183 Paul Kimball
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/183
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 183, Paul. I'm your host, Haley Radke. I'm happy to introduce Paul Kimball to you today. Paul shares his story of search and reunion and how the joy of music intertwined him with his first mother. Paul shares deeply with us about his grief from both rejections and death. Family, music, and nature have brought so much delight into Paul's life. He challenges us to make sure we're choosing to experience all life has to give and not get stuck in the hard things. We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson.com.
I want to let you know we do briefly mention death by suicide and suicidal ideation at two different points during the episode. Let's listen in. [00:01:00]
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Paul Kimball. Welcome, Paul.
Paul Kimball: Thank you, Haley. It is a pleasure to be here.
Haley Radke: You have the best smiley demeanor. It's my favorite.
Paul Kimball: Aw. I'm a music teacher. That's what we do.
Haley Radke: Oh. You give the happy energy, 100%. I would love it if you would start and share some of your story with us.
Paul Kimball: I was raised in Berkeley, California, in the '60s by a wonderful, hippie-esque liberal family which I enjoyed them very much. But as we all know, there's a story that happened before that. So my birth mother was a concert cellist, blonde hair, blue-eyed, did really well in her profession. She was on [00:02:00] a show called Top Tunes and New Talent, which was a spinoff of The Lawrence Welk Show. There have been newspaper articles on her. She did Carnegie Hall, Recital Hall, way back in the early '60s.
Haley Radke: I was going to say, Lawrence Welk, that's a bit of a throwback for some of us.
Paul Kimball: Oh I understand. For some of us, we enjoyed watching the show. Or at least it's a source of pride.
Haley Radke: I've heard of it.
Paul Kimball: Anyway, it's... Yes. It's the type of thing my parents used to watch. But she got together with an Armenian man who had come over from Iraq, along with the rest of his family. He was the first person to come over. And this is the early '60s, I guess it would be 1961-ish. And they got together. They were in a Methodist church, the Hollywood Methodist Church, where Back to the Future, part of it was recorded, etc. And so that's always kinda fun. My story's a little bit of a Forrest Gump of adoptees. You know, things happen here and there. [00:03:00]
Haley Radke: All the placeholders that everybody recognizes?
Paul Kimball: A little bit. So here she is in a well-to-do family, an only child. Her father was a pretty well-known lawyer. And she gets together with this foreign man, which especially back in those days, is something that you don't do. They have their big love affair and they are pregnant. Now, I don't think they told any family members this. So, as hard as this is to say, they went to Mexico, which borders California, to have an abortion. She, I guess in Mexico, got cold feet and they decided to not go through with it. [00:04:00] So right there in terms of feelings I've had my whole life, though I haven't known that my whole life, but the first inclination that you are somebody, that you are a living being, you're a problem, and somebody's got to do something with you. But that didn't happen. They went back to Los Angeles, and somewhere they must have broken up or broken up communication, I don't know how that worked. But they shipped my birth mother up north to a beautiful town called Fort Bragg, which is on the coast here, to have the baby. And she had me.
