.

In end of 1944 to marry his bride.

And he was American, he was an American Cecilia, ended its generation, which is even more crazy for me.

Yeah, because I just thought I could have got some amazing friends in America.

I've got distant family that have moved to America, but to have something so close to home.

Like that has just really like, Is thrown everything up because even when I was looking for him, people would go to me.

Are you sure he wasn't an American Soldier because the story is saying, is it really like this?

It sounds a bit tall and I had to do a lot of research and just go off what was happening in Vienna in 1943, like the time when my father would have been conceived, and I just kind of like I've ever had found essays on Even soldiers, like they really fetishized the European women because exotic advice, my friend, a bit of an escape from the war than the trouble.

That was happening.

So, yeah, my search Angel basically went from my highest match, which wasn't extremely high.

Like, I just thought, I actually thought she was a second cousin and I think she's a first cousin to my And she kind of just backtracked it and then a few relatives in America, actually were inspired to do my like, to do the DNA test because I did and it was very interesting to see where they fit on this tree and she just not only did she find my grandfather?

She built a tree for me of my lineage from it's just I look at it in or going this is my family visa and they The Great's grandparents up until the 1700's and it's just like, I would have been just happy to have my grandfather, so she did go above and beyond for me, that's incredible.

So you talked about kind of a tall story that your grandfather might have told can you share what that is or

so it was would have been from my grandmother so the story that that my father biological father got from her so the story He went on to say his name was Sam translated in English and he went to work in the factories in Vienna during WWII and he met my grandmother, they had a bit of a, you know, a fling.

And then he said he had to go back to Sicily back to his wife and five children, And then never saw him again.

And here, I am looking for someone in this family tree because how I did it was I looked up on top matches from from there, the Sicilian silent?

It's hot.

I looked at, I think the top 10 or something and they all came back to this family tree that I found that this man did, which turns out to be my third cousin.

And so here's His great grandfather and my great grandmother were siblings.

That's how we figured it out in the end.

And I was just looking at this tree for ages.

Literally eliminating people like going.

Nah, that can't be him.

That can't be him and I'm pulling my hair out going to.

Where is this Sam guy on my tree?

I can't find him until my search angel came in and she said, That look at this family.

Have you looked at that family went?

Yeah, there's only three children.

She goes.

No, there's a fourth and that's when she said I just want you to only look at his family, treat this family, like only then, and it makes sense, because this grandfather of mine when I first found a picture of his mother for the first time I literally just stopped and I was my jaw dropped and it, she looks exactly like my son just a blond-haired, blue-eyed version looking version of my son because my son is very Mediterranean looking like dark hair, brown eyes, tan, skin, and I just died, and I

just thought, Oh my gosh and then it turns out the men like from my grandfather's father side.

They're all tall really talks that that kind of cemented a lot with my father, being quite tall being over six feet, three, and then it then and that and that actually comforted me because I'm about 58.

So relatively time now I know

where I got my heart from.

Yeah so it's just been incredible and there's just I just don't know how they search Angels do it.

They must Look at something and then just they're just

attacked three.

But also they are angels.

I mean they have so many truly

are and they do this out of their free time.

That's the difference with these search Angels.

They're not paid genealogist.

They do this out of your time.

They don't contact your family.

They will ask you to like if they've got certain questions and yeah

it's been amazing.

I've been credible

anime.

So what was

Have you told and what was everyone's reaction when you made this

discovery?

Well I got because I was very angry with my mother and then confused.

So her sister knows So that whole family knows.

I've rung up my godmother to say she knew anything about my biological father.

She could not believe it this have a.

She thought the man that raised me was my dad and she even thought it to she was, but you look like a grandfather.

I said wait, until we catch up and you see the photos of my new family and you're going to get my employed, then I reached out and I reached out to one of my mom's first cousins that I'm close week and he was heartbroken, he had no idea that it was a secret that my grandmother and my mother kept from everyone and then just my friends and then found out and they've been amazing.

Like, I had friends coming over the comfort.

Me on my husband has, Old some of these family and they just go.

