Born in Italy adopted in America Santo Marabella's Heartfelt Journey of Adoption and Reunion

Could you imagine uncovering your roots halfway around the world? This episode brings you the heartfelt story of Santo Marabella, who was born in Aosta, Italy, and adopted by a loving family in America. Santo sheds light on his early life at the Instituto Asistenza Materna e Infantile and the touching way his adoptive parents, Anna and Sam Marabella, revealed his adoption to him. We also dive into the historical context of the "baby scoop" era, during which thousands of Italian babies found new homes in America, adding a layer of emotional and historical depth to Santo's journey.

Santo’s tale takes a dramatic turn with an unexpected reunion in Italy, a trip initially planned for a friend’s wedding that evolved into a life-changing quest to find his biological family. Listen as Santo recounts the emotional highs and lows of meeting his parents and siblings for the first time, saying bittersweet farewells, and the enduring promise of staying in touch. This chapter of Santo's life is filled with heartwarming moments, language barriers, and the ongoing hope of reuniting with his younger sister after decades of separation.

The journey doesn’t stop there. Santo opens up about the profound grief and healing process following the loss of his adoptive parents and a beloved pet. Volunteering at an animal shelter and reconnecting with his Italian family became pivotal in his healing journey. Explore themes of belonging, identity, and the importance of understanding one's ancestry, as Santo uncovers fascinating connections to both American and Italian heritage. This episode celebrates the joy of discovering personal stories and the powerful bonds formed through family ties and adoption.

Italian Roots and Genealogy is proud to share that Santo D. Marabella, adoptee born in Italy in 1961, is producing a first-person documentary about his adoption, called Il Mio Posto a Tavola (My Place at the Table).  His journey will build into a broader story about the universal need to belong and what can get in the way for each person, adoptees and non-adoptees alike, of finding your “place at the table.”

Santo’s team, lead by Tracy Schott,filmmaker and social worker, are pleased to announce that they will be filming in Italy this September with members of Santo’s Italian family and his American “family” who are accompanying him on the trip!  

You can view the work-in-progress of the film here: https://vimeo.com/984296330/5027660402?share=copy

For more information on the project and how you can support it, click:  IlMioPostoFilm.com 

Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino, from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check out our blog and our YouTube channel and our newsletter and our great sponsors, your Dolce Vita Italy, rooting Phil Italy and Abiativa Casa. And today I have a great guest who was born in Italy and adopted in America Santo Marabella. So welcome, santo. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Thank you, bob, it's my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 0:41

So you're the second person that I've interviewed that was born in Italy and adopted in America. I don't know. Do you know John? And I'm going to mess up his name, capitelli? Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2: 0:51

I do. John's an amazing person and a wonderful resource for folks who have been adopted from Italy and has really helped a lot of folks and has really helped a lot of folks. I had already found most of the information about my biological family, but he has been very instrumental in the process we're going through now, but also to so many people. He's just a great person.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Yeah, he's a super person and you know, I know he helps people and he does it out of the goodness of his heart and I guess he was probably born right around the same time. You were right, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 2: 1:28

I think he's a little bit younger.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Yeah, a little bit, but not too much.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Around the same. Yeah, around the same time, and I think he was born in Milan, if.

Speaker 1: 1:36

I'm not mistaken? Yes, that's right, that's right, that's right. So now? So you know how did your story play out.

Speaker 2: 1:49

You know how old were you first when you were brought to America? Well, I don't remember it, but I know I feel like I do from all the times that I've heard the story. So I was born in Aosta, italy, which is the northwest on the border of Chamonix, france, in May of 1960. 1960, yeah and born in the institute, what was called the Instituto Asistenza Materna e Infantile, if I'm pronouncing it halfway right, and at this institution, similar to an orphanage, but those babies whose mother did not consent to give the name no essere consentare nominata, or something like that. So on the birth certificates there would usually be the name of a mother and there was none. So some of us then were born in that institute.

