Have You Seen Her?

Summary

Family Secrets: "Have You Seen Her?" (June 25, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this poignant episode of Family Secrets, host Dani Shapiro sits down with Brooklyn-based writer Casey Kahn to explore Casey’s journey as an adoptee seeking to uncover the truth about her origins. The conversation traverses themes of identity, belonging, intergenerational silence, mental health, and the profound impact of family secrets—both those kept from us and those we keep from ourselves.

Casey’s story unfolds from the idyllic streets of suburban Long Island through her creative adolescence, into the complexities of adulthood, parenthood, and the pandemic era. This is a sensitive meditation on genealogical longing—what Shapiro calls “genealogical bewilderment”—and on the liberating, sometimes painful, power of finally knowing the truth, whatever it may be.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life & the Reality of Adoption

• A Childhood Bathed in Openness:

  • Casey grew up an only child in a close-knit Jewish family on Long Island, always knowing she was adopted. Her parents "really positioned it...in a way that always made me feel really special, like adored and chosen, and we were all really close." (Casey, 04:14)
  • She recalls never having a moment of secret revelation: “I don’t remember the details of their telling me...they did it in a way that always made me feel really special...” (04:14)
  • Host Dani Shapiro and Casey discuss the prevailing wisdom of being open from the start about adoption: "It’s part of the fabric of everything." (Shapiro, 07:21)

• Nature vs. Nurture & Connection:

  • Despite marked physical differences, Casey and her adoptive mother were often said to resemble each other. She reflects on the deep emotional synergy and concludes, “In terms of gelling, being a member of someone’s biological family does not mean you’re going to get along. Right? It’s just luck.” (Casey, 07:46)

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2. The Adoptee’s Longing & “Genealogical Bewilderment”

• The Feeling of “Otherness”:

  • Into her teens, Casey describes, “I really had the ability to daydream in a way that I now realize could have been dissociative. There were a lot of things that started happening where I felt different than my peers...It was a permanent sense of wistfulness.” (Casey, 09:03)
  • She navigated this by building an inner dream world, gravitating to her parents’ music, 1960s/70s pop culture, and British literature, which “coincided in this little world I created.” (09:03)

• Deflection Through Humor:

  • In high school, Casey would joke about her birth mother, “I remember like, talking ill of my birth mother, who I knew nothing about… I’ve always coped with humor, you know...” (Casey, 11:04)

• Silence & Fear of Hurting Her Parents:

  • Despite her parents’ openness, Casey says, “It felt like a line I did not want to cross. I did not want to upset them.… they did everything correct… But I think I knew if I prodded, it would break their heart.” (Casey, 12:53)

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3. The Legacy of Secrecy—A Generational Shifting

• Discovering Her Own Conversion Paperwork:

  • In high school, Casey inadvertently discovers evidence of her conversion to Judaism at birth: "I saw just as the envelopes kind of scattered, I picked up this envelope that said Casey's acceptance into Judaism, January 1987..." (Casey, 17:11)

• Unspoken Topics as Their Own Secret:

  • She never discussed this discovery with anyone until adulthood. Reflecting on that silence, “So it was never spoken of again…these kinds of silences within families are, you know, endlessly interesting...” (Interviewer, 18:44)

• Generational Change:

  • Casey observes that conversations about adoption are more open in modern times: "So many people have adopted children or have donor conceived children… In modern generations, these conversations are so much more open..." (Casey, 19:21)

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4. Motherhood & the Deepening of Questions (23:03)

• New Motherhood as a Catalyst:
  • The physical and emotional experience of having a child stirs Casey’s curiosity: “When I firsthand experienced all of that…it was just looking me in my face… The thought of my son being taken away from me… was eating me alive.” (23:03)
• Therapy Brings the Impact of Adoption into Focus:
  • For the first time, a psychologist contextualizes her anxiety as partially adoption-related: “Having someone with a PhD tell me that, okay, you know, there is something that causes you this anxiety for starters… it felt really empowering.” (Casey, 23:03)

5. The Search for Truth Accelerates: Uncovering Her Biological Family

• First Steps to Knowledge (26:07):

  • After opening up to her mom, the first real details emerge: her birth mother was 39, not a teenager as she always believed.
  • A glamorous, artistic family background comes to light. “My entire life envisioned a teenager, maybe in a Catholic family… Never did I think it was going to be a 39 year old woman.” (Casey, 26:07)

• Digital Sleuthing & New Revelations:

  • Casey and her husband dive into archives and obituaries, finding “her natural skills, all the things described in the obituary sounded like you would be describing me.” (Casey, 28:58)
  • Both mother and daughter have been quietly searching: “It’s moving to me that people in their quiet ways of loving each other and protecting each other, and at the same time holding these secrets...” (Interviewer, 29:24)

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6. The Pandemic, Anxiety, and Life-Altering Answers

• Pandemic Pushes Secrets to the Surface:
  • With the onset of COVID, Casey’s anxiety spikes; her mom encourages her to reach out to her biological uncle’s widow on Facebook (31:31).
  • The reply triggers a cascade: Casey learns she has siblings, and her birth mother’s severe mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia) resulted in the adoption of three children to different families. (Casey, 31:49–37:46)
  • “It was so much information… it wasn’t like in that moment, the information that I had two siblings was superseded by all this other stuff. You know what I mean? It was just so much information.” (Casey, 36:57)

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7. Reconnecting Family Ties: The Sibling Journey

• Finding Her Brothers (43:42):

  • Casey is introduced to her older brother on a Friday night: “We talked for hours, and it was really just an instant like, beautiful thing… It was the embodiment of happy sad. You know, it was so much grief and so much joy at the same time.” (Casey, 43:42)
  • She learns about a “missing” sibling—initially believed to be a sister, later revealed to be a brother after hiring a private investigator. (Casey, 45:15–48:37)

• Building Relationship, Processing Grief:

  • “I would go on walks, tell him about every single facet of my life, everything he missed, every awkward experience… It was really a desperate, like, attempt to bring him up to speed and vice versa.” (Casey, 43:42)
  • “I think part of my obsession with finding answers about myself was to be a better mother…if I could stitch together the story of myself, I could be a better mother to my children.” (Casey, 45:15)

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8. The Quest to Meet Their Birth Mother

• The Siblings Coordinate a Visit (48:37):

  • The siblings unite in the Finger Lakes, compelled to seek out their birth mother, who is living with severe schizophrenia.
  • They arrange “chance” encounters in public places. Casey captures a glimpse: “She sounded exactly like me, but in a transatlantic accent...her eyes were so vibrant, and I could really see the definition of her mouth and her teeth. And I was like, holy shit. It just again, it’s like seeing yourself in the face of another person.” (Casey, 49:56–55:22)
  • The encounter is fraught—her birth mother is in deep denial about her children, but there are moments of unconscious recognition.