Meanwhile, I'm probably hearing the cello. I had to have been hearing the cello in utero. [00:05:00] And what I learned was I wasn't given up right away. She probably was one of those women that was talked into it. And so she kept me for about seven days. My birth grandparents did see me. I guess they said I was a beautiful baby. I got that from the non-identifying papers that you find. And we had that week together. So finding and knowing that I had a first mother for a week. So when I think of that severance, to me, it wouldn't have happened right away. It would have been a week later when she gives me to Children's Home Society. Meanwhile, she later ran into my birth father, [00:06:00] and I think she was with her father at the time, if I recall from the story, and told him that I had been aborted. So he never suspected anything. So they've got the family secret. He never told anybody, as far as I know, that she had been impregnated. He did tell them later in life that he had this former girlfriend. So there I was in foster care down in Oakland, California, at least through the Oakland Children's Home Society. I was in foster care for about four and a half months. I wish I knew who I was with. We can't find that information out in California. My Armenian birth father, whose name is Vahe, meanwhile, is here in the United States, had various jobs. Working in Yosemite National Park was [00:07:00] one of them, and he ended up being a carpet repairman of the super posh carpets that you get. And he married an Armenian woman and married another Armenian woman after her, who I know and love very much, Rebecca. Meanwhile, my birth mother is off giving recitals, being in Broadway pits, having a whole life as a musician. She was on a show, The American Symphony, conducted by Leopold Stokowski, who's the conductor in the first Fantasia movie, where Mickey Mouse says, "Hello, Mr. Stokowski, how are you?" That's him younger, but when he was older, he had this orchestra that she was in, and she told me later she would wish that I was watching it to connect, and that she had been in therapy for all of that. [00:08:00]
My adopted family, I have an older brother and two older sisters, and it was not infertility. It was just that my mom didn't want to be pregnant again. So they decided, Okay, we'll adopt. And so she said when I first appeared, I was crying. And it's interesting to think about these things now that I've learned so much listening to your program and reading other books and other programs. You start realizing why that kid probably was crying. I was about to be on my third mother. And I would love to go back and thank my foster mother as well. But my adopted mother said it was love at first sight, and so I had this great upbringing in crazy Berkeley in the arts. I was in plays. I played the French horn. I was in school orchestra. I was in a Bay Area group called the Bay Area Wind Symphony, which was a concert band, and all of these wild things. [00:09:00] It was just so fun with all of my friends.
And yet, there's just things that I did that weren't normal. As you would know, as your listeners would know, so many of us, you see somebody on the television, you think, Is that my mother? You see some Armenian person, and to me, it's the most beautiful human being I've ever seen. And it doesn't matter, it could be a young person, it can be an old man, old lady. They still are just intrinsically gorgeous to me. In high school, my then-girlfriend, who was a viola player, plays me a cello recording and it's this great cellist named Jacqueline du Pré. [00:10:00] And I've listened to so much music, but that music had such a primal feel to my psyche. I felt almost sick listening to it, and I didn't know why, because I didn't know anything about my birth mother except for that she'd been a musician. So I became obsessed with the cello. Obsessed! I have so many records, vinyl records, Haley, and CDs, and then of course iPod, and then you move on from there. But just the cello became so much to my emotional life. I listen to the Elgar Cello Concerto done by Jacqueline du Pré so often when I'm feeling something. Right before this broadcast, I listened to the slow movement of it. [00:11:00] I listen to Jackie play The Swan.
Haley Radke: Let me interject. I listened to that today to prepare for our chat because you mention it in your book. And I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting, so I played it. But I don't have the record.
Paul Kimball: Did you enjoy it?
Haley Radke: I did.
Paul Kimball: Good.
Haley Radke: It's beautiful.
Paul Kimball: Yeah. Absolutely. It's a standard. That was my upbringing, and I went to college at the University of the Pacific, which is only about an hour-and-a-half drive from where I grew up in Berkeley. But at that point you're really starting to feel it, and I remember crying to my parents on the phone saying, I want to find my birth mother. And I would've been in my early 20s, hadn't done anything about it.
Haley Radke: What did they say when you expressed that?
Paul Kimball: They did not object. It wasn't one of those situations. [00:12:00]
Haley Radke: Okay.
Paul Kimball: Also, I had written or I had spoken this little story when I was about four called “Scream,” and “Scream” is all about, it's this, just this little person named Scream who finds a pine cone, loses it, finds another pine cone, loses it, and then he loses himself. And then he has a little adventure in the forest and meets some different creatures and goes off with his newfound friends. And my dad, my adopted dad, recorded the story when I told it and wrote it down and put it in a book that he wrote. So that's pretty supportive, I think, from their angle. So fast-forward to college and crying, wanting to know my birth mother. [00:13:00] Then other things would happen, slight self-destructive personality traits that will come out and still do when I don't know what's going to happen. And I know on this show we go there. And here we are.
Haley Radke: Do you want to admit what they are? Sometimes I don't want to ask that because then I have to be like, Yeah, oh yeah, I do that, too.
Paul Kimball: No, basically just hitting myself. Just basically that. Nothing too extreme. And I even remember doing that as a young child and my dad being very concerned about that. And I didn't know why I was doing it. I still don't. But it's almost like I feel I've gotta punish this person. Must have done something wrong. This is my way of punishing who I guess I am inside. [00:14:00] That hole that we feel, that primal wound, as so many of us have read that book and feel. But anyway, I got a music degree, conservatory degree. So life goes on. Married a drama teacher who's now a principal. We're still together. Had a couple of kids, and that first kid, girl, who's born is that first time you experience anybody that you are related to, and it's an unbelievable experience, and I loved that child, Ashley. I still love Ashley. And I love Alyssa, our second child. And we did everything together. I have no parental guilt feelings about not spending enough time with my kids. I don't have it. No, I did those diapers. We did whole days together. They were in the [00:15:00] same school where I taught elementary school, and then they kinda went over to high school and I found myself teaching at the high school. Isn't that interesting? So I love them, but that also churns up where the heck did this blonde hair come from? Because I don't have blonde hair. I used to have dark hair, and now I have gray hair with a little bit of however it's coming over to you. For our listeners, you can just imagine.
So I decided to really search. And again, this is about the year 2000 when I started doing it. Found some books, didn't know the term “search angel,” but they had some references to different organizations that would help you find. So I just looked up one because they had a phone number, and called up Neil. Who's Neil? I don't know. [00:16:00] To this day I'd probably have to find the book, but I think he was somewhere in Oregon. A crusty guy who told it like it is, and he somehow was privy to information that you and I weren't able to see. So at one point he says to me, we had many late night phone conversations, he says, Why, hello, Frank P. Novak. I said, Who's that? -That's you. That's your original name. I said, How do you know? -I can't really tell you. I still to this day don't know how he did that. But anyway, he gave me lots of advice. And from what he was looking at on the birth information certificate, or maybe it was the information from Children's Home Society, we had three different names, and one of them was my birth mother's name. So this wasn't trolling the internet. This was, I guess, finding people's names. The internet was very young at that point. [00:17:00] There's not the social media deal, and there's not 23andMe and ancestry.com and all of those things. So I would make these phone calls, and I would get myself geared: Hi, this is... My name is Paul Kimball, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you my mother? I would obviously do it with more eloquence than that, and I had some-
Haley Radke: But, so you're just calling people with her name? Like, going down a list and just-
Paul Kimball: Yeah. What are similar to her name, one of the three names. I was chasing the wrong name, by the way, the whole time.
Haley Radke: Oh.
Paul Kimball: And I would have, Haley, these heartfelt conversations with people who told me, I wish you the best of luck, but it really isn't me. And so off we would go. But I knew one of the names, and I can say her name. When we finish this you'll know why. But one of the names was Wendy Brennan, and I knew her name. [00:18:00] I also had the non-identifying information from Children's Home Society, where, when I look at it, I find out that she's a cellist, which was mind-blowing. Mind-blowing, because I've spent so much time listening to the cello, loving the cello, having the cello professor at UOP, where I went to school, play me music because I love that. And as a conductor now, I often have cellists come and be guest artists. It's-
Haley Radke: So explain the moment, the mind-blowing emoji. What did that feel like? Did you know? Did you know then, Oh my gosh, that's why I love it?
Paul Kimball: Absolutely. Again you get the envelope. Here it is from Children's Home Society. Waited for everybody to go to bed, find some corner of some room to work up the courage to look at it and when they say [00:19:00] your birth mother was a concert cellist, it made perfect sense. And yet, I couldn't believe it because, keep in mind, when am I hearing that cello? I'm hearing her in utero. So babies know what's going on. We are attached to our birth mothers. It's real.
Haley Radke: And isn't music the thing that so many experts will say, Oh, make sure you're, put your headphones down by your belly, like when you're pregnant. You want to create this love of music and connection. That's one of the recommendations.
Paul Kimball: You better believe it. And for my own survival, I often played the horn right to my wife's pregnant belly so that the babies would be used to that so I could keep practicing. It was a little bit self-serving.
Haley Radke: I'm sure your wife loved that. She's, This seems a little loud right here, but okay.