Speaker 2: 2:46

I was adopted 11 months later, came to America by my parents, anna and Sam Marabella, who adopted me through Catholic Charities and became officially adopted and I guess two years later. Final adoption was two years later, you know, and I do remember this part four years old, being told that I was adopted and the way my parents did. It was so gentle and wonderful and so untraumatic, so untraumatic. They said to me that they said a little bit about, you know, we wanted to have children, but mommy couldn't have children or we couldn't have children ourselves. So we did what we call adopt, and that means we got to pick you and you're special to us and you're our child. And I do remember saying are you gonna give me back? And they're like no, no, no, no, you are ours forever and um. And they, they said, uh, you're just like jimmy um, and jim jim was still a friend today, one of my dearest friends who was next door neighbor. He said just like Jimmy and his family, you'll always be ours. I'm like OK, can I go back and play now? So you see the depth of the trauma, right?

Speaker 2: 4:17

I did find out more as I grew up and you know that I couldn't eat solid foods, I couldn't sit up, I had a flat head, which I think I still have Pretty much have one, and that was from being in the crib. And you know I'm sure I was attended to as best they could at the time, as well as the other babies. But you know I was part of that era of what they called the baby scoop, and so what our research has found out is that between 1959 and 1965, 3,700 Italian babies were, I say, exported, were adopted to the United States. I mean, it happened more than those years, and it happened in other places in europe as well. I just really, I just know that that's how I fit into this whole big picture um, so, so, so.

Speaker 1: 5:16

That institute, um, was that like, like a maternity place for unborn mothers, or something like that?

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yeah, as far as I understand it and I'm working on my Italian, it was always pretty rough, it's a little bit better but the istituto was a brevotrofio. The children, the babies, are identified as the son or daughter of so-and-so a certain person. In the breif atrophio they are not identified. That goes back to what I said about not having an official name and in fact the nuns who took care of the babies made up names. I came over with a wristband, like the hospital, the old hospital bands, and it had on it Daniele Rezi R-E-S-I, which I always thought was the name of my family when I started to search and found out, no, in fact it was the uh, uh, the name that they needed to give. Every child had to have a name on their birth certificate yeah, yeah, well, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 6:35

I mean my, you know, my children are adopted, um, but from from Florida, not from, uh, not from uh, italy, uh. But you know, we we had looked into foreign adoption too at the time and we were we were thinking, uh, potentially uh, paraguay at the time and uh, and again, there's a lot of italians and germans, I mean the the europe European heritage, especially in Paraguay, is very prominent. But they said the problem that they would have there sometimes is that the bishops, in one instance and I don't know if it was, I don't remember exactly if it had happened or they were afraid it was going to happen, happen, but they said there was one bishop in particular, uh, that was saying that you know they were, we were taking the babies for parts in america from the pulpit. You know, nice guy, yeah, really solid kind of character, yeah well that the catholic church took some responsibility for their role.

Speaker 2: 7:44

I think think it was back in 2016, the church officially apologized to women in the UK for the actions that led to those kinds of situations where unmarried mothers, unmarried women, were either coerced, forced, pressured, you know, shamed into giving up their babies.

Speaker 1: 8:12

No kidding, oh boy, I didn't.

Speaker 2: 8:15

And that's part of that baby scoop, just scooping up the babies. That you know. I don't know the motivation. That you know, I don't know the motivation.

Speaker 1: 8:34

I, you know, I try to be somewhat understanding, but I don't know. I mean, you know it is what it is, I suppose. So now, so you know you're adopted, you know you're adopted from Italy. So how did you, well, when did you, and how did you, you know, start doing the research to, to find out, um, who at least your birth mother was?

