019 – Adoption Was Chapter Two Of My Life, I Had To Learn About Chapter One

Michael grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. He led a comfortable life in the Williams loving home when he accidentally discovered, at 12 years old, that he was adopted. The discovery that he actually had another identity created conflict in him, especially during his teen aged years.

With spontaneity, tenacity, and a fair bit of luck Michael was able to track down the phone number for a long lost cousin in NY. She sounded the alarm to the family that Michael had found her, and a series of holiday season reunions ensued. But his reunification was not without its resentment. Over the course of two decades he satisfied his curiosity to uncover every detail he could about who he really is. It was an emotional journey of discovery that led him all they way to his family’s roots in the South.

The post 019 – Adoption Was Chapter Two Of My Life, I Had To Learn About Chapter One appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Michael (00:02):

The only thing I can think of was like going to the motherland. America is a nation of still with immigrants, but there is a mother country, ancestrally speaking, so whether you are going to come from Poland, Ireland, Africa or wherever. When you go back to those things, there's something grounding, something that anchors you and it did for me because I'm looking at this woman. I'm like my life story begin with this woman. It all started in her womb.

Voices (00:38):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:49):

This is Who Am I, Really? A podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. Hey, I'm Damon Davis on today's show. I'm joined by Michael who grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. Michael was living a comfortable life in the Williams loving home when he accidentally discovered that he was adopted at 12 years old. The discovery that he actually had, another identity created conflict in him during his teenage years. With spontaneity, tenacity, and a fair bit of luck, Michael was able to track down the phone number for a long lost cousin in New York. Over the course of two decades, he satisfied his curiosity to uncover every detail he could about who he really is. It was an emotional journey of discovery all the way to his family's roots in the South. We pick up Michael's journey at the beginning, as a child. Michael was raised with six siblings, some biological to each other and many foster children who moved in and out of their home over the years. His parents cultivated a family environment for everyone, including him.

Michael (02:05):

In my world, I, I always, you know, thought that I was born in Brooklyn. That was my starting point and of course later on, I discovered that I had adopted into the family, but I was, I started as before as the Williams foster child and my adoption, wasn't made final until I was six years old. Even at that point, there was never any differentiation between, Oh these are the biological children, oh these are the adopted children, oh these are the foster children. Cause, I mean, growing up in a household, dad was still with foster kids coming in and out, not ever realizing that I had was in their shoes.

Damon (02:47):

Interesting.

Michael (02:49):

My parents did a really good job. It was an environment of openness and there was this sense of a family cohesion is that even though with the foster kids that were coming in and out, it was just a part of everyday life for us. That whole family environment was cultivated by both my father and my mother simply because that was the only child, his name, and yet I say this to honor my father because he's deceased freedom and black Williams, he was the only child and he never knew his father and there was an incredible burden in his heart to be a father to the fatherless. What I later discovered was that he actually had fostered nearly 65 inner city children.

Damon (03:37):

Wow. That's, that's a open-heart man. That's really incredible. So you were, you were made to feel so comfortable that it took you a while to figure out that at one point you had been a foster child who was in transition to another place. That's interesting. What did you think when you realized that?

Michael (03:58):

When I, well, the day that I realized that I had been adopted, I was about 12 or 13 years old and it turned everything on its head because it was confusing. It was confusing to me because I didn't understand why that information was withheld. Everything just kind of came out in an unexpected way. I'm mean, I was, I had, I was looking through the family photo albums and I discovered the summer day camp certificate of completion and it said Michael Harth and I was like somebody made a huge mistake and mom never caught, how could she not have caught this very noticeable mistake? I'm not Michael Harth, who is Michael Harth? I'm Michael Williams. I've always been Michael Williams. So then when I brought upstairs to go find my mother about it, she said, where did you find that certificate? I said, well mom, it was in the family photo album and she knew I had this habit of looking through the photo albums and just trying to make sense of who are these folks who are in these black and white photos.

Michael (05:05):

So then it turns out that was the day of discovery. But it was also the day of discovery of my two younger siblings because all the way up until that time well I thought I was born into the family and the foster kids that I knew, they were the ones who were foster kids and then now I'm confronted with the realities. Had no idea, I was once in their shoes and, but I was the one that they, and one of the few that they ended up keeping. So cause there was a whole other history that I was connected to that I just had to know about and that was very traumatic and confusing.

Damon (05:43):

How did your mom make you feel? How did she address your confusion?

Michael (05:48):

I assumed that she was ill prepared for that day.

Damon (