077 – I’m A Wounded Healer With My Father’s Eyes

Linda’s childhood was tumultuous after her mother’s death as she was raised in what she thought was her grandmother’s home. When she learned the truth about her life from the neighbor’s kids, at age 10, Linda immediately wanted to find her birther father. She endured years of abuse in her grandmother’s home with no love. She characterizes her story, not as an adoption, she thinks of herself as stolen from her biological father.

You can find Linda’s book at LindaBlackmer.com or you can search “My Father’s Eyes: A Story of Stolen Lives” on Amazon

Read Full TranscriptLinda: 00:03 Grandma’s drivin. Then we’re driving down the road and she begins calling me names and then she gets quiet and she goes, you know, Linda, you’re right. Your Dad is not your father. And it was like, wow, you know, my abuser is actually finally telling me the truth.

Voices: 00:27 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who Am I?

Damon: 00:38 This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis, and on today’s show is Linda. She called me from Farmington, New Mexico where she lives so far away from it all, that she had to drive into town from her house to get a good mobile signal so that she could share her story with you. Linda’s childhood was tumultuous after her mother’s death as she was raised in what she thought was her grandmother’s home. Once she learned the truth about her life from the neighbor’s kids at age 10, Linda immediately wanted to find her birth mother. She endured years of abuse in her grandmother’s home with no love. She characterizes her story not as an adoption, she thinks of herself as stolen from her biological father. This is Linda’s journey.

Damon: 01:32 Linda admits her journey is convoluted, but you already know that many of our stories are on November 22nd 19, 63. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The next day, November 23rd. Linda’s mother was killed. Linda was about three years old. Her sister was four the girls, went to live with their maternal grandmother as the family tried to make a plan for their future.

Linda: 01:59 The people in the family were trying to figure out what to do with us, and one day a grandma Brown into the house and sitting on her chair was a strange man that we had never seen before and so my sister and I, we looked at each other and looked at the guy and he had two great big white teddy bears and he held out his hands and said, hello. I’m your Daddy. And we’d never seen him before. Again, it was really strange and really confusing.

Damon: 02:35 Okay,

Linda: 02:36 so we did go to live with him and he could not handle raising a three and a four year old, so he took us to his parents. So we grew up with our Dad’s parents and we of course called and grandma and grandpa.

Daon: 02:54 Can I just ask quickly when you were two, I make the assumption that you were living in a two parent household when your mother was killed, is that correct?

Linda: 03:05 That is not correct. Okay. Um, basically our mother, she was divorced but she was living with a man and we were living with him too and he was her boyfriend and the one who caused the accident related to her death. Um, so it was actually vehicular homicide. We just remember bits and pieces of him, but apparently he was severely abusive and uh, the story goes that she wanted to break up with him. He was pretty angry about that and that should be one of the reasons that caused the accident.

Damon: 03:48 Do you remember any of your feelings at the time as a child who has lost her mother? Do you feel that you remember the grief or anything?

Linda: 03:58 I didn’t remember that we were told that she had died and so I remembered… What I do remember is we were being babysat by one of our aunts and I remember standing on the couch looking outside the window waiting for mom to come and pick us up and what I saw is her father or Grandpa come and start picking up our toys in the front yard, put him in his car, and when I asked him, I ran up to him and said, hey, where’s mommy? He totally ignored me. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t look at us, nothing. So that was really confusing to me because again, I was only three, but apparently we were told that she had died. That I don’t remember that at all.

Damon: