245 – Anybody Alive Is Off Limits

245 - Anybody Alive Is Off Limits

[00:00:00]

Cold Cut Intro

[00:00:03] Curt: he's been very welcoming and, he's been very interested in meeting my children, my grandchildren, where that, that's some of the pullbacks that I've had with my mother. our relationship she doesn't want it to expand beyond her and I, but then she gets very defensive if her and I don't have a relationship.

[00:00:51] Damon (2): I'm Damon Davis, and today you're going to meet Kurt. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. When Kurt was a kid, he could feel something was off in his [00:01:00] family, so he set out to find his own way. As an adult, Kurt got curious about locating his birth family, chickened out on DNA testing, into search and reunion.

[00:01:10] Damon (2): On his maternal side, he was finally able to meet his birth mother, but she seems to be keeping him at arm's length. But his birth father knew he had fathered a child, prepared his family to hear from Kurt one day, and was more prepared to welcome Kurt into his life.

[00:01:25] Damon (2): This is Kurt's Journey.

[00:01:27] Damon (2): I started out, as I often do, asking Kurt to tell me about his life as a child in adoption. He opened by telling me,

[00:01:37] Curt: My first memory, I don't even know if it was really a memory. It's more of a dream. But I remember something happened when I was a very small kid on some big government type steps. I don't know what that was, but all my life I've had that memory and it just felt like something bad happened.

[00:01:55] Curt: Right. And I don't know what that was, but beyond that, my first [00:02:00] memories are when I was about four years old, my parents realized that I couldn't hear. And my ear canals were completely stopped. My father, who was authoritarian, was upset with me for not listening. And my mother convinced him, Hey, I don't think he can hear you.

[00:02:20] Curt: And so I had surgery, had tubes and add noise and inner ear stuff done. And some of the first memories was my father whispering to me after I came out of the operating room, and He said, rip, which was the name of our dog. And then about an hour later, when I was more conscious or whatever, he said, did you hear what I said earlier?

[00:02:44] Curt: Tell me what I said. And so I told him and he and they were happy, right? That was a good one. Realized I could hear him. And but growing up, I would tell you, I felt mostly normal, like everybody else's childhood. I yeah. Was [00:03:00] relatively happy. I did have a adopted sister, which, it was just always my sister.

[00:03:06] Curt: We never really had a good relationship. She, we're just way different people. And, I, without getting on the pity pod, I always felt that she was just a favorite child and, I was just the tag along because my dad wanted a son. She was two years older than me.

[00:03:23] Curt: But most part we just, I've just assumed back then that's how brothers and sisters get along. And this is how families are, I never had any other experiences of what that really was. And we really didn't have any real strong difficulties until I was about nine. 10 years old.

[00:03:44] Curt: And then I just, my parents said I had a meltdown. I don't know if you would call it that, but I just basically told them, Hey, I don't feel like part of this family. I don't know why you guys adopted me. This isn't working. So they were like, what's wrong with this kid?

[00:03:59] Curt: [00:04:00] And so they sent me to a psychologist and I had one meeting with them and I was totally offended. I can tell you as a young person, I was maturely offended and I felt like they thought I was crazy, and and I told him that I was like, I'm not crazy. I just. Don't feel like part of this family.

[00:04:18] Curt: And so I went to the psychologist. I don't know what he told them, but it was a one time visit, but that was the cracks that, that happened.

[00:04:29] Damon (2): let me go back for a moment. This is really fascinating. I want to just explore a couple of things. The first of which is this surgery that you had, right?

[00:04:37] Damon (2): Your dad thinks you're this hard headed kid that won't listen, but it's not that you won't, it's that you can't, right? And you said he was an authoritarian, and I'm sure that a lot of his authoritarian nature came out in sort of trying to get you to do stuff because You seemingly weren't listening.

[00:04:56] Damon (2): Did your relationship change at all with your capability to actually [00:05:00] hear what he was saying? Did you notice a difference in Oh, he just said that. Let me go do it. Did you notice a difference in how he interacted with you?

[00:05:07] Curt: I don't, I can't really say that I did or I didn't. I'll add another caveat to that is both of my parents were alcoholics.

[00:05:17] Curt: And around the time when I had that surgery or in that period of our life, they entered the recovery process. They had their own challenges throughout that, and I think that probably changed the dynamic. Between them and myself, and so I can't really relate the being able to hear them to that, right?

[00:05:39] Curt: Because I don't really have much memories of not being able to hear them

[00:05:44] Damon (2): understood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you didn't have memories of not, then it's hard to relate to when you could. But I'm glad you raised this piece about them going into a period of sobriety because that very well could have been one of the catalytic factors for the change in [00:06:00] your relationship, right?

[00:06:00] Damon (2): Like

[00:06:02] Damon (2): alcoholism is affecting their parenting. Then when their parenting is For lack of better words, terrible as, in under the influence, then hopefully it would be somewhat better by being in a position of sobriety. That's really fascinating.

[00:06:20] Curt: , and, as a young kid and even as a, as an adolescent, I learned a lot about.

[00:06:25] Curt: People's sobriety of just being with my parents and having that interaction with those programs, I mean, I know that both of my parents are deceased and, but I know that neither would be disappointed that I shared that they were in AA. And so I had a lot of experience with that as a young child.

[00:06:46] Curt: And so I seen that how that altered other people's moods the ways that they acted and I'm sure that my parents were affected by that greatly, but I didn't have the experience. experience or their memory of having a [00:07:00] relationship with them before that.

[00:07:02] Damon (2): You've spoken a little bit about your relationship with your dad.

[00:07:06] Damon (2): You've said that at around, this prepubescent stage, around 10 years old, you basically had this breakdown of this isn't working. You haven't really talked about your relationship with your mom. Can you describe how you and your mom got along or did not?

[00:07:22] Curt: Yeah, I have to grin and say, there's a lot of, there's a lot of explaining to do on the back end.