Speaker 2: 8:54

um, I, I had always wondered and, and, quite honestly, my parents and when I say parents I mean my parents I never make the distinction of adopted versus bio, versus. If I use the term parents, it's it's Anna and Sam, the loving parents that I had growing up. They told me what they knew. They knew I had an older brother and older sister. They in fact tried to adopt all three of us to keep us together, but the biological parents kept my older brother and older sister and I had basic names and, I think, birthdates. Perhaps at that time, at some point, I got birthdates.

Speaker 2: 9:40

During college is when I really started to consider a search in earnest. I was 18, but it really wasn't as much about my age, although I came to learn that that was a big factor in what information you could or could not get, and my parents were never an obstacle to that. But I decided to. I was curious. It took me about five years through maybe the second year of college until after I graduated, a few years, and I found, I guess, enough information paying off churches, paying off governments, paying off you know whatever, and going through a lot of bureaucracy, I have to say the American side, the consulates, the Congress. The folks here were really helpful and really put a lot of effort. I, you know, as we're doing this film, as you know, I've done a lot of going through old files and things and I realized how many letters and how many correspondence pieces of correspondence I had with our local congressman's office and different branches of government. So you have to remember that was probably late 70s, early 80s and it was still very much a closed scenario. I do remember going to Catholic Social Services in our diocese to find more information and they told me that I would get non-identifying information, which turned out to be the caseworker coming out with a folder, manila folder, taking one piece of yellow lined paper and reading to me the editorial that had been written about the biological parents and how they were not responsible and what they did not do and what they you know and that, how fortunate I was, etc. Etc. Not exactly you know. And they had the power. I mean they had everything there in that folder.

Speaker 2: 12:08

You don't quite get over that, what I would consider oppression, because people who have power over your life that you don't have power over that, really they don't have a right to have power over that, really they don't have a right to have power over, and I get that. The reasons why it was so confidential and the term closed adoptions perhaps maybe parents would not give up children or be open to adoption. I'm not here to judge or even assess if that's a good policy. I can just speak from my experience as an adoptee. It's not good, it's not fair, it's not right. And the new generation of adoptees from the little I've talked with folks in that community, the millennials in that community they're not happy about that and they're not happy about how closed it still is and how others continue to make decisions around their life. So I didn't get help from the church. Coincidentally, I'm still not getting help from the church as we go through this process. There's either a lack of responsiveness or the responses are no, and I'm not surprised by the way. This has nothing to do with my relationship with God or my spirituality. I recognize the church is an organization of human beings who are imperfect. So it's not a big deal against the church, it's just this piece of it is really. I think it's wrong. I think it's of it is really, um, I think it's it's wrong, I think it's immoral, um, the way it's handled.

Speaker 2: 14:09

I did find information. I was supposed to go to a wedding in 1985 and it was a dear, dear friend from my hometown who went to grade school and high school together and she studied abroad, in Spain, and wound up going back to live and work Excuse me and was being married in August of 1985. So I planned to go. That's how close we were and I thought this might be a good opportunity. So I went earlier, did not tell my parents and I'll explain that in a minute did not tell my parents, went to Madrid, stayed with them for a day or two, drove from Madrid to Genoa by myself, which I can't even imagine doing that today or at this age or at any age, I don't. I don't know what I was thinking, but it was fine, no problems.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Longer, very long story, as quick, as short as I can make it the, the consulate in Genoa and the community which is the municipal, the town hall in myoa and the Comune which is the municipal town hall in my town, in Ayosta. The people there were wonderful and helped and eventually I did get the information of where they lived, went to visit them, met my biological parents, met my older sister and older brother, stayed in touch, tried to visit every few years. A younger brother found me, uh, about nine years, eight, nine years later, and met him. And then we have a younger sister that I learned that we had no one had met and found her. But she at the time, 20 years ago, was the last time I was there and at the time she chose not to to have any contact. So I'm reaching out to her again. Things change in 20 years. You never know, right.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Sure, Sure. So. So now I have to ask you did you just show up on the doorstep one day? Yep, Kind of did that.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Do you remember the musical Sound of South Pacific?