Paul Kimball: You play it soothingly. You do your best. But anyway, that's a lot of information, and I was determined to find her and knew how old she was. She was 23 when she gave birth to me, so it was not a teenage thing like so many are. But anyway, so doing all the searching, lo and behold, I'm down in Los Angeles at my friend Dave Tull's house, who's a wonderful professional drummer, and I'm looking in his union book. And he and I, by the way, were all part of–or at least we were, I'm not anymore–the national musicians union, AF of M, American Federation of Musicians. So I'm looking at his chapter in LA. Now, LA, if you can imagine, it's filled with superstars. They're all in there. But it wasn't on some database. It was just a little book, if I recall, typewritten or typed. So of course, I just looked up her name, and there it was with two phone numbers, and I just went weak. [00:21:00] And he was so wonderful, and his wife was so wonderful, and I told them the whole story. So now I have these two phone numbers. So I come back from our vacation. Again, this is pre-cell phones. I'm not going to call anybody from there. One was a Los Angeles number, and the other was a New York number. And it said on the list cello/piano. So this is her. This is definitely the woman, and I think maybe it said the age or something or when she joined. It was so probably her. So I called these two numbers for about a week, and there was one answering machine, which I don't think I said anything on it, and the other would just ring and ring, the LA number. And finally, I guess about a week later, the LA number answers, and I had my script [00:22:00] ready in my head. I said something like, Greetings, this is Paul Kimball. I'm the third horn of the Stockton Symphony. Is Wendy Brennan available? So with that, if she needed to hang up on me, she could hang up, but she always would be able to find me because I literally said where I had a part-time job as a horn player and exactly where to find me if anybody wanted to do that. And she said, Yes, it is. I said something like, Don't know quite how to say this, but does the name Frank P. Novak mean anything to you? Which again, was my first name. And she said, It might. Then I don't know what the next exchange was, but [00:23:00] she says, Are you of Armenian descent by any chance? And that I said, Yes, I am, and I think we both know who we are. So this was the beginning of the honeymoon period, as we say in adoption land. We talked for three hours. We talked music. We talked so much. And she's a very flighty talker, even flightier than me. But you've got thoughts going everywhere. She mentioned that I had a half-sister, red hair, looks nothing like me at all, but anyway who had been in Julliard as a flute player when she was young. They had a junior program.
So all that happens, and I have never felt [00:24:00] that happy and fulfilled ever, and not since then, in terms of everything suddenly was complete. And I think what we all get from this experience of those of us that have done the search, those of us that have done the reunion, these are brand-new feelings that you cannot prepare for. You don't know what it's going to be. Even, I suppose, if you do your research, it just takes you. So I went and visited her that weekend, if I recall. Did the drive down, still don't know what she looks like. We didn't have Skype, Zoom, etc., Google Meet. We just talked on the phone. And I stayed at her condominium, and it was this surreal experience. You knock on the door, and here is this blonde lady talking to you, [00:25:00] probably early 60s at that point. And I go in. It was not what I thought it would be. And I hear you discuss this with lots of your guests. It wasn't quite the gigantic stars and firecrackers moment that I was hoping for, and yet it was very pleasant. And I think I spent two nights there. Met my birth sister, who definitely has a lot of issues. I looked at so much of her memorabilia, which I loved as a classical musician. I loved hearing all of these stories and seeing newspaper articles and posters and promo things. It was a dream come true. It was so the honeymoon.
Haley Radke: I don't usually ask these kinds of questions, but I'm going to, because for you, this is like [00:26:00] magical. Oh my goodness, you have this in common with her. What was it like for Wendy to know you were a musician and you got it? Like you, you rattled off some names earlier. I don't know that everybody knows, like who these artists are, whatever, like it, right? But if you're in it, and it's like a part of your life and your music career and all these things. What was it like for her? Do you know?