[00:07:28] Curt: And I'm sure we won't get to it. Cause we could talk about this for hours, but I always felt like my mom. Was there to be a mom, but we didn't really connect. I felt like, she was just really connected only to my sister. And at a young age, I just felt that I was second fiddle for her.

[00:07:49] Curt: And I know now that would horrify her that I'm saying that, but I shared that in that same time when I was nine or 10 years old and there [00:08:00] wasn't much period of time after that. I'll go ahead and allude to when I started running away and leaving and I really didn't live with them anymore.

[00:08:11] Curt: After in a steady fashion, after I was 13.

[00:08:15] Damon (2): Really? Wow. Where would you go when you would

[00:08:19] Curt: run away everywhere you can imagine? So I slept on every person's sofa that that I know I slept in the woods. And I lived almost like a homeless person. And but I don't want to, I don't want to sugar coat that there was a lot of people that enabled that and helped me during the way, they let me sit on their couch.

[00:08:43] Curt: There was, there was friends, family, not necessarily family, but friends. That helped me get through that. But a good portion of that, I lived in the woods.

[00:08:55] Damon (2): Really interesting. So you're [00:09:00] running away at 13 years old. You didn't really live at home in a steady way after that. Did you continue to go to school?

[00:09:09] Curt: I did. I stayed in school and that's when I really started having some problems just because the running away mostly was in off school times. There was. I was completely gone the entire summer. I went through and tried to stay in school through about the ninth grade. And then after the year of ninth grade, it really went downhill and on, and I had gotten put into a program for troubled youth in school.

[00:09:45] Curt: And so when I went to school in the 10th grade. I was working. I had to come to school after work, like two o'clock in the afternoon. And so I had a little bit of a, a lot of this. Now, in hindsight, it was everybody else's fault but mine. But it [00:10:00] was certainly a lot my own fault. But had some issues.

[00:10:04] Curt: I had come to school. I was hungry and I told, We had a lunch period that I was going to go and get some lunch, some dinner or lunch. And the guy told me, he said, Hey, if you leave the campus, don't come back. And it was like a rental police officer or, security. And I told him, okay, I won't, that's no problem for me.

[00:10:25] Curt: I don't have time for this. This is too much trouble. And so I'll fast forward and a lot of things happen. But when my girlfriend got pregnant, we were both 16. And She had moved to Hawaii. Her parents were getting a divorce. We went through a lot of things just trying to get her to get back to Virginia.

[00:10:45] Curt: But when she did get back to Virginia and she moved in with her father, I went and took the G. E. D. So I got my G. E. D. Before my class graduated about two months before what I [00:11:00] waited because I didn't want to go the rest of my life without some sort of education.

[00:11:05] Damon (2): Right. Yeah. It's funny, you were smart, right?

[00:11:12] Damon (2): It's true, right? You, yeah. You recognized your, the incongruence of your relationship with your family. You recognized that you had freedom of choice, and you also recognized that you were going to be hamstrung in your progress if you didn't. At least get your GED if you weren't going to take the traditional route of graduating.

[00:11:33] Damon (2): That's right. That's pretty smart.

[00:11:36] Curt: Yeah. And so at that point we're fast forward through it, but, we only have so much time, but the, my child was born and, I knew Then that, that was a special relationship that, hey, this is a person that is biologically connected to me and that, that changes everything.

[00:11:59] Curt: So [00:12:00] even at that

[00:12:01] Damon (2): young age, you had the recognition of the importance of this biological child to you as an adoptee, huh?

[00:12:08] Curt: Hell yeah,

[00:12:09] Damon (2): a hundred

[00:12:10] Curt: percent.

[00:12:11] Damon (2): Yeah.

[00:12:11] Curt: And I mean, I'm not going to claim that that totally straightened up my act and I flew straight a hundred percent there, but it sure as heck helped move it in the right direction.

[00:12:23] Curt: That's really interesting. Yeah. And I got a job then a more steady position and I pretty much had that job until I started my own business 12 years later.

[00:12:35] Damon (2): Wow. Really cool. Yeah. That's fascinating.

[00:12:38] Curt: My wife and my girlfriend at the time, we decided, we're young, we're 17, and we were like, well, we don't want people to think we're getting married just because we have a child.

[00:12:49] Damon (2): Right. Yeah.

[00:12:49] Curt: So we waited a year and then we got married a year later.

[00:12:53] Damon (2): Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. So then. What was the [00:13:00] catalyst that made you decide you wanted to ever try to search for your biological family members? Where were you in your life? And why was that the time?

[00:13:09] Curt: Well, I'll tell you about my mom and my dad.

[00:13:12] Curt: And so they would always say, and they told, they told my sister and I pretty much our whole life. We always knew we were adopted. It was put out there that, hey, if you ever want to search, You want to find out something, no problem, we'll help you, but it was disingenuous. And you could feel the disingenuous nature of it.

[00:13:33] Curt: When a few times it was discussed and it was very few times it was the the information was given that, Hey, why would you want to look for somebody that left you? I wouldn't, I can remember my mom telling me I would never want to have anything to do with anybody that left me.

[00:13:50] Curt: Why would they want to see you now? Why would you want to see them? And so that, even as a young child, That leaves a lasting impressions. But about the time that I had my [00:14:00] child, my sister had a child as well. About the exact same time. And she pursued finding her biological parents and it didn't turn out well.

[00:14:13] Curt: And back then she used the traditional methods of hiring a P. I. And records. And, she didn't, I don't think she was able, I don't believe either of us were able to ever get any sort of real records. Virginia is still sealed. But anyways, I don't know exactly how she did it because we don't have a close enough relationship.

[00:14:36] Curt: For that conversation. But I do know that she found her biological mother and was totally shunned. Her biological mother had never told anybody she was remarried and she pretty much told her, Hey, go away. I don't want to revisit this ever. And that reinforced that message to me that, Hey, I don't want to, I don't want to [00:15:00] deal with that and I'll fast forward through this about the time when I was 29, maybe another 10 years later.