Speaker 1: 16:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:35

There's a character called Bloody Mary. Yes, I remember, and she was a- short, stout woman, long, beautiful hair, sun-baked skin. So I went to this apartment building and the first time I walked the first door was closed, locked, like it was a. You know you had to have the key or access to get into the building, right, not uncommon. So I went for a walk and about an hour or two later came back and the door was ajar. So if you believe in fate, I believe no, there's no accidents.

Speaker 1: 17:09

I firmly believe there's no accidents.

Speaker 2: 17:11

And I believe in you know, having guardians and guides and God and all these wonderful things too. So I go in and I go up the staircase and it was on the I thought it was the second, I think it's the second floor. So I'm in a stairwell between the first and second floor. Should I go up? Should I go up? I knew the apartment number. At least an hour I was standing there and then all of a sudden this woman comes who looks like this character. She had two shopping bags and in Italian, I had my little speech for her. In Italian, I said, excuse me, I'm looking for Signora Agostino, and I knew that that was the cognome, the surname of the mother, in Italian. She said that's me Like okay. In Italian. She said that's me, I'm like okay. So I said well, I told her my name. I told her I was from the United States. I said I was born, but I was born in Italy, in Iosta, my birth date and I'm your son. And she's like no. I said well, I know, I have an older brother and I'm your son. And she's like, no, no, I said well, I know, I have an older brother, his name is this and he was born on this day and an older sister her name is this and now she's like, okay, takes me into the apartment and shows me this picture of what looked to be like a seven-year-old and who looked a little bit like me, but it wasn't me, because I left at 11 months, three weeks in italian. This is you. I'm like well to myself, thinking, oh my god, I'm in the wrong house, it just, it's all right. And then, and I said in Italian that, excuse me, I was, I left when I was almost one year old and and then I saw the wheels turning and she nodded and she called Francesca, francesca.

Speaker 2: 19:21

And out emerges this young woman who looked to be a year or two older than me, and the woman says who is this? And she said it's your brother, and she said Miguel. And the mother goes no, another one. So they would have been too young to know, even know about me. Well, yeah, shock everybody. So my sister takes my arm and she says okay, we're going to go, we have to meet your brother. And we go to the piazza and he was at the time selling, he was working at a newsstand. The same conversation who's this? It's our brother, migueli. No, a younger another one.

Speaker 2: 20:09

I stayed there about a week in a hotel and spent most of my time with them. It was wonderful, it was good, it was comfortable, but it was sad because finally finding them and then a week later I'm losing them again. I think I said to my sister and brother, even though I're going to be going, I'll be going back. I said sempre insieme. I said we will always be together, sempre insieme, insieme, yeah, and we did, you know, write letters back and forth and this is pre our technology of today and did pretty well.

Speaker 2: 20:56

But I mean every conversation conversation, whether it was on the phone was like I had the dictionary and I'm like it's a moment though, moment I'm trying to find. Oh, my goodness, it was at least when zoom came in not zoom, but I mean online video chat came into being. I could use my hands because you can see, I do that a lot and I could get across the communication as well as could my siblings. So I went back a few times, met the younger brother, who found me, met him. He has some challenges, had some challenges. I'm still trying to find where he is because he had some issues with addiction and the younger sister we're still trying to find as we're embarking on this latest journey.

Speaker 1: 22:06

That's well. It's crazy and takes a lot of guts to do something like that. Now, were you able to find your birth father too, or or only him?

Speaker 2: 22:16

they were together they were together.

Speaker 2: 22:18

They were still together. They had, um, all five children together. They had lived together. He had been married previously. So italy that time, no divorce and obviously no birth control. And so they were not allowed to be married, which is part of the reason that all the children who were acknowledged had only the mother's name. I think it was in 1988 when the law changed in Italy and children were able to take the father's name, so now my older siblings have the name of the father. Pardon me, so it must have been difficult for them socially, you know, status-wise, because they were probably outcasted, you know, rejected.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yeah, yeah, sure, that sounds like that. Yeah, I mean, that's like a crazy thing. So now I know you're working on a movie Il mio posto a tavolo and we're going.