• A Risky, Emotional Closure:

  • "Would I do that again? No. But it was in the moment. And I can't really describe the adrenaline and the feeling of trying to see this person and knowing it might be your last chance. It was dangerous and it was selfish in a lot of ways, but...I think it really gave a sense of closure for us." (Casey, 59:34)

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9. Resolution and Living with Complexity

• Moving Past Bewilderment:
  • Dani Shapiro asks if Casey has resolved the “genealogical bewilderment”:
    • "Do you feel that...permanent state of wistfulness has now been sort of fully put to bed for you?" (Dani, 61:03)
    • "Absolutely. It took a few more years after that, but now...I live life in the present, and I have a really clear understanding of who I am with all its complexities." (Casey, 61:05)
    • “I have a new appreciation and a new closeness to [my parents]…I’m so grateful I went through it all.” (Casey, 61:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I always felt very lucky in that sense.” (Casey, 07:46)
• “I had a permanent sense of wistfulness… I was way more interested in this dream world I created than really engaging.” (Casey, 09:03)
• “In a way, I think part of my obsession with finding answers about myself was to be a better mother…if I could stitch together the story of myself, I could be a better mother to my children.” (Casey, 45:15)
• On meeting her birth mother:
  • “I was able to see her from the side...she sounded exactly like me, but in a transatlantic accent…her eyes were so vibrant, and I could really see the definition of her mouth and her teeth. And I was like, holy shit. It’s like seeing yourself in the face of another person.” (Casey, 49:56-55:22)
• On closure:
  • “Would I do that again? No...It was dangerous and it was selfish in a lot of ways, but…I think it really gave a sense of closure for us.” (Casey, 59:34)
• On resolution:
  • “I have a new appreciation and a new closeness to [my parents]… I have a really clear understanding of who I am with all its complexities.” (Casey, 61:05)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Early childhood and adoption narrative: 04:14–07:46
• Nature vs. nurture and “genealogical bewilderment”: 08:03–11:04
• The impact of adopting silence and secrecy: 17:11–20:24
• Motherhood prompting deeper questions: 23:03–25:59
• Initiating the search for her birth family: 26:07–28:58
• Discovering maternal mental illness and siblings: 31:49–37:46
• Finding and relating to her siblings: 43:42–48:37
• The journey to see her birth mother: 48:37–59:34
• Emotional resolution and where Casey is now: 61:05–62:09

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Conclusion

Casey Kahn’s story is a vibrant, deeply moving meditation on identity, family, and the inheritance of both silence and truth. Her journey explores the longing for answers, the complexity of love—both given and withheld—and the possibility of healing even in the face of loss and ambiguity. In tracing hidden branches of her family tree, Casey finds not only her siblings and biological origins, but also a renewed intimacy with the parents who raised her, and a deeper sense of self.

This episode is a testament to the brave, sometimes turbulent process of confronting family secrets, and to the liberating power of finally being seen—by ourselves, and by those who made us.

Transcript

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[Karen Kilgariff]

hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Want the full story? Take a listen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She starts dating Howard Hughes and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamarr and Billie Jean King.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

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Goodbye Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Dani Shapiro]

I'm Dani Shapiro and this is Family Secrets. The secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today is Brooklyn based writer Casey Kahn. Casey's is a story about love, identity and belonging. It's also about the questions that live inside of us until in the fullness of time we're finally ready to ask them.

[Casey Kahn]

I grew up in a suburb of New York City on Long Island. It was really idyllic in a lot of ways. It was really close to the beach, which is something I, you know, thrived on. I loved being a camp counselor and spending time there with my friends and I grew up an only child in a very close knit Jewish family. My maternal grandparents lived just down the street from me and I admittedly was kind of their golden child if you will. My father is was a psychologist and my mother was a stay at home mom and I always knew I was adopted. I have really early memories of being four years old and just kind of envisioning my parents picking me out of a nursery of children in a bassinet. Even though that was not the case, they really positioned it in a way, however they did it. I don't remember the details of their telling me they did it in a way that always made me feel really special, like adored and chosen, and we were all really close.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

You write that people would often comment that you resembled your mom or that you and your mom resembled each other.

[Casey Kahn]

Yes. It's funny because, like, in all technical terms, we really do not. I came from these gorgeous, athletic, very tall, very tan people. And I am very fair, very freckly, a ruddy blonde, naturally. And my natural talents are more artistic. I was always riding, always drawing, whereas they were like tennis players and runners, naturally. But there's something about me and my mom. We just have a similar vibe. I mean. I mean, that really calls into question nature versus nurture. And, you know, did we just rub off on each other? Was it meant to be? We would go shopping together and end up dressing alike. We would share each other's clothes, and we were very. And are very, very close. And I do think that there's a good chance that on a subconscious level, I don't think it was conscious, especially in adolescence, that my being adopted made us even closer because I felt so appreciated and chosen, and I. I knew my mother really needed me, and I needed her. My mother was a very funny woman. A lot of women in my mother's family, they have, like, a very mischievous sense of humor, and I kind of fit right in with that. Growing up, I was always the class clown, so that, you know, even though that also could have come from me inherently, like, it just kind of felt very organic and natural. From a personality standpoint, I never felt like the odd one out. And I know that's not the case with all adoptees. My dad, my mom, and my extended family and I all really meshed well together.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

It's so interesting, too, because when you say that you don't have any memory of actually being sat down and told that you were adopted, that really became the prevailing wisdom. And your father was a psychologist. Like, once people really started thinking about the best way to go about sharing news about either adoption or donor conception with children, it was always. It's just part of the air you breathe.