[00:15:08] Curt: I started considering it a bit, man, maybe I should find this stuff out and my wife who is very unfiltered, and we have a close relationship, so we don't, she doesn't hold anything back, right? She'd be the person to tell me, Hey man, you look terrible.

[00:15:24] Curt: You need to go in the other room and get some rest or do something, but she wouldn't mean it in a bad way. Right. Just direct

[00:15:31] Damon (2): with her information.

[00:15:33] Curt: Absolutely. And so I mentioned to her that I was thinking about that, around that age and her response was, what are you going to do if you find out something terrible, what are you going to do if you find out that you were a product of.

[00:15:48] Curt: Of a rape or an incest or, there's some sort of information that, that you just don't want to know, and I understand that there's plenty of people and I'm [00:16:00] not trying to disparage anybody's life. Beginnings. I'm just saying that was her information to me was, what are you going to do with that information?

[00:16:08] Curt: Aren't you better to not know? And, I'm like, well, I never, I honestly. Never even considered that. It's it struck me harder than she thought when she said that, cause I really thought about that. And I was like, yeah, I don't want to find that out that I don't think that's information I want to carry around every day thinking about, and so I just pushed it aside

[00:16:35] Damon (2): Around 45 years old, Kurt started thinking about search and reunion again. he admitted one of his personality traits is that when he gets interested in something, he might not tell everyone around himself about it, but he'll privately read up on the topic, join groups to see what people are saying about it, and gauge which direction he wants to go on the issue.

[00:16:56] Damon (2): Kurt made the decision to sign up for a search and reunion [00:17:00] registry. starting his search and reunion process behind the scenes. at the time, he was living in Virginia.

[00:17:05] Damon (2): Then, his family moved to Nevada. That year, his oldest daughter invited them to Thanksgiving dinner at her house in Syracuse, New York.

So my wife and I go out there for Thanksgiving dinner. And we get talking about family affairs and this, that, and the other. And my daughter who is a very brilliant person, she, matter of fact, even when she was little, we we thought, man, did we get the wrong kid?

[00:17:29] Curt: Cause my wife and I were neither one of us were very studious. And my oldest daughter, both my children, but my oldest daughter, even throughout school, they, continually wanted to move her up and things like that. But anyways, she had got on ancestry and built these trees and she, so he's explaining to me and my wife about how far back our family goes and, all of these pertinent people.

[00:17:56] Curt: And even back to the 1600s in Virginia, [00:18:00] and so I said, well, that is our family and those are our roots, but that isn't our genetics. That's not necessarily our bloodline. And I think it's important that you understand that. And it wasn't news to her because she knew I was adopted, right?

[00:18:15] Curt: It wasn't, I don't, I just don't think it really resonated with her that wasn't our heritage, our lineage, so to speak,

[00:18:24] Damon (2): so she had gotten on ancestry and started trees, but she was following trees that were associated with Your adoptive parents lines, not you hadn't actually done the DNA testing that created a trait.

[00:18:38] Damon (2): Ah, she got on out of curiosity and I see and started following your adoptive family roots. Got it.

[00:18:46] Curt: And so you're spot on because the next thing she says is, Dad, you have to do a DNA test. And I'm like, I don't think so. It's been almost 50 years. And I don't think that [00:19:00] I want to do that.

[00:19:00] Curt: I don't want to open up that Pandora's box. I think at that point from reading other people's experiences and from the different times that I had thought about it, I said, you know what? I'm probably better off to move on without this. And and so I was pretty hard on saying, no, I'm not going to do it.

[00:19:21] Curt: And being our family nature, she's extremely stubborn. And so when I got home, so you did get the right kid. For sure. I get home and There's a DNA test on the mailbox, on the front porch from Amazon that she had sent, and then I started getting these calls and messages from her, Hey, have you taken the test yet?

[00:19:44] Curt: And so we went almost. Nine months or a year with me delaying it, even so much so that, and that my family's unaware of this, but I was researching it and looking at some different sites on social media. [00:20:00] And I found out this person that this girl that I had gone to school with she too was adopted and I seen her in one of these sites.

[00:20:07] Curt: So we just started talking about adoption and she had never done a DNA. So we both had said, through messenger that we had been putting it off and so we made a pack like, okay, on this day, We're both gonna do it. Neither one of us did it. , you both chickened out. We both chickened out, but about about a month later, and I don't have any idea why, I will say one thing that may have interacted with it a little bit, and I think about this in retrospect.

[00:20:41] Curt: In 2019, I was in, I was involved in a hunting accident and I was shot and. It bothered me the entire year that I went through some medical procedures, that every time I would go to the doctor, that they were just [00:21:00] willing to not have any information. if I said I'm adopted, no more questions, nothing, and I was like, Yeah, they just gave up.

[00:21:09] Curt: Yeah, what if I have a heart condition? What if I have this? What if I have that? And anyways, so that's in the back of my mind. So early in January, one morning, I get up and I just decided, you know what, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna spit in that tube. And so I got up in the morning, didn't drink anything, went straight to the kit, opened it, registered it, spit in the tube.

[00:21:34] Curt: Got in my vehicle, took it down to the mailbox just so I wouldn't chicken out. Right. I went through the entire thing. And so I, then I contacted this lady that had been encouraging me through one of these search groups. And I told her I did it, I said, Hey, I did it. And it's on the way.

[00:21:50] Curt: So she was like, well, let me know when you get it back. And it came back really quick, like two weeks. Yeah, it's crazy. It is. And so [00:22:00] when I got it, I go home from work and I open it up and I see all these results. And I'm going to tell you that moment alone changed my life. And people would not understand where I'm coming from.