Speaker 2: 23:22

my career was teaching business at a college, but my avocation was always theater and film and I'm working with a person I've worked with and collaborated with for 15 years on different projects. We have our own separate projects, but we've done a lot together and um this what you do in documentary filmmaking, not much different in any kind of independent filmmaking you, you have to make a film to make a film. You have to make a film to get funding to make a film. So this piece that we're going to look at is a five minute, what's called a work in progress, and it gives you a little flavor of the story, the style and some of the conflict or some of the concerns that will be addressed so that funders, potential funders, could see if they think it's number one, can they finish this film? And number two, is it something that we would support? So that's what we're going to see. The first thing I remember remembering was being told that I was adopted. I was about four years old. I remember saying, okay, are you going to give me back? And they said no, no, no, you're ours forever. I had all I needed to know, everything I needed and most of what I wanted In 1959 through 1965, the number of Italians that were adopted as babies to the United States was around 3700, and I was among those.

Speaker 2: 25:17

What I learned later was that this was part of this, what was called the baby scoop era. It was the time when unmarried mothers were actually pressured or forced or coerced into giving up their children. I came over to New York City on a Pan Am flight 155 with kind of a cohort of other children, other babies. I was about 11 months, 3 weeks. For me, adoption is a wonderful gift. It was an opportunity that opened doors that I would never have had had I not been adopted. At the same time, the first thing you know about being an adopted child is that you were abandoned. With abandonment comes insecurity, constantly second-guessing. It comes feeling left out or feeling like you don't belong because you didn't belong.

Speaker 2: 26:21

I was born in an orphanage in Aosta, italy, and remained there for about a year until my adoption. My older two siblings lived in the Istituto for a while as well, but eventually they went home. I have two younger siblings who were also adopted. You can't just throw away a baby. You can't just act like it doesn't exist. I guess you can. We know now that infants separated from their mothers at birth suffer lifelong trauma. During college, I started searching. After a lot of research, I was able to actually meet my bio parents and the siblings in Italy At dinner, do you remember? With Giorgio? Yes, yes, that one thing I said to her is I said do you remember that the first time we met, you said that we would always be together, like siempre insieme, no matter what happened?

Speaker 2: 27:22

Grief is a really odd thing. My parents, as they aged, their health conditions presented a lot more challenges and as the only child, my focus was really on helping them get through. They passed in 2020 and 2021, and all through that, I had my cherished dog, raphael, who passed in 23. After Raffi died, I had this revelation that my everyday family was gone. It probably opened up a lot of delayed grief in some ways, and it went to a pretty dark place. Hey, how's it going? Who we got today? That needs some loving. You need to take a look at Francesca, francesca.

Speaker 2: 28:16

In my search for healing, I started volunteering at the animal shelter, working to make dogs adoptable. I know it's kind of ironic. Let's go for a walk. Il mio posto a tavola, in English, is my place at the table. Everybody has a place, not just a seat at the table, but their place, that they belong at that table. I've realized that to get through this, I need to reconnect with my Italian family, including two of my siblings, who were also adopted. I'm going back to Italy in search of that feeling of wholeness to bring together what for so long has been splintered. I don't know what I'll find, but maybe we can all find our place at the table. We all want to belong, we all want to fit in, to be a part of something some group, some community, some family. That's our strength, that's our foundation, that's how everything else becomes possible okay, well, that was, that was super and and so uh.

Speaker 1: 29:29

I so you know how do uh if anybody's interested in helping fund the film.

Speaker 2: 29:42

How would they they do that? Where would they go? We're about 70% as of the time of our talking. About 70% of our crowdfunding goal is reached. We have some ways to go, but we're making good progress and we're also waiting on a few possible grants that would really help our situation.