[Dani Shapiro]

It's part of the fabric of everything.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

It's not. There's no traumatic moment of sitting down,

[Dani Shapiro]

and we have something to tell you.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

It's just simply, this is our world that we're in together, and that's what you're describing, which is such a beautiful thing and such a lucky thing, gelling, whether in a biological family or in an adoptive family, is to some degree

[Dani Shapiro]

a matter of good fortune.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Casey Kahn]

In terms of gelling, being a member of someone's biological family does not mean you're going to get along. Right. Like, it's just luck. Whether it's adoptive, whether it's biological, you know, there's not always going to be a beautiful synergy of personalities necessarily. So, yes, I always felt very lucky in that sense.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

So within this, you know, really lovely, loving childhood, where did being adopted sit for you? At a certain point you say you felt of another time and place. And I think that that is a very common feeling among adoptees and or donor conceived people. Where there's a sense of the term in literature, in adoptive literature, I remember is genealogical bewilderment, which is a phrase I love so much. It's like, you know, that you're not genetically related to your parents, who you adore, so you don't know where that other time or place is, what that is. I mean, did that live inside of you when you were a kid and when you were growing up and when you were a college student? Like, where did that reside in you?

[Casey Kahn]

Definitely in my teenage years, my preteen years, it became really pronounced. I was also always a very dreamy and creative child. So there are a lot of things that intersect here and you never really know what comes from what. Is that just a personality trait or. Or is that a product of, you know, having a biological disconnect? Right. Or, you know, being abandoned at birth. But suffice it to say, I would say beginning in high school, you know, post puberty, I really had the ability to daydream in a way that I now realize could have been dissociative. There were a lot of things that started happening where I felt different than my peers. So it was. It's interesting because the feelings were more pronounced in my overall community and with my peers and than it was necessarily even in my own family. I gravitated very much to my parents music with memorizing lyrics from the 1960s and 1970s. And then I became obsessed with British pop culture of that era and then all New England and English literature. They all kind of coincided in like this little world I created. It was a permanent sense of wistfulness that, you know, everything was fine. By all accounts in my life. I did pretty well in school. I had friends, but a lot of people did after school activities, for instance, and I would just Prefer, if possible, to go home and, like, do my homework. Then, like, daydream, listen to music, maybe light a candle, like, play Crosby, sells Nast, do some research, read a book. I was way more interested in this dream world I created than really engaging.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

What did you attribute that wistfulness, that permanent state of wistfulness. And, you know, you're describing a kind of being out of step with the, you know, the peers around you. Did you consciously attribute that in any way to being adopted? Or did you just think to yourself, I'm different from them? I don't know why.

[Casey Kahn]

It's a good question. When you're a teenager, no one wants to think, like, I have a hurdle or, you know, I have a psychological thing that happened to me. So I don't think I would even allow myself to consider that. I was also quite extroverted. So I was very comfortable on stage. So I would write. By the end of my high school career, my friends and I would write comedy and perform it. And I think that was a really good outlet for me. But in terms of the separateness of the world in which I lived and the one I wanted to live in, everyone kind of knew, like, Casey wishes she were a hippie. Casey's kind of quirky, and I think we all collectively just attributed to those are my interests. And I was of another time and place. When I was a teenager, I did realize it was interesting. Being adopted was kind of like a cool. It was almost like a fun fact. And I remember, like, talking ill of my birth mother, who I knew nothing about, didn't know a name, but if it came up, I'd be like, yeah, that, you know, that bitch. I've always coped with humor, you know, So I do remember using that as a defense mechanism to my friends. And in my mind, going back and forth between vilifying that person and wondering, you know, is she okay? And feeling, frankly, guilty, wondering if there was someone out there crying over my absence every day. So it was kind of, you know, when I allowed myself to consider these things as a teenager, I did think about it. I would think, oh, you know, I feel so bad. Here I am with these wonderful parents, and is there someone out there mourning me? And then, you know, sometimes in a social context, I would kind of indulge in that teenage rebellion behavior against the person who gave birth to me, but a stranger.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

And during that period of time, did you ever talk to your parents about this, or was that a little bit of, you know, just something that you thought about on your own?

[Casey Kahn]

My parents were always very forthcoming. They would say, you know, if there's anything you ever want to know about your biological family, we're happy to tell you whatever reason we can. And it's almost like I didn't believe them or I wasn't ready. So we never really talked about it. No. It felt like a line I did not want to cross. I did not want to upset them. Even though they didn't make it that way. They did everything correct. You know, they normalized it. I was loved. I was embraced unconditionally. I was like, welcome to be whoever I was, even with any differences from them. But I think I knew if I prodded, it would break their heart. And at the time, it just wasn't worth it to me to broach those subjects.

[Dani Shapiro]

We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

it's Karen and Georgia from My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

[Casey Kahn]

Want the full story?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Take a listen, Hetty. She starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon. Do you know a lot about him?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, I watch the Aviator, so I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him. But incredible innovator, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

She says he's a, quote, very strange man. But they do get along really well.

[Casey Kahn]

Give us examples.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know they do get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings. And she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of, like, what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode Spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy Lamarr and Billie Jean King.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

[Casey Kahn]

Goodbye.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Hello. Hello, this is Malcolm Glebel from Smart Talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.

[Stefano Pallard]

Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.

[Malcolm Glebel]

I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans. In the digital age.

[Stefano Pallard]

Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.

[Malcolm Glebel]

You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.

[Stefano Pallard]

When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology. And digital channels, are they enabled to create a deeper connection with our fans?

[Malcolm Glebel]

To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.comferrari

[Casey Kahn]

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[Podcast Announcer]

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Really?

[Casey Kahn]

I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget.

[Podcast Announcer]

You can really have it delivered or pick it up. Mommy, I think kid is walking up the street slide.