[00:22:16] Curt: But when I seen 1500 relatives on my Yeah, our connections, right? And I mean, some of those are very far removed but to me, that was 1500 relatives. And I just had the thought, wow, there is people that I'm connected to, and I need to meet them.

[00:22:38] Damon (2): Yeah. The vision I had when you described that it is, we talk about family trees.

[00:22:44] Damon (2): That you're this leaf way up here on the tree and somehow you were able to look down and suddenly have x ray vision into the roots of the tree, like just automatically the dirt disappeared and you could see every root with the, that's the image.

[00:22:57] Curt: Yeah, that's a great, that's a great [00:23:00] description of how it actually happened.

[00:23:01] Curt: And so I don't understand. Especially at this point, the ancestry is still a little rudimentary on the connections. So it says that I have, I don't know, six. Real close connections. And so I'm like, well, I don't know what that means. And so I, I call this lady and so I shared my account with her so that she could see full visibility and we're on the phone and she says, well, you see this lady on the top I can tell you what this means.

[00:23:33] Curt: This person is so close to you that this person is a hundred percent either your mother. Are your daughter and considering that she's 19 years older than you. That's a hundred percent your mother. And these two people that are underneath her right here, her children is your brother and sister.

[00:23:57] Damon (2): Relying on the online group [00:24:00] Search Angels, a cadre of dedicated volunteers focused on adoption reunion, Kurt sought advice about how to proceed. Kurt said that from his experiences, he has made some lifelong friends from the Search Angels community. Since barely any information was coming up as genetic linkages on his paternal side, the Search Angels got to work trying to learn more about his birth father's side of the family, Recognizing he needed some sound advice on how to proceed with his birth mother, Kurt's team of friends in the search angels group told him to proceed somewhat cautiously, They recommended he draft a somewhat formal letter to make his first introduction because people can be standoffish when someone reaches out from the depths of their past.

[00:24:42] Damon (2): They told Kurt to proceed with caution. Advice Kurt did not follow.

[00:24:48] Curt: And I just couldn't do it.

[00:24:49] Curt: I immediately that night sent a Message through ancestry to my mother. And basically I tried to keep it [00:25:00] really professional. I tried not to freak her out too much, but I just said, hi, my name is Kurt and I was born. October of 1968. I recently did an ancestry test and it looks like you and I are closely connected.

[00:25:18] Curt: If you'd ever like to talk about that, please give me a call or send me an email. And pretty much, I mean, that was like 11, 10, 11 o'clock at night, because at this point, I am like knee deep in this. I am researching, I have a name, after almost 52 years.

[00:25:36] Curt: What

[00:25:37] Damon (2): have you learned about her? When you get the name, you just start Googling and Facebooking and all kinds of stuff. What did you learn about her that you could possibly find online?

[00:25:46] Curt: Well, I learned that she was an author. And and that was pretty much it. That's all I could really tell that, that she was an author and that she was really active in politics [00:26:00] in her, within our community.

[00:26:01] Curt: And and that was pretty much it. I couldn't really find much else. about her. So it was a bit of a mystery at that point. And so the very next day, I'm so impatient. I'm probably the most impatient person in the entire world. So the next day, you know, I'm expecting an immediate response.

[00:26:22] Curt: And, others are trying to tell me, to garner my expectations and understand that I might not ever get a response. Blah, blah, blah. But I started having a feeling that the message that I sent her was threatening. I don't think it was, and especially now, but I started thinking then that it felt like to me that I was saying, Hey, I'm this person, and you better, and I'm just reading that commanding

[00:26:46] Damon (2): versus

[00:26:46] Curt: inviting.

[00:26:47] Curt: Right. And so I sent another message and it just said, Hey, I'm sorry if this caught you off guard, I didn't mean any ill will by my message. [00:27:00] And, if if you decide to not ever respond to me, I will understand that, but I do thank you for the gift of life and I wanted to let you know that. And anyway, so almost immediately I got a response.

[00:27:15] Curt: Wow. then the response was after almost 52 years, I never expected to hear from you. And while this is extremely. Shocking to me. I don't really know how to process this information at this moment. So please give me a little bit of time. I do want to know about you and your family and your life, and I will share with you.

[00:27:41] Curt: About mine. But at this time, please give me a few minutes to process this. Oh, and one of the things that I had said in that second message was that if our match on ancestry caused her any grief to let me know, and I would do my best to remove it. And so she [00:28:00] said, yes, please remove it. Because I haven't told, she said, my husband has always known about this.

[00:28:08] Curt: But my Children do not. And I would appreciate if you could remove it until I can talk to them about this. And so I said, Let me see what I can do. And and so my friends back at search squad were like, Oh, my Lord, do not remove it or else you will never know who your father is. And they didn't mean it in a threatening way.

[00:28:32] Curt: They were just trying to give me because they thought at that point in time that she was just going to delete her account and go away and we would lose all the information. And so they're on the back side over there trying to cross their T's and not their eyes to figure out who my father is.

[00:28:52] Damon (2): Yeah.

[00:28:52] Damon (2): They're trying to capture everything before something changes. Yeah.

[00:28:55] Curt: Right. And so we're recording, taking snapshots of all these trees and [00:29:00] what have you. And then About the same time that they told me, to be very cautious about this. I respond back to her and said, and this is true. And then she probably thought I was being cavalier, but I was like, I don't really know how to remove the match without completely closing my account.

[00:29:18] Curt: And I'm not really comfortable completely closing my account. I can make it private, but I never had this information and I don't want to completely close my account. Can you tell me who my father is? And about the exact same time That she told me who he was I get in a message from the guys that search squad to say, Hey, we've identified two brothers.

[00:29:43] Curt: We don't know which brother is your father, but we know 100 percent that their parents are your grandparents. Wow. And so I was like, but she told me who the guy was right. And so. she said, Kurt [00:30:00] there's one thing before you reach out to this man that you should know. And that is he was married to another lady when you were born and he's still married to that lady.

[00:30:13] Curt: To this day, and she might not know, and this might be a secret, so tread lightly, and she's I don't know that sending a certified letter or a letter in this case is going to be the advice that we would give you, even though that's the advice that we normally give. can I

[00:30:32] Damon (2): pause you for a moment here?

[00:30:34] Damon (2): You have connected with your birth mother on Ancestry. Ancestry. She has told you that you were not a secret to her husband at that time you found her, but she still needed time to say my long lost son that I told you about a while ago has now found me and I'm in contact with him. So there's that piece.

[00:30:58] Damon (2): Correct. Is it, [00:31:00] have you gotten her on the phone and you're having these conversations about who your birth father is, or you're still messaging her through Ancestry and that's where she's revealing your birth father's identity to you?

[00:31:11] Curt: So it was still on Ancestry and we're only one or two days in.

[00:31:15] Curt: So I don't wanna make it seem like, because I will tell you that the first year that we made connection, even though we didn't talk on the phone, we did talk on the phone. Maybe five times. We did have an email correspondence almost every day.

[00:31:33] Damon (2): Wow. Yeah. You were able to ask her this and she revealed the situation to you almost immediately and also gave you the quick caution.

[00:31:43] Damon (2): Tread lightly here. This could be a serious secret in his background. That's really interesting. So you haven't even talked to her on the phone. You haven't seen her face to face or anything, and you've gotten this info from her.

[00:31:54] Curt: Right. And, but she's not the one that told me he was married. I want to, the guys that Search Squad had [00:32:00] figured that out.

[00:32:01] Curt: and she did start telling me about him. It does turn out. His story is very interesting and I know him very well. We have a very good relationship now, but at that time when I was born, he had been married before I was born to a woman and he told me the first time that I spoke with him, he's Kurt, I was the worst husband ever, he's and I wasn't married very long and my wife kicked me and I was separated to be divorced.

[00:32:28] Curt: And then that's when I met your mother. I was in a band, it was rock and roll times and, and I met these, this college girl and we had a. Relationship and that happened. But when she became pregnant it wasn't going to work out. And what happened was shortly after she became pregnant with me, they went their separate ways.

[00:32:54] Curt: He met another woman. She became pregnant at the same time. Matter of fact, I have a [00:33:00] sister. That was born premature and she was born one month after me. Unfortunately she passed away. She only lived about two days. But my father had gotten married in May of the year that I was born to another woman.

[00:33:18] Curt: That's why he was married to that lady. His wife is a very nice lady and I've met her too and she's been amazing. But anyways, he was married to another lady when I was born.

[00:33:29] Damon (2): Gotcha. So he was young and married in a band. Self proclaimed horrible husband kicked out, still with the band, meets your mom, presumably on the road, she gets pregnant. He's still in the band, still on the road, meets another woman.

[00:33:45] Damon (2): She gets pregnant and you are the lone surviving child of those two affairs. And since then he has married. Another person who knows this whole [00:34:00] story.

[00:34:00] Damon (2): Kurtz said he first connected with his birth mother in January 2020, the beginning of the COVID pandemic. So the pair were forced to speak by phone instead of meeting in person. Speaking about his birth mother's experience, he said it closely resembled the myriad stories of women depicted In the revealing book, The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler.

[00:34:21] Damon (2): his birth mother's family pulled her out of college when she revealed her pregnancy. Her father, a prominent NASA scientist involved in the lunar landing project, was not going to have a 19 year old daughter expecting a child. As a young woman, she was sent to the Florence Crittenden home in Norfolk, Virginia.

[00:34:39] Damon (2): Kurt's birth was a traumatic experience for her. His birth mother said she only wanted to tell her story one time. Then, she did not want to discuss her story anymore.

[00:34:51] Damon (2): she told me that when she was there, they told her that she wasn't gaining enough weight and then she was gaining too much [00:35:00] weight. And then she said, they accused her of trying to Starve herself to death. And then she said she had a very traumatic birth with me and that they had to give her a shot of adrenaline because her heart stopped beating and that the only thing she really remembers from that was.

[00:35:21] Curt: That she was bleeding a lot and they covered her up and basically knocked her out so she said she only seen me from afar very, groggy. But they, she wasn't allowed to, touch me, hold me, look at me or anything like that, that they just told her, no, you gave your child away.

[00:35:42] Damon (2): So she never even saw you. She was pregnant one minute and not pregnant. The next with no vision or touching of her child. Wow.

[00:35:51] Curt: Yeah. And neither of us know what happened. Well, I know now a little bit, but I wasn't placed for adoption [00:36:00] until I was almost 10 months old.

[00:36:02] Curt: And and she was told otherwise she was told that there was a family ready. They made it seem like, they're going to be there. Day after tomorrow and they're picking this child up and it's gonna be bliss and they're young people, really great and all of this.

[00:36:17] Curt: And, my parents were great. I love my parents and for all the faults that we all have. In retrospect, I'm grateful, right? I sound like the obedient adoptee, but I am. I'm grateful for that. Especially now looking back, but they were not necessarily the perfect parents. They were both alcoholics.

[00:36:38] Curt: They both had very traumatic life events that I learned about later. And that explains a lot of my mom's. behavior. Her childhood was horrendous. It was awful. And I didn't learn about those things until, I was in my late forties. My father passed when I was 29. [00:37:00] And and so my mother and I became very close the last 10 years of her life.

[00:37:04] Curt: And that's when she shared these things that, that explained the truth is that she really didn't trust or like men, and this is me psychoanalyzing her as if I have the ability to do that. But that's what I think, from her traumatic past. childhood, the things that had happened to her.

[00:37:25] Curt: I think that hurt our connection. Just me being a guy.

[00:37:29] Damon (2): That's really

[00:37:31] Curt: weird.

