057 -My Acceptance Is Etched In Stone

Kendra’s story is filled with peaks and valleys of emotion. After running far, far away in her teens, Kendra’s adopted mother blamed her for her adopted father’s demise. She and her mother were estranged for years until her adopted mother’s mortality changed their relationship. In reunion, her birth mother accepted her return but kept Kendra a secret. Decades later she had an amazing reunion with her siblings, only to find things were turning upside down at home.

Read Full TranscriptKendra: 00:05 I think that’s why I never really talked about my childhood with my kids. I just thought I’m just going to lock it up, you know, weld it behind this gate and it’s never. It can’t hurt if I don’t talk about it and that was a colossal parenting mistake. I do not recommend doing that at all because it will all come doubling up to the surface when you least expect it.

Voices: 00:31 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:42 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 Kendra. Kendra lives near Palm Springs, California. Her story is filled with peaks and valleys of emotion. After running far, far away, Kendra’s adopted. Mother blamed her for her adopted father’s demise. She and her mother were estranged for years until her adopted mother’s mortality changed their relationship. In reunion Her birth mother accepted her return, but kept Kendra a secret. Then decades later, she had an amazing reunion with her siblings only to find things were turning upside down at home. This is Kendra’s journey.

Damon: 01:34 Kendra was adopted after one week of life in 1965. Her parents planned on adopting another little boy, but unfortunately they divorced, so Kendra was an only child. She grew up in Torrance, California, and she remembers the day she was told that she was adopted and how she was made to feel.

Kendra: 01:53 I grew up in only child and my mother was an identical twin and her identical twin had a daughter who is nine months older than I was and so that was interesting. I was told I was adopted when I was four years old and it. It kinda came up one day when we were out shopping and my aunt was talking about having my cousin and I asked my mom got having me and I can see the eyes that darted and I knew something was up so they told me, Oh, you’re special chosen. We picked you. I got that speech and I didn’t really know what they were talking about, but the way they said it to me, so special and beautiful like a princess, you know, but yet there was this look in their eyes, like don’t ask any other questions about it. So I thought, well, I’ll get somebody else to explain it to me.

Kendra: 02:41 And I started telling people I was adopted and he would get these horrified look on their faces. Like, oh my goodness, I can’t believe you’re admitting that to me. And that confused me even more. And then one day my mom overheard me telling somebody and she snatched me up by my elbow and said, that’s a private family matter we don’t talk to people about that. So I was completely, I was confused. You told me something that was so beautiful and exciting and then now it’s this, this, this horrible thing. I’m not supposed to tell anybody. What does it mean? And I, I was just, I couldn’t believe it. And I thought I had figured it out one night at dinner because we went out to dinner and she said, I think I’ll choose the special and when my mom ordered chicken, I kid you not. I thought I hatched like an egg for about three years. I did. I thought I had like an egg. No wonder she didn’t want anybody to know.

Damon: 03:40 Kendra attended Chadwick school. The school is featured in the 1981 movie mommy dearest based on the book by Christina Crawford. Christina portrayed her life of physical and mental abuse at the hands of her mother, the famous Hollywood actress Joan Crawford. June, believed her own tough upbringing, made her into the woman she was, but she was unable to have children, was viewed unfavorably by adoption agencies for her multiple divorces and her status as a single woman. So she secured the services of an adoption broker who helped her adopt, Christina and three others.

Kendra: 04:17 And matter of fact, I remember, Christina Crawford, who wrote the book “Mommy Dearest”. The book came out in 19- Oh gosh, I don’t know, 78, something like that. And I remember my mom was horrified. you know she couldn’t believe that she would write such a book that she couldn’t even defend herself. Joan Crawford, and I remember thinking to myself that if she, you know, the book never would have been written and so we never talked about our opposing views on that, on that book, but I can remember that having kind of an impact on me and probably by that time I had figured out what, what adopted meant, that there was another woman and she gave birth to me and I always knew I would search. I knew, I always knew I wanted to know why?

Damon: 05:02 I was really curious about Kendra’s mother who had a twin sister who had her own biological daughter. You’ve probably experienced with twins, that people are always searching for the ways that they’re alike. That was true for Kendra’s mother and her sister and the search for likenesses even cascaded down to Kendra’s cousin, but no one could ever make the family comparisons with Kendra,

Kendra: 05:24 Like, my mother being an identical twin. The looking for similarities you know, I mean, they looked so much like that you’re always searching to...