[Casey Kahn]

Really? Auto trader buy your car online? Really? When I was in high school, my grandpa was like my favorite person in the world. And he picked me up from school one day and he said, you know Casey Bubala, we're going to run errands. And we went to the bank and we went into a room, a bunch of safe deposit boxes. And I remember there was like a long metal table. And I kind of stood there tapping my fingers while he threw lots of envelopes from the deposit box on the long metal table. And I saw just as the envelopes kind of scattered, I picked up this envelope that said Casey's acceptance into Judaism. January 1987, which was like a few months after I was born in late 86. So I got bright red. It was, you know, I kind of knew. And I did have some Irish friends and Italian friends who would, like, guess my genetic makeup, but I never knew in a concrete way. And so I looked at it and my grandpa saw me look at it and put the envelopes away. And I never spoke about it with anyone again until I was an adult and my grandpa died. And my mom, we were talking about that story, and she said at the time he thought I saw, like my birth mom's name and a lot more information than I actually did see, which was just that I was converted to Judaism at birth.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

It's so interesting that that would have become a kind of its own kind of secret. Right. So it was never spoken of again. And, you know, these kinds of silences within families are, you know, endlessly interesting to me because it's the whole question of why, you know, why was that something that then couldn't be spoken of? Especially given that it sounds like there was a lot of openness in your immediate family and with your grandparents about, you know, the fact of your adoption, but just the feeling of like, well, we're not going to go there. We're not going to talk about that.

[Casey Kahn]

Yeah, I could have been inquisitive about it, but I wasn't. You know, I could have gone to my mother, but I didn't. But I do think so much of this is generational now. So many people have adopted children or have donor conceived children, and I feel like they're in modern generations. These conversations are so much more open and welcome and addressed up front. And I really admire everyone, frankly. I just don't think there was a

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

roadmap in 1986 when you were born. There was some understanding about, you know, the psychology of adoption. Adoptive parents and adoptees. Anyone who would have kept that a secret at that point would have known that they were an outlier. But a couple of decades earlier, that wasn't the case. And then a couple of decades since then, it's become, you know, just a

[Casey Kahn]

very, very different landscape.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

But I think it's always important for people to remember how much when all of this happened in time impacts the story itself.

[Casey Kahn]

Oh, yes. And, you know, it's so interesting because I have the ability to, as I would say, to block certain difficult feelings. That is a trauma response. I have, as many people do, like to repress certain feelings. So when I was growing up, I literally couldn't envision not Adopting. And I remember in passing, when I was like 13, my mother mentioned a girl she knew was having trouble conceiving a baby. And they were talking and I said, what's the big deal? Why wouldn't she adopt a child? Like, that's the degree to which I clearly had a very adolescent understanding of what it meant to want to have your own baby and to frankly, on the other side of it, to carry a baby and give it up. When you're developing mentally, you can't even really get your head around it.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

And it's also adaptive and self protective.

[Casey Kahn]

Yes, of course.

[Dani Shapiro]

When it's time for college, Casey goes away, but not too, too far. Her parents have a rule that she can't go west of the Mississippi. They literally draw a line. And Casey's fine with this. She adores her parents. She goes to the University of Michigan, where she thrives both academically and socially. It's here, too, that she starts fielding comments about the way she looks. The fact of her being an adoptee and being blonde, which some people interpret as not looking Jewish, prompts an unsettling comment. Casey hadn't realized that when she was adopted, there was a chance she was purchased. A friend said that because she was blonde and white, she must have been expensive. The comment, the very idea, makes her physically sick. She was 18 when this was said to her and she's never forgotten it. After college, Casey moves to New York City. She wants to be a writer, but there's no roadmap for that. So she gets a job in public relations. She's well suited to PR and meets her future husband, then a lifestyle journalist. Through work, they marry and Casey has her first child, a son, at the age of 29. Having a baby, becoming a mom, changes everything for Casey in all the ways new parenthood does. But there's something more. When she comes to know the magnitude of carrying a baby, of giving birth, of breastfeeding and caring for a newborn, something happens to her. She begins to ask herself questions. How and why had her birth mother given her away?

[Casey Kahn]

When I firsthand experienced all of that, you know, it was just looking me in my face. Always thought I did, always think not. I think I always thought I can't remember being given away, so what does it matter? You know, like, it's like a look, there's a problem, here's a solution. It all worked out. And I think the thought of my son being taken away from me, the thought of that baby being without me and what that does, you know, physiologically and my mom would still not like to hear that. You know, I think she, she swooped in and they got me right away. And, you know, I think in my case I ended up really lucky because they adopted me at two days old. But it is undeniable that there's a two day window in my life where I was not with a mother. And having my first child really started my curiosity. And initially, you know, I was just focused on having a baby, working. I've always been a very anxious person, but, you know, it was not managed. When I had my son, yeah, I was quite happy, but I was wired. So I had, you know, all the paranoid thoughts about my son that anyone would have. But it kind of prompted me to go into deep research about every child that was ever afflicted in the world. So as the years went on, you know, I think that I convinced myself that it was okay to leave my son to the degree to which I had to. I was traveling a lot at that time and I think everyone mothers differently and I was listening to two colleagues who had had children and worked a lot, and they convinced me that it's okay, it's better to like give your kid to a professional. And I didn't really feel that way at all. And I think the disconnect of essentially leaving my child was eating me alive. And when my son was about 2 years old, my husband was away on a work trip, so my son and I went out to dinner with my parents and I was telling them how anxious I am and that I'm just having a lot of trouble navigating, working this much and being a mom to young childs and I don't know what's right and I don't know what's wrong. And you know, none of this is out of the ordinary. But I think there was something else in the background with me. I had just entered therapy, so I went to therapy when my son was a year and eight months, maybe late 2017. And the first thing, like when I told my psychologist, I said, I'm adopted. And he was like, oh, you know, to him it was like, okay, let's establish this, right? Like that is a hurdle. You have an added hurdle that non adoptees don't have. And I never thought of that prior to that. I never thought of it in those terms. So having someone with a Ph.D. tell me that, okay, you know, there is something that causes you this anxiety for starters, you know, and then we'll get into the rest of it. But, you know, and whether there's chemistry going on that was like almost a sigh of relief. It felt really empowering.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

So your mom asks you at that point, do you want to know more about your birth mother?

[Casey Kahn]

Exactly. So we were at dinner when my husband's away, I'm in therapy. I'm sharing what my therapist has told me. At the time, it was clear I had something he wanted me on medication. I didn't want it yet. And my mom said, have you been wondering more about your birth mother? I said, well, you know, what do you know? Like, how old was she? Was my first question, actually. And she said, 39. And I said, what do you mean she was 39? I'm 39 right now. Never in a million years would I accidentally have a baby, you know, and again, like life circumstances, right? But I always, my entire life envisioned a teenager, maybe in a Catholic family, you know, she. They were not allowed to have a baby out of wedlock. A religious family. Like never did. I think it was going to be a 39 year old woman. And I said, what was her name? And they told me her name. And it's a very glamorous name from the 40s. So that took me by surprise as well. And I said, was anyone an artist? Because my natural aptitude is to draw. And they said, yes, we think the grandmother was. So basically my mother reveals that my entire life she had been googling my birth mother's name, you know, my entire, like as long as Google has existed, you know, and that nothing has ever come up until a year prior to this conversation, in 2017, my biological grandmother died. And the obituary was chock full of information. So I'm at the table, like my head is spinning. I start Googling. I was confused. I said, mommy, they seem like really well to do. Why did they give up? You know, they have a house on the Cape and everyone, you know, went to Dartmouth. It just didn't. It sounded like a very New England, well to do family. So this was confusing because I was like, if they have the financial means to support the life of a child, why would they abandon me? And my mom said, well, you know, all I know is that your birth mother had a husband or a boyfriend and they were no longer in the picture. They were in California. So I just started thinking, okay, like maybe she got broken up with and she was older and couldn't do it. And in the immediate aftermath of learning that information, my husband and I got to digging into archival information. And so my husband immediately like springs into action and starts pulling up all these entertaining stories about my biological grandmother. They had a house on the Cape. And after living in New York City, they moved to Rochester for my biological grandpa's job. And so there were all these articles about her in Rochester, and the corporate quotes in the stories sounded like things I would say, her natural skills, all the things described in the obituary sounded like you would be describing me.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

What did that feel like? If you can, like, sort of teleport yourself back to that moment where you're, you know, this information is kind of tumbling at you.

[Casey Kahn]

It was wild and exciting, but it was still at a safe distance, like, there was no context. So it was like. It was really validating, first of all, kind of understanding where my biological family was from and kind of the cultural landscape that surrounded them. It was somehow things were resonant with me, like movies, literature, music. So it did make sense, and it was very validating, but it did bring up more questions.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

I'm struck, too, by this image of the way in which, in your growing up, on the one hand, it wasn't like you had burning curiosity, but you had. You had some. And this feeling of the state of wistfulness and yet feeling like, you know, you don't want to hurt your parents by asking them anything about it. And then on the other side of that split screen, there is your mom continuing to Google and, you know, try to learn as much as she can about this earth mother so that she can have that information for you if you ever should want it. And also probably because of her own curiosity and her love for you, of, you know, where did you biologically come from? But that. That all happening under this roof. It's moving to me that people in their. Their quiet ways of loving each other and protecting each other, and at the same time holding these secrets or holding this sense of, you know, what the story might be.

[Casey Kahn]

Yeah. And what's so funny about that is she kind of was like, what took you so long? I suppose I was 31 or 2 at the time, so again, what took me so long? But donor conceived children.

[Dani Shapiro]

Right.

[Casey Kahn]

Adoptees. I think the reality is, is that there's multiple dimensions that exist within these communities.

[Dani Shapiro]

Of course.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Yeah.

[Casey Kahn]

I have two family trees or four family trees, if you're looking at four parents. Not everyone can say I have more than two parents. So I think I always knew there was this untapped dimension inside of me, and it's like breaking the fourth wall, you know, and her kind of giving me permission to do that was really a beautiful thing.

[Dani Shapiro]

In February 2020, Casey's anxiety spikes Drastically. Again. It's the very beginning of the COVID pandemic. People are starting to die. And her dad is in the hospital, a particularly scary place at this time, for surgery. When she visits him, she tells both her parents about the severe uptick in her anxiety. She's been doing everything in her power to fix herself, calm the storm. She tells them she thinks it might be time for her to go on medication for her anxiety. Her mom's reply to this is an interesting one. Have you been wondering even more about your biological family? Because I see that your biological uncle's widow is on Facebook. Why don't you message her?

[Casey Kahn]

She said, you know, I just know that she would have more information for you. This is, like, the only person I can find. And she's right there. She's on Facebook. So I messaged this woman. Hi, my name's Casey Khan. I was adopted at two days old. This is my biological mother's name. I believe you might have some information. You know, thank you so much for any info you can provide. And I gave her my email address. I don't think I expected anything. I didn't expect an immediate response. I know not everyone's sitting there, like, reading their Facebook or. I think I willed myself into forgetting it, because if I sat around waiting, I would have driven myself insane. I just had to lower my expectations to, like, nothing. A month later, the pandemic shut everything down. This really triggered me in a way that I did not expect anticipate ever in my life. I really was not mentally well. I think I had my first major depression when the city shut down. I was just despondent. I was really worried about my son. I was really worried about this production company my husband and I were trying to get off the ground. I was worried about any number of things. Not to mention we're in Brooklyn and there's constant sirens. And that first week, my toddler son and I both got very sick. In retrospect, it was probably Covid, but I think that just added to the depression. So I called my therapist, who referred me to his psychopharmacologist colleague, who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and put me on Cymbalta. So immediately, you know, I was coming up with solutions. And then I spoke with my parents in the suburbs, and we decided that once my son and I felt better, that we would move out to their home in the suburbs for the duration of the pandemic. Because schools shut down. There was no work. It was, you know, it was. Everything was closed. So once my son And I made a recovery. We moved out to their house in the suburbs, my childhood home. So then my anxiety medication was starting to work. I had real anxiety sweats. It was like sleeping through my parents house. But I was in recovery mode. I was meditating. I was just trying to keep it together, trying to keep calm. I was drawing, I was painting the time. I was really into all the spiritual healers. You know, I had like, my army of people I was relying on and spending money on, you know, tarot card readers or witches. And I was just seeking guidance wherever I could find it. I read so many books, so much literature about adoptees, about trauma. And that is when things started to hit me. I read the Primal Wound for the first time. I read the seven core issues of adoption. And, you know, it was just a really profound blur of the time. I thought everyone must be going through a similar mental break. I think some people had, you know, productive pandemics. Not me. I did not. And I do know that during that period, a lot of family secrets did emerge. You know, people have told me that the period of idleness kind of brought out a lot to the surface. So April 25, it was a Saturday. I received a response from my biological uncle's widow. So I guess you could say she's my biological aunt. You know, she wrote me back, apologized, you know, she. It had been two months since I ridden her. She revealed, you have an older brother, you have a middle sibling. She didn't even indicate that it was a brother at the time. She didn't seem to know. They lost track. Um, she didn't indicate if it was a brother or a sister. And she said that the last time I went to see your birth mother, she shut the door in my face. She said, are you available for a call? So I'm freaking out. I'm thinking that the anecdote about my birth mother shutting the door in her face, I'm sensing a mental health issue. I'm worrying that that's what's happening. Three children, three adoptions to different families, no trace on the Internet. I'm like, crap, this is what it is. And I was worried about that. You know, with all of my anxiety the entire time, I was really worried that it's a severe mental health issue. So I hop on the phone with this aunt, and she tells me that my birth mother has paranoid schizophrenia. And as she put it, she said she's like one of those homeless people that yell in the streets. And so I start weeping. And she said, I'm so sorry. Do you want me to stop? And I said, no, just, you know, tell me everything. I'm just processing. And she said my birth mother was a very dynamic, hilarious. There are some people in the world, right? You'd say they're steady, they're reliable, they're organized, right? Those are not descriptions one would use for me. They would say vibrant or funny, creative. And those are the. All the descriptors one would use for me, she used for my bird's mother. And supposedly what happened, it might have began a little bit when she was in her college years, but when she was in her mid-20s, she really started yelling obscenities to strangers on the beach on Cape Cod. And so she entered severe mental illness. And she would go through a couple months where she would take the medication administered to her and she would become her old self again. But then she would end up back out on the road. She drove around the country, meeting different men, sleeping with different men. She lived out of her car. She had an on again, off again husband who was also severely mentally ill. He was 6 5. He dressed like a cowboy and he was a bricklayer. And maybe he's my biological father. She said, we don't know, but he had a vasectomy, so probably not. So it was just like all this information and I was steamrolled. It was really. It wasn't like in that moment, the information that I had two siblings was superseded by all this other stuff. You know what I mean? It was just so much information.

[Dani Shapiro]

We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're locked into a lot of things you can't change. Weather, traffic.

[Casey Kahn]

Hey, stay in your lane.

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar.

[Casey Kahn]

Want the full story?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Take a listen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hedy. She starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon. Do you know a lot about him?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, I watch the Aviator, so I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him. But incredible innovator, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

She says he's a, quote, very strange man, but they do get along really well.

[Casey Kahn]

Give us examples.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know they do get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings, and she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of, like, what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamarr and Billie

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jean King, presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

[Podcast Announcer]

Goodbye.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Hello. Hello, this is Malcolm Glabel from Smart Talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.

[Stefano Pallard]

Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.

[Malcolm Glebel]

I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tiffany Fosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age.

[Stefano Pallard]

Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.

[Malcolm Glebel]

You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. And I'm curious how you balance it those two traditions.

[Stefano Pallard]

When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology. And digital channels are enabled to create a deeper connection with our fans.

[Malcolm Glebel]

To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.comferrari

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[Podcast Announcer]

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Really?

[Casey Kahn]

I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget.

[Podcast Announcer]

You can really have it delivered or pick it up I think kid is walking up the slide.

[Casey Kahn]

Really? Autotrader. Buy your car online. Really?

[Dani Shapiro]

Casey is back in her childhood bedroom, surrounded by a flood of new information. Names, relatives, fragments of a life she never knew. For years, she and her husband have been searching for clues about her biological family. Now her mom has joined the investigation. Together, they sit at the computer late into the night, chasing down every detail they can find. One clue is especially strange. A cousin remembers that Casey's birth mother once lived in Palm springs in the 1980s, staying with relatives, and, according to family lore, spent a lot of time hanging out with professional golfers. It sounds almost ridiculous, but Casey and her mother lean into it, scrolling through image after image of golfers from the era, studying square jaws and brown hair and crow's feet, wondering if one of these faces might belong to Casey's biological father. At the same time, Cayce is piecing together a wider picture of the family she never knew. Through 23andMe, she connects with other cousins who are stunned to learn about her. They had heard bits about her birth mother, but never the full truth. That she struggled with schizophrenia, that she had placed three children for adoption, that entire branches of the family had quietly lost touch. In some ways, Casey realizes that she is the one revealing the family's secrets back to them. Then another possibility appears. An aunt tells Casey she has an older brother, someone who had once gone looking for answers himself. Casey waits anxiously for the introduction, following every rule of family protocol, resisting the urge to track him down herself. Online for a full week, she wonders if he even wants to meet her. Finally, the call comes through. It's a Friday night. Within an hour, Casey's on the phone with the brother she never knew. She had one more piece of a life that, until recently had been completely unknown to her.

[Casey Kahn]

There's mutual enthusiasm, often because we're coming from the same starting point. And I do think that when adoptees meet for the first time, I've spoken to other people who have found hidden siblings, but they were a result of an affair or something, and it was, like, not a comfortable situation, whereas this was very easy. Mutual curiosity about one another. Now, we grew up very differently. Like, couldn't be more different. He was the youngest in the family, the only one adopted as a baby. Had multiple adopted siblings in his family. But there was common ground. Like, he's like a boisterous guy, super smart. There was definitely a shared the wistfulness I talked about and certain things of feeling out of place. We talked for hours, and it was really just an instant like, beautiful thing it was then a whirlwind from there. We talked constantly. I would go on walks, tell him about every single facet of my life, everything he missed, every awkward experience, every, like, rejection, every, almost like every pimple I had. Like, it was really a desperate, like, attempt to bring him up to and vice versa. It was really sad when I look back on it. It was the embodiment of happy sad. You know, it was so much grief and so much joy at the same time.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Yeah, because you didn't grow up together and you were never going to be able to redo that and at the same time creating a sibling relationship which

[Dani Shapiro]

both of you yearned for.