Speaker 2: 30:10

And here in Pennsylvania, as with many states, there's what they call a film tax credit. As with many states, there's what they call a film tax credit, so that if you, for example, in PA, if you spend 60 percent of your budget in the state of Pennsylvania, then you are able to apply for this tax credit, which then could give you back up to 25% of your budget. And I've never worked with tax credits I mean, I've worked with these programs but essentially I guess you have a broker who then sells these credits to businesses for a slight fee that we would pay, but then we wind up with money that supports the film, and usually what people do is they often use the tax credit funding to pay back the investor, which usually is the filmmaker. So it's you know, we're trying to tell a story here that certainly emanates from my story, but I you know, and that's great for people who know and love me. You know we'll love it, but that's not really enough to be a compelling film. Our hope is that this conversation that we spark about finding your place, about where you belong and some of the challenges that people experience in the way of trying to find where they belong For some people it might be addiction and substance abuse. For others it might be anxiety, you know so there's so many different reasons that people might find. You know that we get in our own way or other situations that we haven't been able to control.

Speaker 2: 31:49

You know I always say that for me, adoption was a really wonderful gift, and yet not but, but and it was also, as I reflected on over the years, it had also brought a lot of challenges to my development, a lot of challenges to who I am, to how I interact and how much I feel like I have to pay back because I'm so grateful for what I had. I want to show you I have a little picture. This is really what started it. I don't know if you can see it too well, but it's my parents on one picture and my dog on the other picture what really started this part of the journey, because I think it's a lifelong journey. But what started this part of the journey was last year.

Speaker 2: 32:39

So I lost my mom in 20, right before COVID lost my dad in 21, sort of towards the end, and not from COVID, from Parkinson's and my dog of 12 years in August of 23. And the grief was really palpable and powerful and I expected it, but I guess I didn't expect it the way it happened. And so my realization was my everyday family was gone and I was taking care of everybody. I was taking care of mom and dad. I moved back home to take care of them. We had a wonderful angel of a caregiver to help me and help them, but I was a primary caregiver. And then I was taking care of the dog, raphael, my dog, who actually took care of me. And so I wake up to this new reality and it's like, okay, I guess I got to start taking care of me. And so I wake up to this new reality and it's like, okay, I guess I gotta start taking care of me.

Speaker 2: 33:39

And it took a little while, because I was in pretty much of a dark place, to get to that place of realizing that I needed to take some proactive steps.

Speaker 2: 33:49

So one of the things I decided I was going to do for this year, for 2024, was to take this journey back and because I, you know, a lot of my projects whether the film or theater they have really hit on social issues and and social justice and those kinds of things, I thought I think I should document this.

Speaker 2: 34:09

I think it it may help other people. I think it'll help me, but I think it may help other people, I think it'll help me, but I think it'll also spark conversations that you know, art is an amazing power in getting people to talk about things, total strangers that would five different one acts together, and some of the issues were some of the same things loneliness, substance, you know, body, body image, things like that. And we had talkbacks after and people in the audience stayed to talk and talked about their lives and talked about things that really happened and how they loved having an outlet and ability to a safe place to kind of share this. So I'm I'm an I'm a absolute passionate believer in the power of of film particularly too, to be able to to spark those kinds of conversations yeah, that that's fantastic, so I'm dying to know.

Speaker 1: 35:16

So you come back from Italy after meeting your birth family, your birth parents, and what do you say to your parents?

Speaker 2: 35:25

Yes, thank you. Yeah, I came back that trip and I said, on the way back from JFK, I'll never forget. I said to my mom, I said, well, I um took a little side trip to Italy and she's like I kind of figured. I said I met my brother and sister and I also met their parents pronouns, their parents and that was how I framed it. I framed it.