Paul Kimball: I think she really appreciated it. I played a little horn for her and she thought it was a nice sound, lovely horn tone, I think she said. And later on a different visit, both of my daughters at that point were violinists. One went on to be a cellist through high school and then she stopped playing and the other still plays. And she loved that. She loved listening to them and coaching them. So the honeymoon period was everything that you could want. Beautiful letters back and forth, beautiful phone [00:27:00] calls. And it was just fun. It was fun for us to relate on that level. LA was a safe place for her to meet me because it clearly was not her social scene in her life. Her social scene was in this orchestra that she plays in or played in every summer in Chautauqua, which is in New York. And they do a nine-week festival, fully professional orchestra of players from all around the United States and probably beyond that. I'd have to look that up. So one night she calls me and she is having a mental breakdown And in retrospect, I'm happy that I got to experience this firsthand. She was crying, sobbing, saying if people [00:28:00] find out about me, Paul, they're going to think that she's a slut, and she kept using the slut word. And you just go, Who called her that? What made her feel that? Again, she had me in November of 1962. What are these people going through? And she wanted to take herself to county mental health. But I was thinking, we can get through this. And I'm telling her, It's going to be okay. We will work through this. And so that happens.
And then not too much longer after that, she goes to Chautauqua to play in her orchestra. So I called her on her birthday, which, you know, you just go, Was this a huge mistake? I guess it wasn't because I'm part of this. I think I count, too. And yet maybe she was around people or something, but she was just stone cold [00:29:00] with me on the phone. And I thought, this is really a weird conversation. But I wished her the happy birthday, and that was it. She ghosted me. She ghosted me, and I didn't hear anything. Time passes. I think I wrote her a letter saying, I'm keeping my phone number. You have my address. You can call anytime. And that just sat there until September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center gets hit by the planes. And at that point, I'm thinking, is she in New York? I don't know because she has a residence, she had a condo in New York and LA. What am I gonna do? So I called and left a [00:30:00] message. Well, not too much longer after that, my wife's parents come over, and they want to see me. Thinking, why me? What? Maybe it's somebody else in the family? I'm just sort of the husband. And Wendy called my mother-in-law and said everything to her, and it's so hard to say this, but the gist of this was: Never contact her again. She feels like I'm a stalker. I have a good life here. I need to concentrate on them. We were severed. She made that decision years ago, and I need to honor that. And I just felt like mud, especially the stalker word. I mean, in my professional life, I'm Mr. Kimball. [00:31:00] I'm the choir director. I'm the classroom music teacher. I enjoy bringing people's emotions together through music. I'm one of those people who’s like Switzerland often. If there's an argument, I'm the guy that can help settle that. So this was crushing. It was crushing. Suicidal thoughts? Absolutely. I think maybe my wife saved my life that night by just telling me that I was the dad of two wonderful young girls at that point. So I still kept teaching. Life goes on. All of that went on, but I went from that enormous high of being fulfilled to dropping to the bottom. And I remember I would always take some time, like on a Sunday afternoon, to just fall apart, just watch some stupid movie on the couch or something and just let it all [00:32:00] happen. I would dream about her. I would dream that, oh, she's come back, and you're really believing the dream until you wake up and that horrifying thought and realization that, no, that was a dream. She's not going to call back. As I had said earlier, we were part of the same large musicians union where you get a newsletter or news magazine, I guess, once a month. They have a section there called Taps for members that have passed. I thought, I'm just gonna check this, and if her name is on there, I'll know that she's passed. And I also kept tabs on her from afar, learning about her what I could on the internet, checking the Chautauqua Symphony website to see if her picture was still there this year, all of that. [00:33:00] So that world is churning.
Meanwhile, she gave me enough information about my birth father that I was able to find on a website Armenian carpets, and his last name was Farajian, and a phone number. Bay Area. I leave a message, and it's his younger brother, Vasken, who from the phone call basically figured it out because his older brother, Vahe, had been pining for his past girlfriend. Even though he's happily married, he still would mention her. Very emotional man. So anyway
Haley Radke: You're getting all the things passed down genetically.
Paul Kimball: Are you seeing it?
Haley Radke: Possibly. Possibly. I don't know.
Paul Kimball: Anyway, so [00:34:00] when Vasken and I talk, we figured it out. He had figured it out pretty much right then and there, and he did not mention this to his brother. And I want to say this was late October, early November. He lives in San Francisco, his younger brother, Vasken. So we agree to meet with his lovely wife, Tamar, and go over to San Francisco. And there it is, father's side of the family, and they are great. They are so loving. And Tamar's wonderful sisters are there, and Tamar's mom, and everybody is just so involved in the story. We ate so much food. They stuff you. There's always room for... You're like, I'm done, that's okay. And then comes more rice.
Haley Radke: Okay. You have to tell me what your favorite Armenian dish is.
Paul Kimball: Okay. I'm not so good at knowing, but they're these little–I'd have to ask my daughter–these round balls that they do with meat inside. [00:35:00]
Haley Radke: Okay, so it's like a savory.
Paul Kimball: Yes. So all of you Armenians listening to this, I apologize. I'll have to look up the name. You all know what it is. So anyway, he agrees. He comes up with a plan and just said, Let me wait till Christmas when they're all going to be together in LA and make the announcement there. And so that's what happened. And again, this is before cell phones. So I go off and have a good Christmas in Alameda with my adopted family, etc., and I am thinking, I wonder what happened in LA. This is gonna be interesting. So I come home, and again, I love how the tech changes, but back then we had answering machines, and there are two messages, one from my drummer friend saying, Merry Christmas, or whatever he had to say, and the second [00:36:00] one is from Vasken: Paul, Vahe is very excited to meet you and we all are, and we're going to stay up till, I think he said 1:00 or 1:30 at night. So please call us. And there's no way out of it. There's no way out of it. So again, I wait for everybody to go to bed. I work up the courage. I dial that number. It's like even half a ring: Hello, Paul. Vahe would like to say something to you. It was just that fast. And the first thing this man says to me is, "Son, I love you." He didn't even know I existed until that day. Big thick Armenian accent. We talked for just a little bit. And again, we agreed to have me go meet. And so I want to say it was two days later, three days, I think on the 28th, I get on an airplane to drive down to stay with them. So I don't have a rental car. [00:37:00] There is no place to run and hide and gather because I'm scared out of my gourd. I'm still ready to meet these people, etc. And there they were at the airport. Picked me up. There he was, disheveled, smoking, looking a lot like a Chico Marx, to me, of the Marx Brothers. You'll look these people up. You'll find them.
Haley Radke: Yeah, I'm sure I'll get that reference later. Yeah.
Paul Kimball: You will find that, yeah. But anyway, I end up at this wild party filled with Armenians incredulous of my existence. Because Armenians who survived the Armenian genocide back in [00:38:00] 1915 and scattered throughout the United States, they are very protective of their own people. So you add another Armenian, and they are big hugs. Come on over. And yet Vahe, who's a totally eccentric gentleman in this otherwise normal, very expressive family, just takes me for a walk and spills everything, including the abortion issue. And I got no place to think about that. I did not know that was coming because Wendy did not tell me any of that. But still met everybody and ended up at Vahe and his wife Rebecca's condo, just the three of us, at 1:30 in the morning, and we had a good cry. And I stayed with them for about two more days. My wife came by, I think, the day after [00:39:00] that with the two kids, and we ended up going. So that relationship lasted for about 13 years. Probably 12 years till he passed.
Meanwhile, as I said, I'm keeping tabs on Wendy. There's that biological pull, almost that sickness, that I just want to know more. I wanna know anything about her. I've gotta find this out, but I'm not gonna call her. I honored that. So you look up the symphony, you look up if she's referenced in books. I called the Lawrence Welk people. Because I wanted that film so badly. Because she plays The Swan, the piece that you listened to. She played it, I think, as a 17-year-old on the show and got fan mail. I would do anything to see that, but the Lawrence Welk people said it doesn't exist. [00:40:00] They don't have the film, and if anybody would have it, it would be them. But definitely she was there and played all that. So all of these things happen. Meanwhile, Vahe passed, and I was invited down to a little ceremony they had before the cremation, down in LA. And what I did is I went to this church where they met and took a flower from their little flower garden in front. And brought it over to him. There he is looking pretty damn spiffy, might I say.