[Casey Kahn]

Yes. And I think the other things that were going on at the same time is I was absolutely obsessed with learning about my birth mother. I couldn't get enough. So when this new brother had gone looking, he got to meet my biological grandmother before she died. They had a very lengthy conversation that she let my brother record. So I listened to that recording, we call it the podcast because it's three hours about my family. And it was very entertaining and very devastating. So I was like grasping to information from there, kind of trying to guess who my birth father. So there was just a lot of obsessing. He also had photos of her where it was clear, I look a lot like her, my birth mother. It was all consuming on the recording that my biological grandma, who, mind you, was probably 95 at the time, she was telling the whole story of my birth mother and the ways in which she had each child and gave up each child. And she said the middle one was born on the cape in Hyannis. And she said, that girl. So I latched onto that. I latched onto it being a sister. And at the time, my brother's wife, my sister in law, we did a zoom together before we ended up meeting in person. And she said, I thought it was a brother. You know, she's like, I thought they said it was a brother. And me and my brother were like, no, no. On the recording they said it's a sister. So for over a year I thought I had a sister that was missing. So I gave her a name. I called her Lily. I like, wrote in my journal about wanting a sister. Like, I was obsessed with thinking about this missing sister. And I'm so grateful to my husband for supporting me during it and giving me space and like giving me love because it's really must be frustrating because I was consumed with this other world. You know, obviously I never stopped being a mother. And I love him so much, my son, I. I never stopped loving him. And in a way, I think part of my obsession with finding answers about myself was to be a better mother. Like, I thought if I could stitch together the story of myself, I could be a better mother to my children. I was pregnant. I knew I was having a girl, and I was like, I've really got to get it together and find out everything I can to be the best mother, not only to my son, but to a girl. What happened was we were trying to give this imaginary sister space, right? It seemed unlikely that a girl who was older than me wouldn't have gone looking like. So I worried. I'm like, is she dead? You know, is she also. Does she have paranoid schizophrenia as well? I was really worried about her. And finally my mom said, it's always my mom, you know, I had my daughter, she was six months old, so it was probably a year and a half since I found my older brother. My mom said, cut the crap already. You know, like, you could be proactive. And she had already been looking in all these adoption forums. Cape Cod Girl, 1984 or 5. We didn't have a date at the time, and she got nothing. And then finally, I just Googled Massachusetts private investigator, and I got on the phone with a private investigator. And that began the journey of my finding my brother, which kind of unfolded very quickly. The brother I thought was a sister.

[Dani Shapiro]

Not long after Casey connects with her newly discovered middle brother, the three siblings begin imagining something they can't quite explain. They know their birth mother lives in the Finger Lakes. They don't have a plan, no script, no guarantee they'll even speak to her. But they feel compelled to just go, if only to see the woman whose absence has shaped all of their lives. They first meet together on Zoom in August of 2021. Casey and her middle brother are nearly the same age and immediately notice their resemblance. They also discover they grew up not far apart. Soon, all three meet in person, bringing spouses and families together, trying to make sense of this sudden expansion of their world. There's confusion and grief and all sorts of reckoning of grief course, but there's also joy. Eight months later, the long lost siblings make the trip. Casey finds a modest Airbnb near where their birth mother lives. They arrive, drop their bags, have some drinks, and sit together in the electric reality of it all. Three siblings who were strangers months earlier, now preparing to face the person who connects them, the person who surrendered them.

[Casey Kahn]

And then the next day, we drive to the parking Lot of the apartment complex where we lived. And the minute we got there, we're like, this is the dumbest. Like, what are we even doing? You know? Like, we don't. She's not gonna look like her photos from the 1970s. You know, she's not gonna look like we don't even know who she is. And we're not. What are we gonna do? My oldest brother spots a guy across the parking lot. He has, like, long hair streaked with dye, giant aviators, a goat tee, and a military jacket. And he was like, I'm gonna go talk to that guy. And he did. And he went over, and they were talking for, like, 10 minutes. And me and my brother Evan were like, what on earth are they talking about? And he comes back, he's like, yep, they're friends. He was like, he knows everything about her. And we said, you know, was he asking, Thinking why you were asking questions? And he was like, nope. He's like, not all with it either. But, you know, he just gave me all this information about her routine. And so he said, her routine is like, she goes to Wegmans. She goes to the lake to flirt with people. She goes to McDonald's and she's all on foot. She walks and walks and walks, and she's very thin. We just started driving around the neighborhood. We went to the places that this man told us she goes to, hoping to run into her. And what we were told by everyone, what my oldest brother was told by our biological grandmother, what even this man said, what the aunt told all of us was that she talks to strangers. And just talks and talks and talks is probably what empowered us to go in the first place. We're strangers. We want to talk to her. We just want to be in her path and hear her voice. You know, never in a million years was I going to say, I'm your baby, you know, that was never the intention by any stretch of the imagination. We heard that she loves yapping. We were like, we want to yap with her. We want to bump into her at McDonald's and have a chit chat and just see what she looks like, hear her voice. So we were driving around, and then we drove back to the apartment complex. We see this man again. We said, have you seen her? And he said, oh, it's almost time. She's going to be coming back. He said, just stay put. Stay right here. And we stood there. And then she came in. And I was able to see her from the side. And she was so petite, like, in a way, I Didn't expect because I'm five six. I was told she's five seven, five, eight. And you know, in the picture, she wasn't like a tiny little bird like, thing, you know, but she was very, very tiny looking. And she was wearing, like, a ski cap that concealed her hair, so I couldn't see her hair. We noticed that she was walking with tiny little steps, and she actively avoided us. So I was silent. I was terrified. And the man tried calling her over, and she didn't say anything. And then my oldest brother said, hey. And, you know, kind of called out. He didn't say her name. And he said, do you know of a place to eat around here? And she spoke and she sounded exactly like me, but in a transatlantic accent. And then she kind of turned toward my middle brother and he said to me, oh, my God, Casey, she looks just like you. But at that point in time, I hadn't really seen her face as much as they had. So the following day, you know, we were more equipped. And mind you, you know, after we had that brief exchange with her, we were thrilled. We were like, okay, we could go home. Like, let's just enjoy the rest of our weekend. Like, we saw her. Her. That's it. Like, we don't need to do this again. But something changed where we're like, no, like, maybe we can chat with her again. Now, granted, we. I realize how uncell. How selfish this is, you know, like, she has a severe mental illness. But I did speak with my psychologist who said behaving like the furniture, instead of saying, oh, I'm your child is the way to do it. You could just try to blend in with the furniture. And it's kind of the correct strategy. Like, she might talk to us, you know, however, like, she's a smart cookie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

My.

