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This is the Abbey Normal podcast, here to tell you that you're weird and that's normal.
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We're reuniting family members who've been separated for as long as 50 years,
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and then the second case was 35 years, I think. This is Janine.
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Janine did grow up knowing she was adopted, but she didn't have any information
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about her biological mother and no information about her father.
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I mean, did you know that like since you were... I did.
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A child. Yes, Yes, because all my brothers and sisters and I were adopted.
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So it was never like, we have to sit down and tell you something.
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You know, it was always like, when we adopted you, you know,
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you were wanted, you were desired. So it was never like a surprise.
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But you were brought up in a good family. Oh, I had a great family.
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Yeah. Are they still with us? Yes. And they're so supportive and excited for me.
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But you didn't know your biological parents at all? No. And my parents were
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really supportive of us, like trying to learn.
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Did you ever wonder about your parents when you were little,
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when you were growing up?
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Yeah, I always have wondered. I always wonder where I got my looks.
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That was really important to me.
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You know, where did I get my small nose and my big hips? And,
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you know, I want to know who to blame for that. But yes.
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And for me, I had a really good relationship with my dad, but my mom and I didn't.
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And so I spent most of my time thinking like, well, what was my mother like?
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But there's a lot of questions. I was always curious about my medical background
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because Because I was born, I had some kind of unusual things. I had six fingers.
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And I kind of wondered what caused that. And, you know, just some kind of interesting
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things. So I was very curious.
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Janine was adopted. And there were things about her body that she was curious about.
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She wanted an explanation for those six fingers that she was born with.
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She wanted to look at a woman with lovely wide hips and think,
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that's where mine came from.
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You're hearing her on the infamous Sally Jesse Raphael show in 1994.
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Can you put yourself in my shoes and know how wonderful it feels to be able to do this?
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Just feels so good. Some of my favorite shows and I'm having a wonderful time.
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Today we're going to rewind and hear her full story, some of which we know now
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and some that's still a big question mark. She does get answers,
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but now she understands that nothing comes in the order that we want it to.
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As a little girl, Janine's most urgent questions were about her mother.
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She's going to describe those daydreams. And as we go, you'll hear her sister
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laughing a bit in the background.
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There'd always been the, oh, what's my real mom like? And as a little, little girl...
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I used to think maybe I was like a princess until I found out that they didn't give away royalty.
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So that was a little bit of a heartbreak, you know, because I had my little
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fantasy about one day I'd find my I'd find my my mother and she would be a queen. Yes. Yes.
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People were saying I look like Betty Davis. I'm like, well, maybe I relate to
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Betty Davis. Like, you know, like I have Betty Davis eyes or whatever,
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you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But yeah, so there are fantasies. But then as you get older,
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you start to, okay, so who is this person?
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She wondered how it would feel to look like your family for real.
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And, you know, I didn't look anything like my brothers or sisters.
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And so it was funny. Like my older brother, we were 18 months different.
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And so when people found out we were brother and sister, I go, oh, yeah.
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And I'm like, no, there's no resemblance when you're adopted. Oh, right, right.
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Because you know how people are when they find out you're brother and sister.
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Every time, probably. Oh, yeah, I can see it. No, you can't.
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Her brother, Jess, has different biological parents. They were both adopted
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in Utah. So with her parents' support, they started looking.
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And my mom even tried to help me find, they went to Utah where we were adopted
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in Utah, Jess, my older brother, and I, and they tried to get the envelope open,
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but they're really strict there. Yeah. So, but they did try.
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And then Jess had actually found a company in Utah and he found his birth mother first. Oh, okay.
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And so when he found his birth mother, I was like, oh, well, okay.
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And I kept thinking maybe I need to wait till I'm ready. But then I thought,
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well, maybe, you know, you're never ready. It's one of those things.
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And so I sent, I had a piece of paper that basically just said you were adopted
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in this state from this adoption agency.
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Your grandmother had blah, blah eyes. You know, just basics. Okay, okay.
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So I send in this piece of paper to this company. I don't remember what the
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company's name was. and I don't think it was that long, probably like,
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maybe a month or two. And I got a phone call. It was on Father's Day, which is like universe.
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And they said, okay, this doesn't happen very often. But in the process of looking
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for your mother, we found your father.
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And he'd been looking for you for 30 years.
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Music.
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And that was just like, wait, what? You know? Yeah, yeah.
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It was like, wow. And so they gave me his number.
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And I remember trying to call him up and not getting him and not getting him
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and then realizing I was calling the work number instead of the home number
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because it was on Sunday.
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So I called him up. And the first thing out of his mouth was,
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is this a darling named Janine? Because he had a Texas accent.
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Yeah, I don't think I did that very well. But that was pretty good.
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And so we started talking. And he said, I'm not an asshole. I didn't know about
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you. I would have kept you like he just wanted the first thing you want me to know.
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So we decided that we were going
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to meet a month later in he was living in Colorado at the time, I think.
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And I remember going to a party that day and telling people and just being in
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shock and like, wow, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. Yeah.
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So that was on Sunday, Father's Day. That following Friday, I got a phone call
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and they said, how would you like to meet your dad?
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I'm like, what? And they said, well, the CEOs of the corporation that they found
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your birth father are doing the talk show circuits.
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Oh, and I've always loved to be on stage.
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I'm, I'm a singer and stuff. So I was like, um, sure. You know,
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if he will do it, I'll do it.
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And so that was on Friday. They flew us out on Sunday to New York,
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which was my first time in New York.
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And then we met Monday on Sally, Jesse.
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Yeah. Great. Are you ready to meet your father? Mother, I'm so excited.
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Janine has a choppy shag haircut, dyed auburn.
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She's wearing a floral short-sleeved dress, 90s-style choker,
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and dark red lip. You know that she's toned it down.
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Light, come on out. Oh, my God. Meet your daughter.
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Slay walks out in a suit and a big white cowboy hat, carrying an equally big white teddy bear.
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He hugs her real tight. It's sweet. He's crying.
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Her eyes are closed, and she's smiling. feeling they sit down on the couch why
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i gotta see if you've got big hips,
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and no she looks like her mother all right you have no idea about the daughter
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or how to find her i should say no y'all excuse me give her give her that that's
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all right that's all right Like you're in the flower and the teddy. I think she's... Aww.
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He kisses her cheek and leans into a hug, his hand cradling the back of her head.
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I'm like, don't do such things about you. Okay.
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You must have a story to tell, right? Yes, ma'am. Can you explain? Oh, my gosh.
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Did you watch the videos? Oh, yes. Well, take a seat.
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See, when I was trying to look as conservative, I had that total,
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like, mullet, like, orange mullet. Yeah, yeah.
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And what did they tell you about how they wanted you to look?
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They, well, so they wanted me to look conservative. I had a nose ring. They made me take it out.
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They go, I just don't want to distract, you know, people with the,
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you know. With the look. With the look.
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Well, it kind of cracked me up because he comes out with like a teddy bear. Exactly.
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And he's a cowboy from head to toe. He's a Stenson cowboy. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
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Were you expecting him to look like that? No. I mean, the two of you together
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are just a fabulous TV duo.
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I mean, see what I feel like as a little punk rock chick, you know,
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with this guy in the cowboy hat.
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Yeah. It was like he was as cowboy as they get. And I was trying to be as punk
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rock as I could get, but I wasn't able to because they wanted me to look conservative as I could.
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Before she walked out on that stage, she did have a little bit of information,
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glowing reviews of her father.
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But the funny thing was, so the night before I had gone to St.
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Mark's Place and I was meeting people and people were like, oh, what are you doing here?
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And so I was telling them my story. he was on the other side of
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town meeting people and telling them their story and
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I guess he had been hanging out with the CEOs of
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the corporation that were there okay so they came to my room when I got back
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to the hotel they're like oh they want to meet you and they said they're you
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know the partners wanted to
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meet you and so when they said their partners anyway that wasn't the case,
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But it was so funny. So they came to my hotel room and they're like,
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oh, we just left your dad. He is so great.
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And, you know, and so basically he was doing the same thing I was and the other,
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you know, and then the part of New York. Right.
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But yeah, everybody who met him, oh, he's so great. He's so great.
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And even the next day when we were filming, we were separated in two different rooms.
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And I was sitting in the backstage waiting to film mine.
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And everybody coming out of his room were women. Every single one of them was
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like, your dad is just wonderful.
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I'm thinking, my dad's a big flirt.
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So we actually stayed another night and were able to do like some,
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like we did the boat around New York. We went to a karaoke bar.
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So that was fun. And they got us a different flight back so that we could stay
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extra. And they got us a limo to take us to the airport. port.
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And I got to meet his wife because we had a layover in Colorado. So I got to meet his wife.
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Wow. Meeting your long lost parent on national TV, bebopping around New York
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City high on this twist in your life story. What an adventure.
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And it continued for a little bit as they got to know each other.
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And I did go visit him. It was around the time the show aired.
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So people were recognizing us. Yeah. Oh, how funny. Yeah. We were walking around
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different places. Oh, we saw you.
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So there had been times over the course of my life where people recognize me
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from the show. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, how funny. Yeah.
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Music.
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Then came the inevitable crash back to real life.
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You know, it's not always easy.
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Like, you never know what. Like, be careful for what you ask for.
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Because I was excited to know this person, but I also didn't want to change my life.
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He wanted me to move there and work in his country western clothing store and,
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you know, change my whole life.
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And I'm like, I'm sorry. His name was Clay. I'm sorry, Clay.
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Clay, but I'm happy to know you and get to know you, but I'm not changing my life, you know?
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But when I think about, you know, he had 30 years of looking for me and I just,
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oh, there's Clay, you know? Right, right.
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Because I never thought about him. I was always more about my mother than my
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father because I had, you know, a good relationship.
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So it was kind of interesting the universe sent him first.
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Music.
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So there was there was some like, you know, like, oh, Clay's calling,
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you know, like kind of hiding out a little bit. Oh, my gosh.
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I mean, I can imagine that, you know, you wanted that itch scratched of like,
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who are these people that biologically created me?
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Yeah. But also you may or may not need to like have an ongoing relationship with them. Right. Yeah.
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That's not I doesn't need to be part of the package. Yeah.
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Like I was happy to know. I feel blessed that I got to, but there was some stuff that came up later.
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And it was hard because there was a lot of pressure from him to come into his life and be there.
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And I didn't really connect to my—I had two half-sisters and a half-brother.
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Just didn't connect to them.
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I mean, I'm glad to know they're out there, but I have a family.
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So it was like, you know, it was just a little bit like— I felt I had a little guilt about that.
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Music.
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Okay, let's rewind to what we know of Clay's story. How did Janine come to be?
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And how did the 35-year separation happen?
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Yes, ma'am. Can you explain? Since you're the only one we've got, explain what happened.
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Well, thank you. Men ain't supposed to do this, right? No, men do do that.
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Real men do that, so that's okay.
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Well, about 32 years ago, I was a military man. and I was stationed in Denver, Colorado. Okay.
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And as servicemen do, you meet young ladies and we had an affair.
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And so after a period of time, one day she said something to the effect, I think I'm pregnant.
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And I said, well, please go to a doctor and you have the doctor confirmed.
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And so she came and said, no, everything's fine.
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She was not pregnant. She was not pregnant. She had lied to him about being pregnant.
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She'd gone to him and said, I think I might be pregnant. And he said,
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well, you know, in the video he says, Well, you know, find out, let me know.
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And then she came back and said she didn't. And I get why she didn't tell him.
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She didn't want to trap him. They weren't in love.
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But it's like, you know, he didn't know about me until she called him a year
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later to say, well, you do have a daughter.
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And so a year later, I had already married and I got a phone call one night
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and says, congratulations, you're a daddy. Betty.
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So what happened was she had called him after she had given me up and lied and
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said, I wasn't sure I'm getting married to this military man. I might keep her.
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But I think she wanted him to know that he did have a daughter.
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Okay. And by then he had gotten, I think they were married and had a kid on
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the way. So it happened all really fast.
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My guess is she probably felt guilty because it had been a year.
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But at that point, by that time, I was adopted three days out of,
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right out of the hospital. Three days, my parents got me.
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And she said, well, I have going with the gentleman and the people that I was
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with when Janine was born.
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Was wanting to take her in for adoption. And I said, well, let me know what you're going to do.
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Well, I'm a man. I had a lot of questions about, well, is Janine really mine?
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I mean, you know, there's all kinds of things in there. So anyway,
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I said, let me know. And so she said, okay.
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Well, I never heard from her again. Never heard from the woman again.
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Never again. And so as a consequence. Now, all these years, how many years ago? 31.
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31 years ago, in the back of your mind, the woman
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said she wasn't pregnant and suddenly she is you never
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saw the baby it could have been a joke it could
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have been any one of a number of things i wonder if i have a child right
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exactly and then what and then i had that question for
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a lot of years now when she was have been about five years old i'm a little
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older i'm a little more mature and i understand what's going on in the world
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and i'm packing a lot of baggage because you have that question in the back
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of your mind sure so i started looking for and actually i was looking for her
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mother because if i could find her where is she?
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Right. And so, anyway, I was chasing the dead horse because it turned out,
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as I found out last Sunday, Father's Day, that she had been adopted.
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And I didn't even know what her name was or anything else. Have you ever found
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the woman who was her mother?
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Did you, have you, Janine, are you still trying to find her?
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I'd love to find her. But you have no idea where she is? No,
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the locators are still looking for her.
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And we're hoping maybe through the show or something. Dad, what do you think about this?
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Music.
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Moe did not offer any leads on the whereabouts of Janine's mom.
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But she and Clay did not stop looking. And Clay especially was like a dog with a bone.
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For 15 years, he continued looking, trying to answer Janine's final question.
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It was about 15 years later, you know, I'd had a relationship with them.
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And Clay calls me up and says, don't get your panties in a bunch,
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but I think we found your mom.
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So he had figured out that she had married a military man, and one day he just
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Googled him and found out the guy had died, but he had a sister, a twin sister.
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And I don't know if he called the sister or how, but somehow he got through
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a number to get to Julie, our half-sister, and through there he got Vicki.
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He found Vicki, Janine's biological mother, and it wasn't a moment it too soon.
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The crazy thing was Vicki had been in the hospital. She had coded, basically died.
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There was some told her it wasn't her time. She came back out, went into rehab.
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And then the week she got back from rehab was when we, when Clay found her.
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So weird. Yeah. And I just go, okay, the universe is just working all over the place. Right, right.
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It was, it was pretty amazing. Like we, we found out, like I was talking to
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her so much that I got got in trouble with my phone.
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I have a phone group. And they're like, okay, we're using too many minutes.
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Back in the day where you had to count your minutes. Yeah, exactly.
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So it was amazing just getting to know her and finding out I look just like her.
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Seriously, when I she sent me pictures of her baby face.
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And oh my god, and then we were walking and I could see our legs.
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I mean, I got the big hips, you know, and the legs, got the calves.
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But yeah, I look just like her. And we have a lot in common.
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Like, she loved movies. She loved music.
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So we have a lot, a lot in common. Yeah.
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We talked for about a month, and nobody knew about it. Nobody knew about it.
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You and Vicki talked. Yeah.
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Nobody knew about Janine's existence, so it was time for secrets to be forced to the surface.
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It took about a month, and I was like, Vicki, you got to tell somebody. You basically died.
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Right. If you died, nobody knows I'm here. Right. So she told her best friend,
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and then she told, you know, slowly, and finally she told her daughters.
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Okay, okay. And Jenny was right away excited about meeting me.
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Julie, that's so funny. Julie wasn't. I need to, like, draw a tree right now.
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Seriously. I'm on track of everything.
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Oh, my gosh. Okay. It's not that complicated. There's just a lot of J names.
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So, Dad is Clay. Mom is Vicky.
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Janine's half-sisters are Jenny and Julie.
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And it turned out that Janine was only the first of Vicky's secrets or untruths to be revealed. old.
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It was good getting to know her, but there was a lot of like stuff.
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She was emotionally a big mess.
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When I met her, we started talking. She had been disowned by her parents when
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she married the first time she married out of her faith because she was Orthodox Jew.
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And she did not want her daughters to know this. I guess she didn't want them
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to know the grandparents had done this.
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So she had told them that her parents and sister had died in a car crash. And I did not know this.
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Janine did not know this. So first, the secret came to light that she existed.
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And then when she connected with her half sisters, another cat was out of the bag.
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And so I remember talking to Jenny and saying, you know, that really sucks what they did to our mom.
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And she didn't know what I was talking about. It's like, wait,
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what are you talking about? I'm like, what are you talking about?
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And so the next day, I get a call from Vicki
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crying and upset and she's like why did you
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tell them i didn't want him to know blah blah i'm like i don't vicky this is
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who you are they're gonna understand it's why you know it's like it's it's part
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of who you are right and so she told them the truth like and you know jenny
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was like she didn't even know they were jewish right you know yeah blood russian jew we're russian jew.
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You know, Vicky started telling everybody, and then I got to meet them.
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And that was kind of crazy going out there and meeting them.
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And, you know, let's look at each, you know, what do we have the same?
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You know, Jenny and I look the most alike.
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Like, we look like Vicky. And then Julie, she's the youngest.
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She looks like her dad. Okay. Yeah.
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This is Janine meeting her biological mother, Vicky, in person for the first time.
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Oh, wait. Oh, my God. Oh, you're beautiful.
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What do you think, you guys? Do we look alike? Definitely.
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Nikki, this is going to be on Facebook, so say hi to everybody.
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All my friends are going to see it. On Facebook? Yeah, all my friends are going to see it. Hi.
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It's like a dream come true. They hug for so long and then lean back slightly
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and look at each other, still holding on tight.
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Do I look like I thought I would? You look exactly like your pictures, Noah.
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Do I? I can see our face shape. It's totally. We have the forehead.
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Oh. Wow. I can't believe this day is here. My older daughter. That's right.
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They do look alike. I mean, Janine is stylish in a black dress, dark, cute shag hair.
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And Vicky's older in a purple sweater, jeans, pixie hair. but they do have the
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same big dreamy eyes and little button nose.
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Music.
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Photos from their lives Janine pulled out a picture from
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when she first moved to San Francisco and Vicky responded you
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really cut loose didn't you it was a sweet time but even then Vicky wasn't in
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00:23:16,943
the best health so after their visit Janine found ways to connect long distance
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00:23:22,163
I knew she loved movies and she couldn't go to the theaters and so I would do
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Bit Torrents you know remember Remember BitTorrents? Yes.
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I would download Burn and send her CDs or DVDs so that she could see the movies that were playing.
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So I did a lot of that and music.
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00:23:39,023
Yeah. Yeah. Good. So yeah. So we did share that. And I remember when the Oscars
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were coming up, we would spend a lot of time talking about the Oscars.
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So yeah. So we had a lot of that in common. I think she had a good heart.
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I think she was just really broken.
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And I think there was some, I don't know. No, the thing is, it's hard to know
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00:23:57,523
what was real because some of the stuff feels like maybe mentally,
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00:24:01,423
emotionally, she was, you know, she had tried to kill herself after she had
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her last daughter and was in an institution for a year and had shock treatment.
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Oh, God. Yeah. So, I mean, seriously, it was like a lifetime movie.
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00:24:15,143
Seriously, it could be, you know. And I think there might have been some molestation
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00:24:20,103
also that she started remembering from her childhood. Mm-hmm.
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There was no diagnosis that you know of as far as mental illness? No.
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Vicki passed away not long after that first meeting.
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How did you feel when she passed?
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It's so different. It's so different, you know, compared to like my mom,
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you know, that raised me and was my mom, right? Right.
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It's like she was my birth mother. I'm happy I got to know her,
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but it was just different.
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It's different that it wasn't that intensity that I was kind of more relieved
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for her that she's not, you know, because she was on oxygen and,
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you know, not doing too good.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You never really knew her like physically well.
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No. Yeah. You know, we spent a lot of time talking.
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She was relieved that Vicki was released, and she had her own realization.
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00:25:23,983
You know, after Vicki had called me up that day and was upset that I had told
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00:25:27,603
her daughters, I remember calling my mom crying, going, I'm so thankful.
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You know, we had a hard time, mom, but thank you for not lying to me.
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Because, you know, and it just, the more I got to know what my life would have
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been like, the more I was so grateful for my life.
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Music.
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Jane also felt good about what she helped to accomplish, opening the windows
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of this family, clearing out the secrets, so that Vicki could leave with a clear
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conscience and all of her daughters could live authentically,
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knowing truly who they are.
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00:26:09,867
So, here I am. You know, Vicki, she's pretty much, she's on oxygen.
365
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00:26:14,107
She's going to die. She's in hospice. We surprise her for her birthday. day.
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I've been so proud feeling like all the lies are out into the,
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you know, I've helped bring out, you know, all this truth into the family.
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You know, the things that needed to be said were said. And, you know,
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and it's like, okay, you know, she can die with a clear conscience. Yeah.
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00:26:34,727
But it turned out that there was more that they didn't know.
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Tune in next time for a bombshell discovery and Janine's story.
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A story that, of course, is not hers alone, but that of a bloodline.
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00:26:50,087
Michelle comes along and like, hold my beer. Here I am.
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00:26:55,447
So I thought I was the big secret in the family. Nope.
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Here I am.
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00:28:04,231
Music.
