It was very just impulsive to do that.
And yet we're like, we now really know who we are.
Like we didn't realize before we didn't know who we were, but now
we know, we know the truth. We know who we are and we should
exchange our vows again, just the two of us and use our real
names, our real names that we should have been.
And that's what we did. And we put the rings on each
other's finger and we cried and we danced in the kitchen and we,
we had that little moment and, and we just felt like, you know
what? This is a new beginning for both
of us. And and we could tell our kids
now who they really are and our grandchildren, we want them to
know who they really are and who they belong to.
Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that delves into the
world of unexpected DNA discoveries.
I'm your host, Alexis ourselves. In July 2021, my life took a
surprising turn when I found out that I'm an NPE, a person who
has experienced a non paternal event.
In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he
was. Join me as we explore the
stories of NP, ES, adoptees, and donor conceived people and their
families. Get ready to unravel the
astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.
This is DNA Surprises. Welcome to the season 10 finale
of DNA Surprises. Buy one, get 2.
No, this isn't an ad for the latest testing kit sale.
In this week's episode, I'm joined by Dave and Denise, a
married couple who discovered that they were both NP ES after
their grandson took ADNA test. Dave and Denise had very
different upbringings and slightly different outcomes to
their DNA surprises. While Dave's revelation was
slightly suspected, it was welcomed and his new found
family have completely embraced him.
Denise had no idea her dad wasn't her biological father and
her DNA surprise was devastating to her.
She's slowly but surely getting to know her new found family.
Dave and Denise have been there for each other throughout their
DNA discoveries and learned a lot about how these surprises
can affect people differently. Ultimately, they say their
surprises have strengthened not only their identities, but their
marriage. Before we begin this episode, I
just want to take a moment to remind listeners that family
secrets like these don't stay hidden in the modern age of DNA
testing. And Dave and Denise are great
examples of this. They didn't uncover their
surprises because they took a test.
Even their grown children wouldn't have surfaced the
secret. It was their curious grandson
with a love of genealogy and heritage who led to the truth
for both of them. Thank you Dave and Denise for
sharing your stories. My name is Denise and I'm 60
years old. My name is Dave, I'm 63 years
old and we live in a small town western Alberta, close to
Jasper. I'll begin with just my story
about how I was raised. Growing up, we had just a
traditional family. Same mom, same dad, four kids in
total. I have three older siblings that
were all born before my mom turned 20 and then almost nine
years later I came along so I'm the baby of the family.
Growing up I felt very blessed. We'd be considered poor by
today's standards, but we never lacked for anything.
My mom was a a stay at Home Farm wife.
She was a great cook, an avid gardener and we always had good
farm fresh food on the table. Our home was known in the
community for a place of hospitality.
The coffee pot was always on and home was a place where great
memories were made. I had a pretty good childhood I
must say with no real complaints.
Very loving family and all of us kids are very close and we're
still close to each other right to this day.
Difficult thing in our childhood was dealing with our dad.
He had a lot of mood swings, bit of a personality disorder, I
guess you could say, a temper. And so my older siblings
remember more than I do about that.
But we had our mom. So she was our peacemaker, our
referee, and we trusted her to always be on our team,
especially when dad got unreasonable.
So our mom really was someone who earned our deepest love and
respect. She was an example of self
sacrifice and endurance. She had a mild spirit, and I
know my siblings would all agree that she was like the glue that
held us all together. Despite some struggles, Mom and
Dad stayed married for 57 years. Sadly, Mom passed away 16 years
ago and our dad passed away seven years ago, so they're no
longer with us. You really grew up in what most
people might call a normal family.
Did you? Feel different from your family
at all? Did you ever suspect that?
There was adna surprise lurking anywhere.
You know what I can say? For not one minute of one hour
of one day did I ever feel different.
I never felt like I didn't belong.
I never felt anything out of the ordinary.
No, I I was completely oblivious to anything that was to come
down the tubes here. OK, So what made you decide to
take adna test? Actually, I didn't.
We didn't. It was our grandson.
He's a little scientist. He loves DNA and dinosaurs and
all those things. 10 years old and he asked for a gift.
He said, mom, I want adna test. I found out you can figure out
your countries of origin. And he really wanted to know
that. And very innocently he asked for
that. And so she bought him and her,
our daughter both bought the the test, sent it away.
We had no knowledge of it at all.
We didn't even know they were doing it.
The results came back. They were pretty excited.
They said, look at these are all the countries or I think our
grandson has nine different regions that show up in his DNA.
And we thought that's really cool.
And then came the text saying, here's a screenshot.
Do you know who these people are, Mom?