This is so messed up.

Yeah, it's shocking.

It's really it's just I just and it's just with banging those groups, those NPA DNA detectives groups.

It's just amazing how I'm like, it's not, it's so common, it's not uncommon.

Like we've all got that similar that thread that we have had a DNA test.

All of our stories are different, like some people get to meet their their fathers or their mothers because you know, summer Are adopted but it I guess it's just that that shock and like and especially being a different ethnicity.

I think if my mom had like if I if my father was the same nationality as much the man, that raised me.

I think I could still be in shock but at least I wouldn't have to rewire as much.

Yes, I completely agree.

Yeah, the feel that so

yeah, it's an Layer.

And it's a whole culture that you were never exposed to, and it makes so many things like what you were saying about never feeling like you really identified with that, that side of you, you know, your father site or your dad's eyes, it's it makes so many things make sense.

But then you also have this grief about a whole family and culture that you were never exposed to.

And like, how do you catch up?

How do you catch up?

I I tried, but I don't know.

I think for me, for cooking has been really comforting learning about the Jewish faith.

Now, with the Czech ethnicity, I'm really comfortable with that because some of my favorite authors were Jack and it's in that same Eastern European region like me the Balkan side.

So it was not like a sicilian and it's just very in and check is just to two completely different cultures and way of like one of the first Thing I did was I bought a sicilian cookbook, and this particular School cookbook has a bit of the history of Sicily.

I feel when I cook, I feel the presence of my matriarchs from Sicily with me, just like finally she's home.

I try and find Sicilian, folklore music just to have in the background just so I can listen to it and feel like I'm there.

And then I want to learn the Language.

Because we do want to go to Sicily now, to see to see it, the place where my family are from, which is a really small village of only like 3,000 people like it's just tiny.

Yeah and I thought well I will need to learn a bit of Sicilian if I want to get more information about my family Lions because only the older people will know not the young people with my with my family being so much older.

Like it's just these little things.

Going to the library of the council's to get more records.

Maybe I can learn the language because that's one thing I learned Sicilian is very different to Italian.

It's a different language in itself.

Something I really learnt recently, I thought they just spoke Italian.

Don't tell.

Assisted.

Do you tell us a simple?

I said that because I be like and it's just very yeah it's very um and it's and And that has an amazing history in itself in Sicily that I'm learning and loving, but it's just, I guess in a way I'll probably would have never been able to get any of that because my father didn't know.

He's so I think I feel a little bit, don't feel as guilty and and my mum, I don't think my mum knew that he was half Sicilian.

I think she just, she just thought he Was Austrian and Jewish like I don't shit think he, she even knew his background and so I think if the truth did come out earlier she probably would have not had an idea.

Whereas I probably would know a lot about My biological father, more than my mum would ever have known.

So,

yeah, I love what you said about cooking and kind of using that and listening to music as a way to kill a culture.

I think that's just really special, and a really great idea for anyone who's trying to figure out a way to connect with, you know, a different culture, that's new to them,

especially when I don't have the relatives around me, and if I was to connect with relatives, it would It would be the whoever's left in in America.

And those are, those are third cousins or second like, second cousins.

And I don't think many of them really would really know because my grandfather and his siblings, they all passed away like yeah.

Before I was born and I think just the support that I have had from my husband.

He has tolerated so much from me, you don't think through this, that's it.

But hey, the such a new you're doing so well.

If I found out my father wasn't my real father.

I would be in a psych ward.

He said, like you've done it so well.

So there's been so much crying and me.

Just sometimes I go into this spin, like how could she done this and how could she do this to me?

Like it's just and then how could she do?

Do this to her grandson.

Like, I'm gonna have to tell him.

I'm gonna have to tell him one day because he looks like his biological grandfather.

How old is your son?

He'll be ten soon.

I think he has a fair idea now hearing the stories but he won't ever pipe up and say something to me.

Hmm, but look at the end of the day and sometimes it can be a bit, it can.

It can feel a bit insensitive when people say.