[00:37:32] Damon (2): No, I can totally see that. That you go from whatever her experiences and I could make assumptions, but I won't do anything. But I understand where you're coming from. That. In raising a young man, you are reminded that this guy you're raising is going to turn into somebody that you had bad experiences with, like the same type, it's not a girl, it's a guy.

[00:37:57] Damon (2): And you're raising another male that [00:38:00] is going to end up not cut from the same cloth. Basically just this is the same gender that has offended you before. Right. You're cautious and careful based on that prior experience. That's what I was trying to say.

[00:38:11] Curt: And, I mean, and so I'll share to that a little bit more without oversharing her experience.

[00:38:17] Curt: But, her father, which who was a horrible person, was caught in like a extramarital affair by his wife. And then my mom's mother committed suicide when she was seven. And then she was left with that person who then, I don't wanna say molested because that's tames it down from what really happened, but he had relations with her, forced relations and went to prison, and so she's a 9-year-old girl, and this actually is the reason why she couldn't have children.

[00:38:52] Curt: Later. I mean, I never knew that, but so then she's just passed around the family after [00:39:00] that.

[00:39:00] Damon (2): she has a young woman of endures this abuse, but also it's, let us not forget, she has lost both of her parents, So lose mom abused by dad. Dad goes to prison now has no parents.

[00:39:14] Damon (2): In essence, she becomes a kinship adoptee by virtue of her being cared for throughout her own family. That is a very traumatic childhood. It

[00:39:24] Curt: is. It is. And I mean, that alone really made me look back and say, now I understand a little bit more some of the things that happened.

[00:39:37] Damon (2): Yeah.

[00:39:37] Damon (2): Right. That some alcoholism could have been some self medicating and trying to forget and all that other stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:39:46] Curt: And so even with my father and I'll share a little bit of his his traumatic thing was his father and mother were at a Christmas party when he was like 12, they got into a big disagreement and something [00:40:00] happened on the way home and he run her over with the car and killed her.

[00:40:04] Curt: And there was a lot of conversation whether or not that was intended or not intended. And so that too, then that puts him in a really weird relationship with no mother, a father that is an alcoholic distraught over this situation. And so that, that also gave a lot of baggage to both of them.

[00:40:28] Damon (2): Yeah, I'm glad you, thank you for sharing these pieces because sometimes we can make assumptions about why someone turns to alcoholism or anything else to self medicate. And this is the color that we need to see about their lived experience prior to this moment where I'm ever meeting them for the first time through your voice.

[00:40:49] Damon (2): They've had, lived experiences that I never knew of. And so it could have been very easily easy for me to say, damn, that sucks. They were alcoholics, but there were some very serious issues in [00:41:00] the background that were catalyzing some of that behavior that made them turn to an outlet and escape.

[00:41:09] Damon (2): So I appreciate you sharing that about their stories. And I also appreciate you sharing that you love and appreciated the parenting that they tried to do, right. That they did. It sounds like the best they could with what they had. Right. And, as adoptees, we can always acknowledge there could have been several other outcomes for how our own lives went.

[00:41:29] Damon (2): You chose your own path and you've, made something of yourself, built a wonderful family and, seem to be doing just fine in life. So that's amazing.

[00:41:39] Damon (2): Kurt and his birth mother eventually met in neutral territory for both of them.

[00:41:44] Damon (2): The woman lived in Florida, and Kurt was living in Las Vegas.

[00:41:47] Damon (2): She had two other children, and a granddaughter who was in college in Virginia. so she was already planning a trip to the state for a visit.

[00:41:55] Damon (2): Kurt and his birth mother met in Yorktown, Virginia, where they had dinner [00:42:00] together.

[00:42:00] Curt: If I could do it all over, I would have recommended that we met somewhere a little more quiet, a little bit more easy to talk. We set on the York River at a very busy bar and grill restaurant and we had dinner. Her husband. myself and her and we had dinner and we were there an hour and a half.

[00:42:22] Curt: And we talked, it was very cordial. It was nice. But that's the only time we've ever met in person.

[00:42:29] Damon (2): Can you tell me about your feelings going into that meeting? This is, sort of the day, the week before, and

[00:42:35] Damon (2): you've made this plan to meet this woman at this mutual spot. What were you feeling?

[00:42:39] Curt: All over the place. I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know if it was going to be a tearful hugs and sobbing and a conversation or if it was going to be standoffish. And, I just really didn't know what to expect. I had an inclination that she was going to say, Hey, we've met [00:43:00] now and this is great, we're going to go our separate ways from this, and I I had all of those thoughts and, looking back at it, I think at some point in time, It was emotional to her.

[00:43:12] Curt: It never, there was no tears. We did have a very light hug at the end. There was no pictures. And but we had just a candid conversation. The conversation was more about the elements of the day, the weather and a little bit of things in our past. but not really details about what, why and how we would go forward,

[00:43:38] Damon (2): it was superficial conversation. It sounds like

[00:43:42] Curt: it was. And it turns out that she did tell my brother and sister about me, but she wasn't, interested in us having a relationship, she would prefer if I didn't have a relationship with the other siblings.

[00:43:56] Curt: But she was going to leave it up to them because I told her that, [00:44:00] when she said that she had told him, I didn't believe her. I didn't believe she had told him and I wasn't demanding that she told him. I just told her that I felt like now that I know, I don't want to have a call from either one of them 10 years from now saying, hey, you knew about this and you never even tried to, we didn't know.

[00:44:19] Curt: And so I wanted them to know. That, hey, I am your sibling and whether or not you want to have a relationship. That's going to be up to you, but I would really like to but if you don't, then that's, I respect that. And so I have had a relationship and met with my sister.

[00:44:37] Curt: The brother has not responded only through his sister. He responded and he responded saying that he would like to have a relationship at some point in time, but right now it's not the right time for him.

[00:44:51] Damon (2): So the door's not closed.