I said no. She said, well, these are my
closest matches and I don't even know who they are.
There's this one on Dad's side and there's one on your side.
And I I had no clue who they were at all.
So you're seeing this. Do you start to put together the
pieces in your mind? What are you thinking when you
see this? Right off the bat, when I saw
the name of Dave's side, I was like, I I've heard that name
before. I remember that 35 years ago or
more, Dave's Aunt Carol had mentioned to me in a
conversation that I think Dave's dad is this person.
And it was that name. I discounted it because she was
a bit of a troublemaker and always stirring the pot and the
family. And I thought, no, she's, she
doesn't know what she's talking about.
But when I saw this is the same name Aunt Carol said 35 years
ago, then I thought, oh, boy, I think we may have stumbled onto
something here. And I was so excited about that
because Dave always had wondered about his paternity.
I kind of shut down on the other side.
And when I saw this name on my side, I thought, well, could be
one of my dad's illegitimate children.
You know, I think that's everybody.
Everybody points a finger at Dad first, unfortunately, but that's
what I thought. So you were closed off to the
idea that you had a different biological father.
It must have been your dad doing something.
Absolutely. And, and I thought, well, maybe
there's none of my maiden name people in there because our
family's kind of cheap and you know, they wouldn't probably
even pay for Adna test. And so I thought they're
probably not even in the genome. I don't know.
I completely shut it down and discounted it initially, even
though in my heart it was, I was considering it could be a
possibility a little bit. But no, no, it can't be true.
And I just concentrated on Dave's story.
I grew up in a fractured family. I was truly the odd one out.
I was the oldest in the family but I never ever felt that I fit
in. I had an older brother who was
put up for adoption before I was born and I always knew about him
but we never we've never been able to find him or anything.
I'm named after the man that my mom married.
The story was that I was very prematurely born even though I
was over 7 lbs. Two siblings followed very
closely, a brother and sister, and the three of us endured the
life where our parents could not get along.
They fought like a cat and dog all the time and when I was
about 9, we left town in the middle of the night and I didn't
see my dad again until 18 years later.
I talked to him a couple of times, but it was distant
relationship. My mom briefly remarried when I
was 14 or so and then divorced my stepfather shortly after.
Denise and I were married after our son was born.
I wanted to excuse me. Take your time, yeah?
I wanted to introduce sorry, I wanted to introduce my my dad to
his grandchildren. So we drove 20 hours N up into
the Yukon Territory to see him. After two hours visiting with
him, he followed me to the truck and there he told me that you
know, you know you're not mine. Oh, I'm.
So sorry. We basically left right after
that and I never spoke to him again.
Even though he drove through town.
He would stop and see my siblings.
He wouldn't even call so it was a complete cut off from him.
Did you believe him when he said that?
Yeah, because I always had questioned my paternity because
I didn't look like him. He was tall, slender and dark
haired, black haired and I was short, stocky and blonde.
I I didn't fit into the family. None of the pictures of me and
my cousins growing up. I stood out like a sore thumb
all the time and I I knew it. Even though I was the oldest, I
just didn't look like the rest of them.
I asked my mom about his statements and she reacted very
strongly, insisting he was my dad and that I was never to
speak of this again. Very quickly after that, I
received a venomous letter from her saying that she had disowned
me and that she had burned all the pictures that she had of me.
We didn't speak for at least three years.
In the absence of truth, a person's mind goes into dark
places. I actually feared and believed
that my father could have been my grandfather because he was a
very abusive man to his family and to his wife.
I attributed my mom's strong reaction to maybe that's what
the truth was and that she she just couldn't tell me.
She clearly hated the man. He died when I was about 3 and
every negative thing about me growing up was always tied to
him. You're just like him and I
didn't want to be just like him because the the family was very
negative towards him for 35 years.
I never wanted to talk about who was my dad.
I'm so sorry. So your grandson says I want to
take ADNA test and what's your reaction to that?
Denise told me about it and what happened is this one person, I,
I didn't hear the last name. And so Denise told me that a
cousin showed up to my daughter. And I thought, well, the only
cousin would be perhaps my oldest brother's daughter.
And I thought then that could be my sister's cousin.
So I was, I was overjoyed with that.
And I actually went immediately and told my mom that we might
have found a connection to to Rob and that her reaction was,
well, if he doesn't want to see me, don't tell me about it.
Anyways, when our daughter spent some more time investigating it,
this cousin of hers was 60 years old.
And so that didn't jive with the fact that it could be my
brother's daughter because he would have been like five.
It was then that Denise revealed to me or Denise asked if she's
related to this person. And she says, yeah, I'm his
youngest sister. OK.
And Denise, how long did you kind of sit with this
information before you shared it with Dave?
Was it immediate? It was the same Dave.
I talked with our daughter and I said, she said, should we tell
Dad? And I thought, yeah, we we have
to, we have to tell Dad. This could be the news that he's
kind of been waiting for his his whole life.
We might have found his father. And Dave, did you recognize the
name? Did you know this person?
Because, Denise, you mentioned that you'd heard the name
before, but did you actually know the man?
No, not at all. I and I, it didn't even ring a
bell with me. I had kind of, Denise told me
the name years ago, but I just kind of put it out of my mind.
I just didn't think about it because I was so consumed that
my grandfather was my dad and I didn't want to even think about
who my dad was. When you get this information
and you put the pieces together that this man is your dad, how
do you feel? Overjoyed is the way to describe
it. Because I finally had a regular
dad. Yeah, it was, you know, I, there
was nothing to be ashamed of, even though the circumstances
surrounding my conception were difficult.
My mom was. My mom was single.
She was a teenager. She ended up marrying a guy that
didn't make the biological link, But I had a dad, and that made
me super happy. Five days later, I drove to
Edmonton and met my dad's youngest sister.
We met at restaurant and I got the table, went to the washroom,
come back and she's sitting there and I said you must be
Cheryl. And she says you've got to be
Dave. And the familial resemblance was
undeniable. She actually looks like she
could be my daughter's mom. Our daughter looks so much like
her aunt, it's really incredible.
And so that was it. That was the start.
At that moment she sat there and filled me in on my whole family
all together. There's sixteen of us
grandchildren and she said you're the oldest, this is your
dad. He's been dead for unfortunately
5 or 6 years. My grandfather had been dead for
about 9 years and my uncle Dennis had been gone for a
couple of years. And she said, but you have a
very strong resemblance of the three of them.
Different things remind different ones in the family of
of each of them. She wrote down on a on a sheet
of paper. Who's going to reach out to me?
The next couple of days was a whirlwind of texts and emails
and photographs because they're very well connected.
And my one aunt described it as you were like having a new, you
were like a new baby to the family and everybody wanted to
meet you and find out about you. Did they know about you?
Nobody did, my one aunt says. We kind of thought that somebody
might show up because your dad really loved women.
And even though he was married and he did have a daughter with
his wife and I've met my sister and I have a brother in
Australia, there's three kids from three different women and I
get to meet my brother in March and he's coming over to Canada.
The first week I met my family and was inundated by them.
Three days after I met my aunt, I went in on a Saturday and I
met my cousin and her husband and then she arranged for us
very quickly to meet some more of her brothers and sisters.
So I I met a lot of the family very quickly.
Did you go back to your mom and tell her like I know now and
this is who it is? Did she have any reaction?
Yes, I did go to her. I went there and I sat down with
her, just me and her and her little apartment.
And I said, Mom, I just want to tell you, I know who my dad is.
We got Adna test and I told her who it was.
And she's 82 years old and her shoulders dropped.
I'm holding your hands. And her shoulders dropped and
said, I guess I got to tell you the truth.
And I'm like in my brain, I'm thinking, that's right.
You got to tell me the truth right now.
And so she did. She's the only one left alive
and she's the only one that knows about it.
But we've had a strained relationship for many years,
obviously, But now the last year has been much better because the
secret's out and she doesn't have to fear it coming out
anymore because she used to fear it a lot, but now it's out.
My brother and sister from my mom, they really didn't even
care. And then when I finally talked
to them, my brother didn't believe it was me.
Telling him the story, he wanted proof that it wasn't some sort
of scam. Scam or something?
Yeah. Yeah, and and, you know, it's
just part of the relationship. Denise coming back over to you,
at what point do you start to dig a little bit deeper into
your side of the results? When Dave left to go meet his
aunt Cheryl at the restaurant, that that time he asked me to go
along and I said, you know, I think I'll stay behind.
I think I'll just let you go and, and meet her even though I
really wanted to go, but I thought this is my opportunity
now to sit at home in front of my computer and start digging.
So I asked my daughter for her sign in on the ancestry and I
wanted to see this for myself. I got in there and I was looking
and I went through all the names and I, I didn't see any of my
maiden name at all anywhere and all these other names that I, I
didn't know. So my sister, my oldest sister,
she's the ancestry geek of the family.
She's been doing it for for years and years and building our
family tree. And so I thought I'm going to
include her and maybe she can help me.
So she said, Oh, you, you're just not looking at it right.
I have the subscription. I'll go in there and I'll check
it out and I'll get back to you. And, and meanwhile, Dave is just
on a high. He's coming back from the city
with all these wonderful stories and his heart warming news that
he has of this wonderful family. And and I was, I could describe
it kind of like it was raining in my heart, but I didn't want
to rain on his parade. So I was trying to be so happy
for him. But in the back of my mind, I
was thinking, I don't think this looks good.
Like this just doesn't look right.
And my sister got back to me the next day and I said, so what'd
you find? And she's like, well, you know,
I looked through all the names and I looked through, you know,
and she's kind of beaten around the Bush.
And I said, but but did you find any of our family, our paternal
family? And she said, no, I I didn't.
And I said, So what does that mean?
But inwardly I knew what it meant.
But then she said it. And she said it's because it
looks like Dad's not your dad. And yeah, that's what hit me.
And that was my first moment. So five days after the initial
test result came back is when it was really evident that, yeah,
Dad wasn't my dad. And absolutely shocking.
Like, absolutely shocking. Like never would have ever, ever
suspected that. And these names were nothing
familiar to me at all. I had no I'd never seen any of
them. Had your sister dug any deeper
to identify who your father might be?
Only this top name that that came up and at the time she
didn't remember it at all. I had this one connection, this
one name that connected to my daughter very closely.
And so I thought, OK, she has a tree.
I'm going to go and look at her family tree.
And so I open it up and I see that both her parents are
deceased and there's a possibility she could be 1/2
sister. So I thought if she's a half
sister, then her dad could be my dad.
And that was the top name. So it was like, OK, if he's
deceased, he would have an obituary.
So I went online, you know, good old Google typed in his name,
date of birth, when he died, Alberta.
And yeah, it, it popped up his obituary.
And I read his obituary and right away when it described his
career, that he had this career on this specific drilling rig
for 42 years in the oil field. And it was the same rig company
that my mom had worked for before I was born.
And she was an assistant cook on that rig.
And so I thought, OK, this is this is fitting.
The ages were right. The workplace.
Yeah, she had worked for that company.
And my heart just kept sinking and sinking.
I thought this can't be true, but it was.
From there, I don't think I told Dave right away.
I just hung onto it because I didn't really want to rain on
his parade, like I said, and I thought, I'm going to really
make sure this is true before I go any further.
We had a family reunion coming up that weekend, like in three
days. And everyone was saying are you
coming, Are you coming? And I this.
Is for your raised family, for my raised family, for your dad's
side. On my mom's side.
Mom's side, OK. Yeah, and I just couldn't go.
I just couldn't go. I made-up all kinds of excuses
and Dave said, well, I'm going to go in and visit all my new
family. And they had invited him to come
and meet more family. And again, I used that
opportunity and I said, well, honey, you go have a good time.
I'm just going to stay home and I'm going to figure out my own
situation here. At this point, Dave, are you
wondering if something is going on with Denise?
Is she hiding it really well? No, she didn't hide it that well
at all. I kind of figured it out like,
and I figured out mine, like who who this is good.
And I was super happy. And actually I probably wasn't.
I wasn't as caring as I should have been because I thought,
hey, get over it. Like he's not your dad.
It'll work out. Like we took a chainsaw to our
family trees and you know, we're still together.
But I didn't realize how wounded she was.
Well, you're coming from a different perspective because
for you it was healing to find out that you had a different
father. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And for me, it was like I had my
heart ripped right out of my chest.
And so he went off to see his family.
I stayed home again. I basically cried that whole
day. I cried and cried and cried
probably, I don't know, 10 hours.
It was awful. I had truly come to realize that
that was the case. And where do we go from here?
How do I even begin to find this, this family?
Our daughter had sent a message to this, what we thought was
half sister. There was no response.
And so then I said to Dave, we got to send away for our own DNA
tests. Like we got to really make sure.
And so we did. We sent away for our own kit.
Sent it away. It came back.
Yeah. No, it was the same results.
And then I said, OK, now I'm going to start.
Apart from my oldest sister, I hadn't told anybody about it.
We had a couple of friends that we opened up to and our children
knew, but that was it. I told everybody about my story.
There wasn't a there wasn't a soul within hearing distance.
It didn't hear it. Yeah, he was shouting it from
the rooftops and I was down in the basement hiding.
Yeah. Well, such different
circumstances. Yeah.
So you kept it kind of quiet.
What happens next in terms of finding them?
Do you try to connect with this family?
What's your kind of play there? Because it's not, this is not
news that you wanted. So do you want to know the
family once you uncover who they are?
Well, yes for sure, because I'm very curious type of personality
as well and just even knowing that I had a different dad, then
I actually went right back to basically my birth and I started
questioning, researching, looking at everything in my life
completely different. I started piercing things
together and yes, I I wanted to know this family, who were they
like, what was my dad like? How did where did I fit in?
Why do I have these certain traits that are different from
my siblings? Now that I really look at it,
there was definitely differences.
I started sending out messages over Ancestry, anybody in those
top matches, but I got nothing back.
I had no response for two months, like nothing.
And in the background is all Dave's happiness and, and his
joy and I'm trying so hard to be happy and joyful with him and
for him. And inside I'm just crumbling.
And I'm just, yeah, falling apart and felt broken.
I really did feel broken. And you can't go ask your
parents what happened because they've passed.
How do you or do you end up getting any sort of answers or
making contact with the family? Well, Dave came up with the
idea. He said go on there and look and
see who's been on recently. Like go to your second cousins,
3rd cousins, anybody, and just message one of them that's
actually on there. So I did, I ended up choosing, I
think she's a second cousin and she got back within a couple
days and she said, yes, I know the family.
It's actually my great uncle and they're really nice family.
I can definitely share your information with them if you
want me to. She got a hold of them, gave my
information and the very next day I had my new half brother
Darren. He reached out to me first.
And how did that go? It was a little bit difficult to
make that phone call, but it was very natural and very
comfortable and he had a real witty sense of humor and had me
laughing right off the bat. He shared a bit about the
family. I asked for health history.
I think that's probably what a lot of people do is because
that's sort of like an easy thing to do is just say, well, I
just want to know health history.
And so we went there and that's when I found out that I said, by
the way, does anyone in the family suffer from kidney
stones? He just started laughing
uncontrollably. And I said, well, I guess that
means a yes. And he said we all have kidney
stones. He said, your dad did I do, your
sister Deborah, does Aunt Lorraine like he started listing
all these family members and he said we all suffer from that.
And he said, now I know for sure you're my sister.
And so that and that's been something I've had to deal with
for many years. And never had a genetic history
of that. And so now I do have a genetic
history and my doctor actually changed my treatments and
medication. And so it's actually really been
a benefit just to find out even that one piece of information.
But her brother, when he's talking to her, he said.
Do you have a brother named Roy? Yeah, that's right.
He did come up with that question.
And I thought, because to me, these people are absolutely.
I had never heard this name. I never knew about these people.
Who are these people? I said, yes, I have a brother
named Roy. How do you know that?
He said our families were friends and he said we remember
going to your family farm as kids and your mom even babysat
us. I was shocked.
I was completely shocked. Some of my three oldest raised
siblings have memories with my three oldest new siblings that
they played together. They yeah, they had memories
together. And he said, yeah, we've been to
your parents farm when we were young and our parents were
friends. They played cards together.
Yeah, all this. So.
So I had no knowledge of this family.
OK, so this gives you even more context to how your mother and
your biological father met and maybe what happened there.
Probably no concrete information, but yeah, pretty
good idea. Yes, for sure.
When times were tough on the farm, my mom only had this brief
period of time where she would go in the winter months and she
would work with my dad's niece, but she'd go work on the rig
just for a week at a time, 2 weeks at a time.
The older kids were old enough the neighbor lady helped out get
him off to school and things, and mom would have to go and
work. Interesting enough, we figured
out that six months after I was born, my biological dad packed
up his family. They all moved to southern
Alberta and never to return to northern Alberta.
And so that's why I had no knowledge of this family at all.
And so I believe with all my heart, my, my raised dad didn't
know at all. He never had a clue he was there
for my birth, you know, Mom said.
We bonded, I was his favorite, but Dave said that's because I
didn't have the personalities of my three older siblings that
were a lot like him. My new siblings also said we
truly believe that our mom didn't know either because we
found pictures of your mom still in the family photo albums and
if she would have known, those pictures would have been long
gone. Big secret.
Yeah. Where are things kind of today
for you and your siblings? So our DNA surprise was in
August of 2023 and basically the entire month of September when I
was wondering what was going on and nobody was getting back to
me and Dave was finding all of his family.
And but the month of October was the month that I started having
contact with everyone and they started reaching out to me.
So first my brother and then my half sister, that was the one
that showed up on Ancestry, then a baby sister, actually one
younger than I am so I'm not really the baby anymore.
She reached out for about 3 weeks but then she shut down and
said she just had a lot going on in her life and she just didn't
couldn't handle it right now. So that was, yeah, I guess in
November of last year, and we've had no contact since.
But then the last one to reach out was my oldest sister, Wendy.
They all reached out to me in October.
I'd heard from them all. I was so happy with that.
And they started filling me in on stories and pictures and, you
know, eventually it all came, but very, very slowly.
I have to say it trickled in very slowly.
Dave had like a fire hose of information and mine was like
this little trickle. But I, I was happy with that.
I would take whatever I got and I tried not to overwhelm them
because I had to realize that the circumstance was that both
of our parents had been unfaithful to their mates and my
biological dad and his wife. They stayed married 59 years.
They stayed married. So as much as I had to process
this whole thing, my new siblings had to process that
too. That their dad had been
unfaithful to their mom. And so it wasn't all warm and
fuzzy like Dave's. During all this time, how are
you? I mean, Dave, you kind of said
you, you weren't that supportive to Denise at any point.
Did the gravity of what happened to her really set in?
And then how did you 2 support each other through this?
Yeah, it it did, because I could see how shattered she was,
right? And so I actually really tried
to hide how much I was being contacted from my family because
every time I would say, oh, I heard from this cousin or that
cousin or my sister, and I heard from my sister a lot, she was a
little jealous and really devastated.
And so I wouldn't even tell her anymore.
Like it was just, oh, I, I heard from this aunt or that aunt and
everything else. And then as Denise started to
get little trickles of information, I tried to focus on
that rather than what was going on in my life, because my life
was one big happy celebration. It it truly was.
And it was full of these wonderful things.
And Denise's it was just small things.
So we had to learn to rejoice with the small things.
And I had to learn to rejoice with her on on, on those things.
And there was some pretty special ones, like the time that
a picture of her dad, somebody shared a picture with her and we
had it. And a friend of mine was there.
And he says, boy, he says, do you ever look like your dad?
And Denise just started bawling because it's the first time that
anybody had ever said that to her, that she looked like your
dad. That's true, yeah.
I hadn't even realized till that moment that nobody has ever said
that to me in all my years. Nobody has ever compared me to
my dad. And it, it was a complete
revelation to me. And yeah, I, I cried and cried
and I do look like my biological father.
Yeah. And didn't realize I didn't look
like my dad really. That kind of leads me to Dave.
You grew up in a very difficult upbringing and you had this
painful experience with your parents.
How did you assess the idea that they knew?
And then there's this wonderful family out there that was
waiting for you. Like, did they know about this
family, you know? No, not at all.
OK, My aunt that told Denise that story.
My stepdad told Denise that mom was going to tell me the truth
when I was 18 and she never did. When I heard that, I was
initially very angry with my mom because for me the most
important people in my life is grandparents.
They were the only people that were kind of nice to me.
But my grandma, even though she had to have known I wasn't her
grandson, she was extremely kind and I love her.
But it really made me mad that once I found out that if I had
known the truth 35 years ago. Both my grandparents were still
alive, my dad was still alive, and I could have grown up a
little bit with some of my cousins and it would have been a
great upbringing. So I was very, very upset that I
missed out on those things because somebody just wanted to
keep the facade. And like I say with Denise and
I, what we come up with this thing is that we grew up in
Facadeville. My mom wanted me to break up
with Denise because she was too good for me.
She was from the good side of the tracks.
And Denise's mom says, you know, he comes from a broken family.
I was from the other side of the tracks.
And it's like our grandson had the cow with the Lantern that
kicked it over and it burned Facadeville down.
And the whole thing was a lie about what we had known.
And then when the truth came out, that was a moment of
revelation and great freedom for me.
Yeah, I missed out on a lot, but I've gained a tremendous amount.
I'm still disappointed because as I hear stories about my
grandfather, they say I'm a lot like him.
And that's too bad that I missed that.
Yeah, that's a really healthy perspective though, right?
Because you could sit in that anger and the what ifs and that
piece for a really long time. And for it to only be a little
bit over a year since this happened and you kind of already
reached this place of gratitude for what you do have is really
wonderful. It's because of what I do have.
The family's tremendously accepting and loving.
Denise, what about you? Do you have any of those what
ifs or any anger with your mom? You believe that your mom knew?
You don't believe that your dad knew?
Where have you kind of landed with that and the what if I'd
known earlier? I do think about that.
I'm glad I was raised how I was raised.
And I think it actually benefited me to not know in some
ways. I kind of was in that little
bubble and I had, you know, this good childhood and I wasn't the
wiser. You know, I didn't know.
I think my mother actually was trying to tell me at some point
when she was dying, she had cancer and I was taking care of
her. At some point she said to me,
after I die, someone might show up.
I was thinking, who would, what is she talking about?
Who would show up? She would just have these heavy
sighs. And it's like she wanted to tell
me something. But I was thinking she was
always blaming dad, that he's probably got some illegitimate
kids out there. And I was thinking that maybe
she's worried about somebody coming in at the last minute and
getting in on the family will or something.
I said, Mom, you don't have to worry about any of that.
Whatever happens after you're gone, we'll deal with it then.
And then when she was dying, she kept saying I'm sorry in some of
her last breaths to me. I was there till her last
breath. And she kept saying I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. And I said, what are you?
What are you sorry for? You have nothing to be sorry for
mom. And she finally, I kept saying,
what are you sorry for? And she finally came out and
said I'm sorry that you have to be the one to take care of dad.
And my dad had dementia and so we had gone to the lawyers,
signed everything over, you know, so that I could take care
of dad. And I said, but mom, I, I agreed
to that. I signed up for that.
I told you I'd take care of dad. Like of course I would take care
of dad. But I'm sure she was thinking,
you know, out of the four kids, I stuck with you with that
responsibility, which was a 10 year responsibility.
I took care of him. He's not even your dad, So I'm
sure she had a lot on her mind, but she never did truly come out
with the truth. Yeah, Yeah.
But I think she was trying. She was trying.
Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to ask you.
I'll start with you, Dave. Your experience was so positive
and so wonderful and so reaffirming that if it had only
happened to you, you might think that like, these DNA surprises
are just wonderful, right? Oh, yeah.
Did seeing Denise go through what she went through change
your perspective and how? Yeah, it did change my
perspective. But in in the fact that you know
what, Denise's is still positive.
It took a little longer, but it's still positive because the
truth is a positive thing. You can't argue against the
truth. It's a definite point.
Yes, it was difficult and we've talked with friends who've had
difficult circumstances like it as well, but it's still the
truth and you can at least work from it.
An interesting little experience.
I was looking for a ring for our 40th anniversary for Denise and
I've built a Nook Shooks forever, even before we were
married. And I ended up finding this a
Nook Shook ring in a jewelry shop just out in between here
and Edmonton and I, I seen it. It was Denise's ring size and so
I bought it. Denise got another one made for
me. I didn't know it.
And then last year for our anniversary, she gave it to me.
And so there we had these new rings and we were supposed to go
out for supper in Jasper and it was a terrible storm and we
ended up staying home that night and just had leftovers.
And as we are doing the dishes we said hey, let's re exchange
our vows for the people who we know we are.
And so I picked my grandfather's name as my middle name with my
new surname and Denise picked her grandmother's name with what
would have been her maiden name. And that was it.
We exchanged the vows and there was nobody who was a liar.
There we finally had the truth. Yeah.
And and that's really how we felt.
It was very just impulsive to do that.
And yet we're like, we now really know who we are.
Like we didn't realize before we didn't know who we were.
But now we know. We know the truth.
We know who we are. And we should exchange our vows
again, just the two of us, and use our real names, our real
names that we should have been. And that's what we did.
And we put the rings on each other's finger and we, we cried
and we danced in the kitchen and we, we had that little moment
and, and we just felt like, you know what?
This is a new beginning for both of us.
And and we could tell our kids now who they really are and our
grandchildren, we want them to know who they really are and who
they belong to. Yeah.
Oh, that's so beautiful. That brought tears to my eyes.
Denise, I I want to ask you the same question.
You had a very difficult initial experience when you had your DNA
surprise. Did seeing Dave have such a
positive experience maybe change your perspective on on what it
could be. Most people go through this
alone and so they don't have like a fresh perspective on on
the flip side of whatever their experience might be.
Yeah, very, very true. I, I looked to him and I
actually, that's what helped me to pursue it because I was, I
saw his joy and his happiness and I thought, I'm sure it's
there for me too. I just have to find it.
And I, I might have to work a little harder and be a little
more patient and all of that. But as it turns out, yeah, like
Dave said, it, it has been positive.
I've had some really nice visits with my family, my new family.
There's a lot more yet to meet. Like I said, it's still a
trickle, but it's it's OK because I think for me it was
slow, was better. I think if both Dave and I at
the same time had both really intense things happening, it
would have been more difficult in some ways.
So the fact that his was really fast and furious and happy and
mine wasn't right off the bat. But it's it's kind of balanced
out now. And I think as a married couple,
we've been married 42 years next week.
You go through ups and downs and good times and bad times and
difficult times, but nothing could have ever prepared us for,
I call it like a an earthquake with aftershocks and then a
tsunami of emotions after that. And he'd be up and I'd be down
and I'd be up and he'd be down and we'd be there to help each
other. And it gave me a lot of empathy
for him growing up because I always had this stable family
and he didn't. And so I was always kind of
helping him with the different emotions of that.