Speaker 2: 35:55

I was looking for siblings, which I was. I was looking for answers about health and things like that. I wasn't looking for parents. I was glad that I found them and you know my respect for the choice that they made, definitely. And yet I don't feel. I didn't feel a closeness. They've since passed as well and I felt sadness and empathy for my siblings For losing their parents. I didn't feel the same for me until my parents, until Anna and Sam, passed. So I always framed it in a way that I was trying to, because even rationally and maybe you can share from your perspective, but as rational as my parents are and were about this the emotional piece is a little uncertain, a little scary. It's like will he want to go back and will he disavow? You know all these silly things, that would never happen, but I get how you could think and be insecure or be concerned. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:12

No, I know exactly what you mean and you know my daughter. She, from when she was probably I don't know 13 or 14, wanted to be her birth parents. Because the same thing we told them very early age. And in Florida the adoptee and the birth parents could register and when you're 18, you could go to the registry and if both parties have signed up, you could meet them. So about 16, she came to us and said she had a friend who did this and that and I said, well, you, but you're not 18 yet, you have to wait, you have to loss. At 18 you register. So when she was 18 she registered, she registered and they weren't there. Uh, neither one of her birth parents had registered. So, uh, I said okay, I said if you want to find them, we we'll see what we can do.

Speaker 1: 38:10

So we got a private investigator. It was a couple of hundred dollars, it really wasn't expensive. So you know, from early on she wanted to know. My son, good, careless, I mean. We used to ask him. You know Nicole found out. Do you want to?

Speaker 1: 38:31

no no, no, uh, and then it was probably I want to say now it was before covet, so maybe four or five years ago. Uh, his sister, um, did ancestry and contacted me at the DNA match and she said I'm, you know, I'm Matthew's sister and I'd like to meet him. And I said, well, you know he's a grown man, I have to ask him. You know it's up to him. So I asked him and he said yes, and so he since then, you know, met his birth parents and you know they have, they have a relationship with them. You know he, you know they talk back and forth or whatever. But to your point, I was never really that concerned about it, but I think it's, that's just, that's just the way I am. My wife was always concerned about it. You know a little bit, um and I used to tell her.

Speaker 1: 39:34

I said look, you know you, you know you're still her mother, you're always going to be her mother and don't, don't worry about it. And um, you know, but I think I think, uh, to your point, you know, the relationships are different, no question about it. And Nicole, shortly boy, it was less than a year after she met her birth father. Her parents were obviously much younger than us. Probably about a year after she met her birth parents, her birth father passed away. So she was impacted by that a little bit. But, um, you know, on the other hand, on the one hand it's, you know, you have kind of like almost, I guess, two sets of parents, right, you know, uh, and and to your point also, it it is important because of, uh, you know, health type of things and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 40:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:33

I mean one, to know who you look like. You know it's human or what possible disease or, but it's so. It's so wonderful how you handled your, your children's expectations because handled your children's expectations, because you let them choose, and both choices were good. Not wanting to, you know, I totally respect somebody who chooses not to want to. It's fine. I have a really close friend. For most of her life she didn't want to know and then later in life she decides to do it. It's really up to the person. So good, good on you and your wife for for the way you approach that, because there is a guilt maybe it's the italian catholic thing coming out, but there is a sense of strong guilt that I didn't want to offend, I didn't want to hurt, I didn't want to embarrass, I didn't want to do any of those things because of how much I loved my parents and I felt I had a right and it was okay and appropriate to find these answers that I that I, because my intention was not hurt and my intention was to get answers.

Speaker 1: 41:50

Well, well, yeah, sure, and and and, like you said, you know you, you, you know, you want to know who you look like. I mean you know same thing with Nicole she didn't know that she had any brothers or sisters, or you know Matthew, I mean you know. So you know we're not going to be here forever. I mean mean where we adopted the kids when we were in our 40s. So, yeah, you know they, they, they have their, they have their uh, you know blood sisters and brothers and they have their. You know adopted sister and brother.