[00:44:53] Damon (2): As a result of all he had been through, Kurt had become a bit of a detective, as we often do. [00:45:00] Searching for information about his birth father, Kurt found an email address for the man. He wrote a very similar note to the one he had sent to his birth mother, with the additional fact that DNA testing had shown that either he, or his brother, is closely connected to Kurt, because their parents are Kurt's grandparents. After mustering the guts to email the man, the message bounced back.

[00:45:23] Damon (2): While he was online, Kurt received a LinkedIn connection request, so he decided he would search for his birth father on that platform. When he found the man's profile on LinkedIn, Kirk called his wife to the computer to see if she agreed that might be him.

[00:45:39] Curt: And she's like, you're right. That is your father. And I'm like, yeah. So I sent him a LinkedIn message. I just copied and pasted the email and the next morning, cause he lives in the East coast and I was on the West the next morning, he sends me a note back and says.

[00:45:55] Curt: Yeah, Kurt, it's not my brother. I'm definitely your father. Here's my [00:46:00] phone number. Feel free to give me a call. I'd love to talk to you about it and catch up. And so I talked to him the very next day. We talked and he introduced me to his wife, to his children. Apparently he did put a caveat there and say, well, I want to talk to them.

[00:46:19] Curt: Myself independently before you do, but give me a day. And the very next day he calls and he said, apparently at some point in time when they were 13 or 14, we told him, and I don't remember telling them, but we told them about you.

[00:46:36] Curt: Wow.

[00:46:37] Curt: so his wife, she knew all along and now according to him, he thought.

[00:46:44] Curt: And I don't know how truthful it is. But he thought that my mother had married another man about a year after I was born. And he thought that man had adopted me and that she still had me.

[00:46:57] Damon (2): Oh, interesting. That's

[00:46:59] Curt: what he said. He [00:47:00] thought but he did know, but see, adoption is very secretive.

[00:47:04] Curt: I finally did get in during COVID my non identifying information. only because of COVID the way that I got it because they were not working. I contacted this social worker with Virginia she seemed really willing to help more so than a couple of people I spoke to. And she says, there's something really odd about your, records is there's 93 pages.

[00:47:32] Curt: And she said, I was like, is that odd? And she says, because I don't know. And she says, yeah, and you can hear almost like her flipping through and get the feeling that she's reading something right. And it's captivating that she's reading this information that I'm not allowed to know.

[00:47:50] Curt: But anyways, I said, well, can I get a copy of that? And she's well, you have to come in, you have to do this. And she said, but because of COVID, I can [00:48:00] remove all of the pertinent information, send you a redacted file and and you can sign for it in a certified letter. And I was like, well, that's great.

[00:48:09] Curt: Let's do that. And so then I did get, I got 79 pages of it. It looks like a top secret government file. 90 percent of it, you would never be able to tell what it says. But because I know who the parties were, I was able to add some things in. And, a couple of pertinent things from there is, I spoke about my parents.

[00:48:32] Curt: alcoholism. The social worker. Also, somebody reported my father for being an alcoholic right before they were given custody of me. And so that delayed the process a little bit. Then also I was I guess I was sickly. But what really turns out is I think the foster parents I had quite a few children.

[00:48:56] Curt: And I just have really sensitive skin so that I had these rashes they [00:49:00] couldn't figure out and pneumonia and asthma and a bunch of breathing issues. But I think a lot of that was really due to the clogged ear canals causing a lot of ear infections and what have you.

[00:49:14] Damon (2): About a year after meeting his birth mother, Kurt flew to Virginia again where one of his daughter flew to Virginia again, where one of his daughters was living. She and Kurt went to meet his paternal sister first. Then, they met Kurt's birth father at his home, where they also met Kurt's brother. For over six hours, the group sat and talked, shared pictures, and got to know one another in a more inviting setting than the restaurant meeting with Kurt's birth mother.

[00:49:43] Curt: I'm sure it was a little uncomfortable for him a little bit, just.

[00:49:48] Curt: the situation with his other wife, right?

[00:49:51] Curt: he's been very welcoming and, he's been very interested in meeting my children, my grandchildren, [00:50:00] where that, that's some of the pullbacks that I've had with my mother. our relationship she doesn't want it to expand beyond her and I, but then she gets very defensive if her and I don't have a relationship.

[00:50:12] Curt: So for example, we had emailed a lot, like I told you. And we got into a disagreement because I wanted her to introduce me to my sister and she didn't want to. She said, I've told her and she can figure it out for herself. And I didn't believe her. And so I said, well, I want to email her or send her a letter.

[00:50:31] Curt: And she got really upset with me and she told me to just give it some space, but she was actually talking about the sister. But anyways, so I didn't email her or call her or anything for I don't know, 35, 40 days. then I get this email from her and she's just distraught. What's going on? I've been worried about you.

[00:50:52] Curt: You haven't called me. so I just told her, I was just very honest with her and said, Hey, you said you wanted some [00:51:00] space. I told you from the very get go. And the truth is about me. I've never chased anybody friends, family, whatever. And if you say that you don't want to have a relationship.

[00:51:11] Curt: While that might be disappointing, then I'll just let it go. And I won't beg or pursue or any of that. So that's been a little bit of a conflict between her and I all along. And I've shared with her that, that I'm disappointed that she's not more interested in my children and my family, and that she's not interested in telling basically, as my wife would say, anybody alive is off limits with her other than she's all about my family, my, background.

[00:51:42] Curt: speaking of, I do have some very famous relatives that I learned about. Gene Autry is my cousin. Really? That's really cool. Yeah, and so is, and on my paternal side Katie Couric is my first cousin. Is

[00:51:59] Damon (2): [00:52:00] that right? That's fascinating. Yeah. And with a name like Kurt Russell, I was thinking to myself, please let him say Kurt Russell.

[00:52:06] Curt: I wish it was. No, I couldn't do that. The funny thing about Miss Couric was there was something about her daughter that when we were in the search of trying to figure out who the father was. Her daughter's name just kept popping up and popping up. And so I reached out to her and told her, what I was doing.