And I, I couldn't really understand his yearning for
always, you know, who's my dad. And I didn't fully understand
that for him. He didn't really fully
understand a stable family and how I always wanted to do things
with my family. For him, he just wanted to turn
18 and get out of there and not have anything to do with family
anymore and I really needed my family.
Now. He understands what having a
loving family means and the strong emotions that's there
when you're really connected genetically to a family and and
they love you back unconditionally.
And I've always had that. And so it's like we flipped.
That's true. You know, completely role a role
reversal. It's made us a lot more
understanding with each other and I think we've really grown
as a couple. Thank you, that was beautiful.
What advice do you have for a parent who's keeping adna
surprise from their child? If the kids suspect something
and they come to you and ask you about it, tell them the truth
because they know what's up. Eventually the truth's going to
come out and it might not be the most comfortable thing, but
afterwards the long term benefits are really good.
I can honestly say my mom and I's relationship is probably the
best it's been in my adult life. I I can go to where there's
nothing to hide anymore. I got to be careful about what I
say. But she's not as guarded as she
used to be. So you know what?
It's, it's worth it. And she feels, she feels a lot
better about it now that it's out.
Well, I think they definitely keep quiet for a reason.
In their mind, they might be protecting their reputation.
They might think they're protecting the child or the
family, but when the time is appropriate, they definitely
should tell. They definitely should reveal.
Because how I felt is, yes, the truth hurts, but the truth
doesn't hurt as much as silence and lies do.
And even though my mom didn't outright lie to me, withholding
truth is still lying, is still withholding important
information. And so the truth is always the
best way to go. It's the only policy.
What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna
Surprise? Listen to Alexa's podcasts DNA
Surprises. They they help you a lot to to
sort out different things. You'll hear little bits from
everybody that all of a sudden you can relate to them.
And it's very therapeutic. Like Denise and I had each
other, right? And I, I couldn't imagine what
it would be like dealing with this alone.
I can see how it would be difficult being a partner to
someone who's going through these emotions up and down.
Don't do it alone. Find some good confidants that
can help you. And you got to be able to laugh
about stuff. And that's one thing that's kind
of helped Denise and I, my new family name.
It's very funny. People can make rhymes that go
with it and they laugh a lot because you can say.
What it is? Oh, OK, the the family name is
Dick. And so when everybody says like,
OK, Denise married Dave, but he really turned out to be a real
Dick. And everybody laughs about it
because when it's really tough for Denise with some of her
stories, it breaks the ice. My grandson wants me to change
my last name because he figures it would look great on his
hockey jersey. He said I'll change my name,
grandpa, if you change yours. And my cousins say, like, man,
if you put it on a hockey jersey, you're a target.
They laugh about it. They accept it a lot.
But it's it's just the reality of it.
It's very fun when you find out the new things.
You have to have a sense of humor.
There's not much else. Yeah, Yeah.
That's really good advice. Denise, what advice do you have
for someone who just uncovered ADNA Surprise?
I think everybody says the same thing, you know, breathe.
That's a big one. But I think once you receive
that information, it's good to remember that you can get so
completely wrapped up in your own situation.
And at that time, just as you yearn for and you long for
empathy and patience and understanding, you have to
realize that there's other people too in your life that
deserve the same. Although it's your story, we all
have a story, it takes a lot of other people.
There are many people involved to make that story.
And as much as it's having an impact on you, it's also having
an impact on others around you. So just realizing that and you
can't control how they react, but you can control how you
react and you just, you do your best and hope for a positive
outcome. Try and guide things in such a
way that you don't come across as an investigator and a
detective and a but you have to show them kindness and empathy
too 'cause it's a surprise for them too.
All the people around you. Yeah.
One thing I would say also is that some people well meaning
will say oh you're still the same person and you have to
accept no I'm not. I'm not the same person anymore.
I may look the same and I may be married to the same girl or a
guy or whatever. You're not the same person
anymore. And that's OK not to be the same
person. And you have to redo your
identification. And it's, it's a process and it
can be very happy or it can be very sad, but you still have
redo it. You've got to fit everything
together, see where you fit in, and then accept it, because
that's the truth. Well said, Denise, Dave, thank
you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story.
I have definitely never heard one like it.
I'm so happy that you've both found positivity and hope and
that you've had each other throughout this experience.
I wish you the best. Thanks again to Dave and Denise
for sharing their story. Thank you to all of my Season 10
guests and thank you for being here and listening to the
podcast. We'll be back in May for Season
11. In the meantime, if you have
adna surprise that you'd like to share, submit your story at
dnasurprises.com. And remember, you can join me
over on Patreon for early ad free access to episodes.
Thanks again for being here Until next Code of DNA Surprises
was hosted, produced and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.