[Casey Kahn]

Our birth mother. Like, we know she's intelligent and she would catch on, but, you know, we weren't. It was like logic went out the window. We were just on adrenaline. So the next day we went to Wegmans, we went to McDonald's. No one. No one's seen her because people kind of know her around the town, from what I understand. And we were driving back and we saw her walking, and we started videoing her, which she couldn't see, to be fair, but we wanted to get a look at her. And so I was able to, like, get photos of her, just that we could keep forever. So then we started getting a little reckless. We would just, like, put ourselves in her path, right? And this man said, she likes this Beer from the region called Jenny. It's like a, you know, Genesee beer. It's just like a cheap beer. So we bought it, and like a bunch of idiots, we kind of, like, put ourselves in our path and would, like, start drinking beer and be like, hey, would you like a beer? Like, as, like, baiting her, which is so embarrassing. But we were desperate, you know, and she would just politely say hello to us and kind of walk by. Probably two interactions. And there was one moment where she looked at me, and I got a real front on view of her face, and the sun just happened to be hitting it. And her eyes were so vibrant, and I could really see the definition of her mouth and her teeth. And I was like, holy shit. It just again, it's like seeing yourself in the face of another person.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Which she probably saw as well.

[Casey Kahn]

Yes. I think the image of me, it was her former self. So what happened was we rushed back to the parking lot, and we ran into the same friend, the man. We told him who we were. We said, where her children? And he said, oh, that's right. He said she once mentioned she had a son, but then she dropped it. So, you know, she denies we exist. She never aborted us because she would be nine months pregnant. And she would say, I'm not pregnant. And then when she would. With my middle brother, he was in labor. She's like, I'm not in labor. She's like, it's a very. This isn't happening. And then she discharged herself from the hospital and left him there. And she kind of went back and forth. He's beautiful. I wish I could keep him. And then she left. So she is very much in denial about us, but she'll have glimmers, supposedly, where she remembers that she had children that she gave away. So we started talking to this man, and he said, she'll be coming back. He said, just stand with me. Let's crack open the beer again. So this is like 11 in the morning. I don't drink beer at 11 in the morning. And he said, she will never not stop and talk to me. Let's just talk. So once again, she comes back in, and he says, you know, heya, you know, and he says her name. And she ignored him. She said, hi, but kind of kept walking. And he said, I have some friends here I want you to meet. And she said, no, thanks. And then she started making her way up the steps, and she was entering her security code into her keypad. And he said, come on. Like, just come say hi. And three of us. Kids are, like, silent at that point. We were so nervous, and she went, adios, buddy. Like, so cheeky and salty and just reminded us of us, you know? And by the way, like, she did not at any point come off, like, as someone suffering dramatically from a mentally ill person. I did not see any behavior that my aunt had said, you know, she's, like a homeless person. You know, she was not behaving in that way. And I do know that, you know, schizophrenia, you know, the symptoms of it kind of wane as one ages. So this man starts telling us all about her, all about, like, her sexual proclivities. And he's like, she's probably spying on us right now. And he kind of pointed up to her window, and he said, she leaves her door unlocked. He said, she lets people come in, use the bathroom. People are always passing through. Why don't you just go knock on our door? And I'm like, absolutely not. That's crazy. My brothers are like, okay, but, you know, we don't have to say who we are. We could just say, like, hey. I'm like, I don't know. This sounds crazy. And. And the man said, no, she always has people passing through. Just say, you're my friend. So we went up and we tried to knock on her door, and I. There was no plan. I thought, you know, I would say hello and just. I really just wanted to talk to her. You know, everyone had said, she'll talk to you. She doesn't care. She doesn't ask who you are. She'll talk to strangers. But she had already given us so many signals that she did. Whoever we were, she didn't want anything to do with. So we knocked on her door, and she said, go away. And I think one of my brothers started to say something, and she went, you should never knock on a stranger's door. And she was reprimanding us like she would her own children. It was very clear to me in that moment that on some level, she knew who we were. And I was so upset because I was thinking, we're not strangers. I don't want her to think that I'm poorly raised. We're not strangers. So I said, is your name. And I said, her name. And then she said, no, go away. And so we ran, and that was it. I felt a real sense of finality. I felt really relieved. I don't need anything from her. I think my brothers feel different. I think the feelings come at different times. But after the fact, the man, the friend, contacts us regularly. And he told us she was mad at him. She said, you were friends with that prostitute and her two pimps that were following me around. And he said, no, those are your children. And she said, oh, right. And she knew. Like, she didn't deny it. She said, oh, that's right. And then the next week, he said the same thing. She said, what was that prostitute? He said, you mean the one that looks exactly like you? That's your daughter. And she was like, oh, right, that's my daughter. Like, she knew. Would I do that again? No. But it was in the moment. And I can't really describe the adrenaline and the feeling of trying to see this person and knowing it might be your last chance. It was dangerous and it was selfish in a lot of ways, but there were signals being given to us that she's open to interacting with strangers and they come to her door. It wasn't our best judgment call, but I think it really gave a sense of closure for us.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

Everything about this story is, to me, about longing and about a profound need and desire for answers, really. To go back to the beginning of our conversation, the genealogical bewilderment, to no longer be bewildered.

[Casey Kahn]

Yes.

[Interviewer (possibly Dani Shapiro)]

And so, you know, the three of you on this caper, to just, you know, to see her, hear her voice, it was a hedge against bewilderment, the bewilderment that each of you had carried with you throughout your lives up until that point. Do you feel that that sense of bewilderment and that sense of that permanent state of wistfulness has now been sort

[Dani Shapiro]

of fully put to bed for you?

[Casey Kahn]

Absolutely. It took a few more years after that, but now, you know, the reality is it's all died down and we've established equilibrium. I'm not talking to my brothers every two seconds. I just feel like I live life in the present, and I have a really clear understanding of who I am with all its complexities. And I really feel all I care about right now is my children and my husband and the people inside of my little home and my parents, frankly, I have a new appreciation and a new closeness to them. I think four years since that meeting with the birth mother. In this year, 2026, it is a completely different scenario. I feel calmer and calmer. By the month, even. I don't ever want to go through anything like that again. But I'm so grateful I went through it all.

[Dani Shapiro]

Family Secrets is a production of iHeartradio. Molly Zakur is the story editor, and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd like to share. Please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is 1-888-SECRET-0. That's the number zero. You can also find me on Instagram aniriter. And if you'd like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Memoir Inheritance.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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