WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.740 Hi everyone. Hi. So the first time I met my biological mother it was at a rest 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:18.390 stop on the Garden State Parkway. It was 2013 I was 46. I've always known I was 00:00:18.390 --> 00:00:23.939 adopted I've known I was adopted since I've known my name as Jim or Jimbo as I 00:00:23.939 --> 00:00:30.720 was called as a kid, that's President Jimbo to you in case. I didn't know 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:34.110 anything about the circumstances because it was through Catholic Charities and so 00:00:34.110 --> 00:00:37.980 it was a closed adoption the only story I knew was the story my mom would tell 00:00:37.980 --> 00:00:42.090 on occasion about when she and my dad went to pick me up from the hospital. I 00:00:42.090 --> 00:00:45.960 was 9 days old and she said a nun brought me into the room where they were 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:51.360 waiting and I was wearing an Irish hand knit sweater and a Saint Christopher 00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:55.739 medal and St. Christopher's the patron saint of travelers and my mom asked the 00:00:55.739 --> 00:00:59.160 nun where these came from and the nun teared up and my mom usually teared up 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:02.670 when she got to this point in the story and the nun said, "I can't tell you. I can 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:06.810 only tell you that they come from someone who loves him very much." This 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:11.640 would usually lead my mom to break down sobbing and you would think that this 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:18.000 would have made me curious, but it didn't actually. I was never that curious about 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.600 my birth parents, my parents had always said if you ever want to try to find 00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:26.280 them we'll help you, but I never did. Part of that is that I had a wonderful 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:32.729 childhood. I had two parents who loved me, a sister who tolerated me most of the 00:01:32.729 --> 00:01:39.030 time. I had friends we had a week at the Jersey Shore. I didn't feel like I was 00:01:39.030 --> 00:01:43.380 missing anything. I wasn't resentful I was vaguely grateful I figured this must 00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:50.100 have been a difficult thing to do. So fast-forward to about about six years ago, 00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:53.490 I was out running with a friend who was trying to find his father and by this 00:01:53.490 --> 00:01:56.640 point both of my parents had passed away and he said, "You should try to find 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:00.270 something out about your birth parents," and I said "you know I've never been that 00:02:00.270 --> 00:02:03.630 curious and now I would feel slightly disloyal because both of my parents had 00:02:03.630 --> 00:02:07.649 passed away," but he persisted and so to appease him I said, "Okay, I'll look into 00:02:07.649 --> 00:02:12.650 it." So for the first time ever I sat down and I 00:02:12.650 --> 00:02:17.269 Googled Catholic Charities and within an hour I discovered that Catholic 00:02:17.269 --> 00:02:21.019 Charities would actually, now, they must have changed their policies would now 00:02:21.019 --> 00:02:25.370 give non-identifying information, that is any information in their files about the 00:02:25.370 --> 00:02:30.590 adoption except for last names, because they wouldn't allow you they wouldn't 00:02:30.590 --> 00:02:34.940 give you the last name and then if you sent in a check, because this is the 00:02:34.940 --> 00:02:44.690 Catholic Church after all, I say that as a Catholic. They would send you the 00:02:44.690 --> 00:02:49.609 information. So I found out the Catholic Charities to which I was adopted I 00:02:49.609 --> 00:02:55.910 called them and turns out yes this is true and yes they have my file. So within 00:02:55.910 --> 00:02:59.120 an hour I thought I'm gonna find out something that I never knew. I always 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.959 thought I'd figured the story was two teenagers so part of the reason I wasn't 00:03:02.959 --> 00:03:06.859 that curious is I thought I knew the story. So about a month later, I get a 00:03:06.859 --> 00:03:11.599 three-page letter that's made from notes from the file and it was not at all what 00:03:11.599 --> 00:03:18.049 I expected, it read like a 19th century novel about an Irish immigrant. It turns 00:03:18.049 --> 00:03:25.220 out that my birth mother, Anne, grew up in Ireland part of a very large family, came 00:03:25.220 --> 00:03:31.730 to the U.S. following her brother and lived and worked with a wealthy family 00:03:31.730 --> 00:03:36.950 in New York City. The letter said that she did not want to give me up for 00:03:36.950 --> 00:03:41.660 adoption and cried every time it was brought up, but that ultimately realized 00:03:41.660 --> 00:03:44.900 she couldn't afford to keep me and certainly couldn't keep the job that she 00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:49.629 had and keep me. I learned that she knit 00:03:49.629 --> 00:03:56.660 during my during her pregnancy, which accounted for the sweater. I learned that 00:03:56.660 --> 00:04:03.410 she stayed in the hospital with me all nine days and fed me all my meals and I 00:04:03.410 --> 00:04:08.079 learned from the letters last line that she left the hospital brokenhearted. 00:04:08.079 --> 00:04:14.060 I handed this letter to my wife, Katie, who read it and with tears coming down her 00:04:14.060 --> 00:04:18.919 cheeks said, "You need to find her. You need to find her and let her know that 00:04:18.919 --> 00:04:25.300 everything turned out okay," and I said, "I think you're right." 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:34.669 So, Catholic Charities will do a search for you, for an additional fee, so I planned to 00:04:34.669 --> 00:04:40.880 call Catholic Charities but instead the next day I got a call from them. A woman 00:04:40.880 --> 00:04:45.020 named Barb, I think that was her name, who called. She made up some excuse for 00:04:45.020 --> 00:04:48.560 calling and she had a great New Jersey accent which I can't do justice to but 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:54.700 she said, "Jim, I got to tell you I've been doing this for 25 years and I 00:04:54.700 --> 00:04:59.210 ain't never come across a story like this, it touched my heart, Jim. Jim, do you 00:04:59.210 --> 00:05:06.230 hear what I'm telling you? It touched my heart, now I can't tell you to find her 00:05:06.230 --> 00:05:12.470 because that costs more money and you know that cost more money but, Jim don't 00:05:12.470 --> 00:05:19.340 you think she's wondering about you?" And I had never thought about that. And I 00:05:19.340 --> 00:05:23.060 said, "I would like you to find her," and then we talked about how she'd probably move 00:05:23.060 --> 00:05:26.660 back to Ireland we didn't know whether she should even be alive. So at this 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:31.880 point in this story I'm now interviewing for a job at Harvard. We had lived in 00:05:31.880 --> 00:05:36.200 Charlottesville for 15 years and we were contemplating the possibility that we 00:05:36.200 --> 00:05:41.479 would move from Charlottesville to Massachusetts and I would start a new 00:05:41.479 --> 00:05:46.580 job and move all four of our kids, who were not that excited about moving. And 00:05:46.580 --> 00:05:49.850 I'd spent a lot of time talking to Drew Faust, who was then the president of 00:05:49.850 --> 00:05:53.900 Harvard, you saw her speak yesterday if you were at the inauguration and it 00:05:53.900 --> 00:06:01.940 matters that Drew is female. So a Thursday night in June 2013, I get a call 00:06:01.940 --> 00:06:06.800 a five o'clock from Drew Faust offering me the job. 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:13.600 So I'm now thinking we are moving and my head is spinning and I'm thinking about 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:19.490 how we're gonna move our entire family from a place that we loved. 9:00 a.m. the 00:06:19.490 --> 00:06:22.020 next morning I pick up the phone it's Barb. 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:30.000 And she says, "Jim?" I said, "Yes?" She says, "Are you sitting down?" I said, "No." She says, "Jim, sit down." 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:35.940 She says, "We found her." And because I had been thinking so much about Drew Faust I 00:06:35.950 --> 00:06:39.990 thought she was going to say, "Your mother's Drew Faust." 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:57.670 But she told me something equally surprising. It turns out that my mother 00:06:57.670 --> 00:07:03.550 had married a wonderful man named Jack and had four additional children. Had 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:09.040 moved from New York to New Jersey and had lived most of my life 15 minutes 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:16.900 from where I grew up. And then she said, Barb said, "Jim, and you know what she told 00:07:16.900 --> 00:07:21.820 me?" And I said, "No." She said, "She told me that she's prayed for you every day of 00:07:21.820 --> 00:07:25.840 your life and that her only prayer was that someday you two would meet in 00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:30.070 heaven." And then she said, "Jim, I can't tell you to call her, but you think you would 00:07:30.070 --> 00:07:43.680 call her?" So I said, "Yes, I'll call her." So I called the next day and Jack, a truly 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:49.000 wonderful man, answered the phone and before he could say anything I blurted 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:55.000 something out like, "I'm not crazy! I don't need money! 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.520 I'm not emotionally needy, not really anyway! 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:08.640 I'm just calling because I wanted to say thanks and let you know that everything 00:08:08.640 --> 00:08:14.100 turned out okay. I'm happy. I have a wonderful family." And I could hear Jack 00:08:14.100 --> 00:08:19.470 smiling on the other end of the phone and he said, "Jim, she's been waiting a 00:08:19.470 --> 00:08:25.410 long time for this and she's the most amazing person I've ever met." So then we 00:08:25.410 --> 00:08:32.280 talked and it was both surreal and totally ordinary and we agreed to meet 00:08:32.280 --> 00:08:36.090 when we would be driving from Charlottesville to 00:08:36.090 --> 00:08:39.870 Massachusetts, hence meeting on the Garden State Parkway where, if you're 00:08:39.870 --> 00:08:49.530 from New Jersey, that's the natural place to meet. So we're driving, this is the 00:08:49.530 --> 00:08:53.030 morning that we are leaving our home in Charlottesville to go to Massachusetts 00:08:53.030 --> 00:08:58.530 and our kids were only vaguely interested in this story at this point 00:08:58.530 --> 00:09:02.060 because the much bigger story to them is that they're leaving their childhood 00:09:02.060 --> 00:09:05.960 home and they also adored my mother, their grandmother, and weren't quite 00:09:05.970 --> 00:09:11.640 sure what to make of this new person and I had seen Anne's picture so I was 00:09:11.640 --> 00:09:16.410 prepared for this, but my kids hadn't and we walk into the rest stop and their mouths 00:09:16.410 --> 00:09:24.270 drop open because there is no doubt that we're related. So we sat and talked for 00:09:24.270 --> 00:09:30.780 two hours and Anne held my hand for most the two hours, showed me pictures, had 00:09:30.780 --> 00:09:35.460 cards for each of our kids with their names on it and 20 dollars in each card. 00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:45.120 "Ice cream money for the summer," she said. I eventually met my four siblings 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:52.050 and they completely welcomed me into their lives. I will tell you this is not 00:09:52.050 --> 00:10:00.000 a bridge I ever expected to cross but it has enriched my life in so many ways and 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.250 it's one of the reasons I think building bridges is so important and this weekend, 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:12.810 we built yet another bridge between my extended family who are all here 00:10:12.810 --> 00:10:18.080 and my birth family. Thank you.