But it's so true when people say to me, no matter what your father will always be your father, they're right, they're completely right, yes.

I definitely

heard that a few times and I remember in the immediate aftermath really not being receptive to that.

Because not because he's not my dad, you know, he'll always be my dad and but that for me it was like, that's not the point.

The point is the deception and the truth.

And the lack of knowledge and the lack of opportunity to connect.

It really has nothing to do with the relationship that I have with my dad because yes, he'll always be my dad and I do treasure that relationship and hopes thing.

But we'll be able to kind of restore some, some of that, but it's still relatively fresh for me.

I will tell you some other coincidence when I found my biological father.

He's actually buried here in Sydney, not far from me.

Maybe about half an hour's Drive, depending, and he's buried in the same Cemetery as my in-laws.

So I've been going to that Cemetery since I started dating my husband, because we used to visit his father, I never met my father in law and then when my mother-in-law passed, we had this everything there.

So They buried in the Orthodox.

Greek Orthodox section.

So when we go to visit, he will drop me off at the Jewish line, because that's where my father's buried.

So I go there and that, you know, I've been learning all the rituals, what you need to do to respect and honor the past and loved ones and I'd have my time with him and then I go for a little walk for about a minute and there I am in the Greek Orthodox.

Section to honor my in-laws and how frustrating it is that he has been there all those time.

All these years I have been walking past driving past and did not know that has really angered me and upsetted me.

But then at the same time, it's like, well, I'm glad that you're not far from me.

Yeah, yeah, but there are those Those moments where you think.

Oh, that was an opportunity to tell me or if I'd known.

Yeah, I think we play those scripts in our minds as we're processing at all and that is wild.

So you said, you know, your father that raised you will always be your father.

How is your relationship with

him?

So it's it's wonderful.

It's wonderful.

Even out of my younger sisters and me on still low on that.

Once every few weeks, we celebrate Father's Day in September here in Australia, and I think it's different in America that it's early, early.

Yeah, and my son, and I, we bought a present for him.

Like, just a coffee table book on sailing, as he loves boats and sailing, and we sent that to him, and he rang me up.

And he goes, oh my gosh.

Thank you so much for the present.

He goes, I always cry.

I could not believe.

Believe it and he goes, I love you guys so much and yeah,

yeah, baseball

special things.

Yeah, yeah.

I think ultimately, you know, when somebody raised you and you had a loving and positive relationship with them, that's not going to go away even with these DNA surprises.

Like what you were

saying.

Exactly.

It's not like, it's not like he was abusive or anything, and I got the DNA test and I was friendly.

Peni.

It wasn't like that.

It was so heartbreaking to not know that.

I don't share the DNA with him.

It's

you mentioned that you you don't speak to your mom that much

anymore.

I don't know it all.

Okay, it's not because of this or oh yes it is.

Okay,

yeah.

Has she

expressed any remorse or anything?

Not about what happened?

No, no,

no she she can't.

Holy cow.

Mobility this woman and she she's still trying to uphold her reputation, but I think at the same time she knows how to play her cards and who to talk to and who do not talk to.

I don't know.

I just she-she's the pace of work for expert that I think the setting my biological father to my work was just that when I call my gosh, it was because one of the Biggest things when I found out about itat, like, the surprise test.

Like also an alcoholic for a month and I was vomiting.

I was showering like three or four times a day because I felt dirty like, oh my God, I'm a doctor of this affair and and then I had this feeling that Mom kind of planned it.

And yeah I've just I've never really been the same in that kind of because trust is a huge thing.

Like it is we're supposed to trust our motherland.

Like, and I just think I could never ever do anything like that to my son.

If you had a friend maybe who was in a situation like your mother, what advice would you give

them?

I would tell them.

He have to tell the truth as hard it would be.

You need to tell the truth and not let them find out with a DNA test, because that's where that's where families break up and friendships break up because of it.

And I'm Thing is how I've always seen it.

It's like a nuclear bomb and on the center and then the next person to be affected by it.

As my father, the man, that raised me and her and his partner, his partner was just shattered as well for both of us and then and then you got to think of his family and then my mom's family, and then my partner, my partner's there as well, and his family.