Speaker 2: 42:21

So you know I, it's important, but to your point, everybody has to make their own choice, like everything else I see, I see it as an enlarged family rather than separate families, or at least that's what I'm struggling with now, because for most of my life it's been two worlds, two families, very distinct and separate, and I'm trying to maybe find my place at my table where everybody's there. And the other thing I'm learning is that it does not matter if you have a great adoption, a challenging or difficult adoption or something in between the types of things that I express and the types of feelings and the types of insecurities. The research and also just talking with other adoptees seems it's consistent, it's pervasive. Those kinds of things have to do with being adopted, regardless of how good you have it, and I had probably one of the best adoptions you could have.

Speaker 1: 43:24

Yeah, yeah, no, I, you know, I get it Like you said, I can, I relate to it, you know, from the other side. So it's, it's a. It's a little bit different, but you know, I've, of course, did. Once we found out who they are, being a DNA nut, I had to do all their ancestry, oh, wow. And and my son is actually my wife is half Italian, half Puerto Rican, and his father's Puerto Rican and their father is Puerto Rican.

Speaker 2: 43:53

They're fifth cousins, really yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:56

Unlike the Italians I mentioned this just the other day, too, in an interview Every Puerto Rican has done their ancestry. Italians in Italy don't do ancestry.

Speaker 2: 44:05

No no.

Speaker 1: 44:07

My wife has 10,000, 20,000 cousins. I I mean, they're coming out of the woodwork and I don't find anybody in italy. I'm so jealous that she's got all these people popping up right, that's so cool yeah and uh, and in nicole's case I was able to trace her back. Uh, she's, she's direct from daniel boone and captain morgan the pirate, the Pirate. And she's also a cousin 16 times removed, or something like that, from Princess Diana. She's got the Spencer going way, way back.

Speaker 2: 44:42

Her birth parents' families came here in the late 1600s, early 1700s, so I have a friend whose mother is a descendant of Daniel Boone and Daniel Boone had a homestead here in Berks County. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of wild. There's a lot of that's really exciting yeah and she's direct.

Speaker 1: 45:05

She's a direct, he's a direct grandfather of ours. Wow so, and I said to her, I said you know you descend from Daniel Boone. You know they don't teach the kids any history.

Speaker 2: 45:15

I said who's that?

Speaker 1: 45:16

She was who's that I was like what did they tell you in school? I mean, we grew up with Daniel Boone on television, David Crockett on television, right, that's too funny.

Speaker 1: 45:37

Yeah, it was very funny. But you know her, her, her birth family, I mean, they never did any research or anything like that. So when we, when I started finding some of that stuff out and she's also, she also has an Italian great, great, great, great, great great grandfather Back to Italy, back at the time of Henry VIII, there was a family of musicians, the Bassano brothers, and they went to England and they were musicians for Henry VIII's court Wow. And he married an english woman and through that english line she's got this italian connection back to the I guess the 1500s or whatever it was, whenever he was around, fascinating, oh yeah yeah, so it was.

Speaker 1: 46:23

You know, that kind of stuff was, uh, really really pretty interesting. Um, well, you know this has been great fun. I mean that you know I I love doing these stories, uh, where people first were born in italy, but the adoption thing and all of that it's it's so nice and I get you know so many people like to hear these, these stories, because, um, it's really, really great and and, uh, we look forward to the the movie being finished and me and John have to get on someday. Talk about it.

Speaker 2: 46:53

Absolutely. I would love to share it with you and talk about it again when we're finished. Probably our projected timeline is when we come back in October, then to do post and then hopefully by early 25 um to be ready to start screening.

Speaker 1: 47:12

Uh, yeah, no, definitely, definitely. When you release it, we'll definitely, we'll definitely do it again and introduce it, that's for sure thanks so much, bob, really appreciate it that was my pleasure.