[00:52:32] Curt: And so she was amazing. And we actually formed a relationship and she shared with me a ton of the family history.

[00:52:42] Damon (2): Wow. is really cool.

[00:52:46] Curt: and then I've also contacted tons of cousins or whatever and created some really good bonds and relationships with some family members that are cousins.

[00:52:57] Curt: I think of one cousin in particular [00:53:00] that's from Louisiana. The two of us we get on the phone, neither one of us can stop talking, and we just, we just go on and on.

[00:53:09] Damon (2): That's amazing. Yeah, that's really cool when you find those cool connections.

[00:53:12] Damon (2): And I sense that's a little bit of what you're hoping for in, attempting to connect with some of your maternal siblings, right? You've talked about this absence of a good relationship with your adoptive sister when you guys were younger. And so there's never really been. A strong sibling relationship for you.

[00:53:31] Damon (2): And now you've got genetic siblings that you can't have a relationship with. And that I can see why you have this hunger. You don't chase after people for a relationship, but this is one that you're super interested in. And I couldn't help thinking about what you said in terms of your mom, your birth mother, not really wanting to talk about you with anybody alive, only discuss those who are deceased.

[00:53:57] Damon (2): And I just couldn't help thinking. Yeah. Yeah. [00:54:00] Because they can't ask her any questions, right? They're not going to make her relive, revisit, give details. If you are connected with her daughter and then her daughter is going to want to talk to her about it. She then will have to do the same thing she did with you.

[00:54:14] Damon (2): Recount the whole story, the whole trauma and everything. And that's, she doesn't sound like she doesn't want to do that.

[00:54:19] Curt: Well, one of the things that happened is my sister and I did form a relationship and and this caused a little bit of grief between my mother and I and I didn't intend it that way, but Christmas passed maybe two years ago.

[00:54:34] Curt: We. Exchange Christmas cards or what have you. And so she sent something to my house and I sent a small little crackers and meats and cheeses or whatever. And so I sent it to her home. Well, it arrived at the exact same time as my biological mother and her husband. Arrived for Christmas, and so the package arrived and [00:55:00] then it says it's from Kurt, and so they're all looking at one another and half the people don't know and half the people do know, so I'm sure Oh goodness, that probably caused some tension.

[00:55:12] Curt: And I could feel that she was frustrated at me, but I certainly didn't do that to get at her. Right. It was just, yeah, probably intentional package deliver. Right? Yeah we were exchanging, some pleasantries. because we are getting to know each other. And and so after that, her and I met in Las Vegas.

[00:55:32] Curt: She was here for a political conference. My sister. And so I've met every one of my siblings except for my sister who passed and then my brother, my half brother on my mother's side.

[00:55:44] Curt: That's good. And I, yeah, and I think we all have a pretty good relationship. It's unusual, but it's definitely changed my metric, but I can tell you the things that I learned. Since then is then the reason that my story now is different than it was when [00:56:00] I, when it was lived is I realize now why I just thought I was, I always thought I was just a wild child.

[00:56:08] Curt: That there's just something wrong with me that I don't listen and I just do whatever I want. And that, me having ADD or ADHD is just something that I was born with. I've never been formally diagnosed with that, but it turns out that my father and sisters and everybody else does in my.

[00:56:29] Curt: Children who are both educators and connected. They're like the dad, you definitely have that. But anyways, a lot of those traits. stem back. And I see a lot of people from the adoption world with a lot of those traits, know, and then you also have that where you don't want to have, but you have that abandonment.

[00:56:49] Curt: Wall or whatever. So it's what I said a minute ago. Okay. You don't want to be friends. No problem. I'm done with you forever. Right. And people don't understand how you [00:57:00] can cut them off so easy, but you just know, Hey, that's over and it's time to move on. Right. And people don't really understand.

[00:57:08] Damon (2): That's fascinating, Kurt. I've never thought about that as it applies to myself, but I'm absolutely that way. Like if you've, if you prove you want to be in a relationship, great, we're good. But as soon as you say like any, if anything goes awry and it's an indication that you don't want to have a relationship, I got no problem.

[00:57:29] Damon (2): All you have to say is we're done. And I'm like, great, peace out. I don't have to continue to chase you after this. I've never really thought about that. About myself in the context of adoption. I just thought it was. Just a personality trait of my own. But as you say it, I realized that could possibly be related to adoption.

[00:57:49] Damon (2): I'd love to hear if others have that similar sort of assertion about themselves or about others in terms of, being able to cut ties with folks. So fascinating. Well, Kurt, this [00:58:00] has been amazing. I really appreciate you opening up and sharing a bit of your story and your lived experience.

[00:58:06] Damon (2): It was fascinating to hear your childhood and that. Moment of saying, listen, I don't fit here. And you turning. Towards your own independence to make a course correction on your own life. But it sounds like it's worked out really well. And I'm glad that you were able to find these folks, that your daughter was able to convince you to do an ancestry DNA test.

[00:58:26] Damon (2): And that it yielded, actual connections. A lot of people don't even get that. And I know that your relationship with your biological mother is not quite what you would like for it to be, but I'm glad that it is what it is. Right. A lot of people don't get that either. And that your birth father was able to sort of.

[00:58:42] Damon (2): Say come on over. I've told my wife about you and let's sit down and talk and have, look at some pictures is really incredible. A lot of folks don't get that either. So good for you. Absolutely.

[00:58:51] Curt: Well, I I appreciate your time.

[00:58:52] Curt: I appreciate your work. And I appreciate you letting other adoptees share their experiences and, learn about the things that tie us [00:59:00] together.

[00:59:00] Damon (2): Absolutely. I learned so much from every single story. Yours included, Kurt. Take care, buddy. Good to chat with you. All right.

[00:59:06] Damon (2): Yeah. Bye. All right. Bye bye.

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