And then my biological family like my siblings like my older sister that has known about this.

You know, when I spoke to her she said to me, I've been waiting for this day to come.

I've been waiting.

It's just it sucks.

That's what I would tell them.

Just be honest.

It if my mum told me in my late 20s, for instance.

Yeah, I would have been mad right?

But I want, The opportunity to make my father.

I would have had an opportunity though somewhat on my identity.

And I probably would have not taken a test, because I've been, I would have known because it is such a big thing.

Especially if you're thinking, you're one ethnicity going later.

It's just too much.

It's a lot to take in and I think and I would tell Tell them, just do it because if they takes up a test, it's going to take them for the rest of their lives to recover.

It's a very painful way to discover the truth.

Especially now that we're almost an hour late 30s.

It's just you get you start to get set in your ways and your mindset.

You're in a rhythm and routine, it's completely flipped upside down now.

What advice would you give somebody who today?

Found out that they are an NP e

Hodges heart.

You have all the love and support around you when you're moving through, that space of emptiness and numbness.

And just that all those WTF moments, you're going to get if you have a partner, oh my gosh.

Like, don't be afraid to just talk it out because my husband has always said to me, just talk it out.

I don't If you repeat a thousand times, just whatever's on your mind, just say it.

And some days I was just going and I'll be dropping glasses and plates doing silly things because I was just.

So now, I'm a lot better and I, and that like, we still talk about certain things, but I think for me now knowing somewhat of my lineage is it's just like, okay, cool, like How can I integrate that into my lifestyle without having my son to go?

Mom?

What's going on?

Like yeah.

And I think that's what it is and if you need if you need time out and just you know, retract from the well, do it.

I think that was a big privilege for me during covid and especially the lockdowns, where I didn't have to face the world, I was working from home.

I could just Just be in my own space in my study and just go, oh my gosh.

And put that boundary up and and if even if it just meant just bawling my eyes out.

Yeah, you need that.

You can't hold it in because I feel like all these years, my DNA was screaming to me to take a test or figuring out who you are, who you are.

There is some sort of pain, And I think because the truth has been half-buried and I think there's a part of you that just screams out for it.

Or why did we take the test in the first place is right?

Like for me, I didn't

suspect anything but you wonder what part of you knew what part and a lot of things in my past that I look back and I'm like, oh, you knew you

just didn't know you knew Mike was sleeping while still awake.

All these years Yes, yes, yes.

I'm just so excited to know most of my lineages.

I there's always going to be something that we don't know about our great-grandparents and stuff but it's just it's really just helped me shape who I am and and I think just you know coming from you know my Croatian culture and then my husband's from a very very Greek background and that's always been important to us.

So we're just slowly integrating that into our lifestyle and it's all new for us.

It's all new and it's just wonderful and it's heartbreaking.

Is my story is with what happened.

I look I actually laying into my grandparents, my Sicilian and then my check Jewish grandmother I think have they met me?

And, you know, I look at the photos of them going, they would have been a cute couple Yeah I just I think I wonder what it was like.

Yeah that's how I sit.

And just really love Embrace those stories because those stories really shape who we are today.

I

think absolutely.

Why is I'm glad that you got answers, you know?

Yeah it's it's too bad that you didn't get a chance to meet your father and you're going soccer but You have those answers, and I'm sure that that, you know, bring some resolution to the

situation enjoy because, you know, we sometimes say, grief, always as Despair and depression, book grief can be joy to.

Yes, it can be celebration and it can't always be a sad story and otherwise, how can we, how can we grow from it?

Yes,

well, thank you for sharing your story.

Chevette.

Thank you so much for being so generous with your story.

I wish you the best of luck as you continue on this journey

into thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure to share my story in an honor.

Thank you for listening to the first episode of DNA surprises.

If you connected with a vet Story, please rate review And subscribe and if you have experienced a DNA surprise and want to share your story, email DNA surprises at gmail.com, the more we share the less alone.

We are until next time.