Haley Radke: Open casket? 00:42:00]
Paul Kimball: Yes. Absolutely. And I asked the Armenian priest with this beautiful voice, I said, Can I place this flower on him? Because it represented both of them together. This is where they met. And he said yes, and so I put it there. And it's a very small group of us that are in this tiny little room with this ceremony, and I was so grateful that the Armenian clan let me, invited me to go down, and my wife came down, and all of that.
Meanwhile, in my checking of the Chautauqua website, I see that her name isn't there. But I haven't heard anything, didn't see anything on Taps. At that point, Facebook exists, because this is years later. So I find one cellist's name. I thought, Okay, this guy seems like a nice name. I don't know why I picked him, but I sent him a message even though we weren't Facebook friends, and said, I'm an old friend of Wendy Brennan's. I didn't say that I was her birth son. Don't see her, haven't seen her name on the register or the roster for a while. Is she still playing with you or did she retire? I don't hear anything for at least a couple of years. And on Facebook, there's that set of messages that maybe every once in a while you discover exist and go, What are you doing there? Ooh. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Yeah. I'm very familiar with the message requests outbox.
Paul Kimball: I'm sure you are, my friend.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Paul Kimball: Ugh. So anyway, one night I get a message from him and he just tells me, Oh, apologizing, I did not see this. I'm sure you've heard that Wendy passed away a few years ago. And no, I hadn't heard because nobody told me.
Haley Radke: Can I ask you... This is gonna be a really hard question and I'm not sure how to word it, but [00:43:00] finding out that she's passed away, can you compare that with your feelings from when she told you, through your in-laws, which is so weird, through your in-laws, that this is done. Can you compare that? For so many of us, the ghosting starts the grieving. And I just wonder if you can talk about that.
Paul Kimball: Yes, I think I can. Number one, as so many of us are, we're so many different people. So part of me is very social, and part of me is extremely private. So when I saw that, I didn't wake up my wife, didn't tell anybody. I just went into a tailspin, just very similar to the experience of her [00:44:00] putting the gauntlet down on me and saying never contact again, because she stuck to it. It was horrifying. I took an evening walk around our whole area. I live on a nice lake area, and just everything is spinning at once. There's an anger, there's a feeling of hurt. There's a feeling of I didn't pull it off. I didn't pull it off. I thought we could make this work. I thought by some miracle there would be a letter sometime, a phone call. It was all there. I conduct a once-a-year orchestra. I dreamed of having her come be in it. "I need some good cellists. Come on over. It'd be great." All of that. But that didn't happen, and it could have. I wanted her to know [00:45:00] her grandkids. It could have been wonderful. She was an only child herself. As far as I know, there are no relatives, and as I said, my biological sister has, as far as I can tell, some extreme mental issues. So it was horrifying, Haley. It was horrifying, and yet I taught the next day. Just did it. I always make myself do it because, as a music teacher, you can secretly express the feelings that you want while you're working on the vowel sounds with your tenors and the beauty of the soprano sound and the meaning of whatever piece you're working on. That need to express. And I don't remember for sure, but I could almost guarantee that the Elgar Cello Concerto was raging through my whole body that night. That sadness [00:46:00] that we all feel whether we're coming out of the fog or whether we're still in the fog. We might not understand the sadness, but it was that sadness, and it just all burst up again. But what could I do? There's no funeral. I've never been able to get ahold of a death certificate. I don't know if there was one. There still are all these mysteries. But anyway, I found where she was buried, which was in LA. And of course, I decided I've gotta go and visit, and I take the trip by myself. And I don't know why, but maybe that's an adoptee thing. Between all of these worlds, but my world of being an adoptee is my own private world with Wendy. Other people can come [00:47:00] and listen and... But I just needed to do that by myself.
Haley Radke: Can I ask you something? Something just occurred to me when you were saying that. There's a part of us that I think we're always on and acting, for lack of a better word. Like the person that we “should be.” So it's a gift to yourself to be alone, and you can be the real Paul and feel the real feelings and not have to be on for anyone else.
Paul Kimball: Absolutely. You said it so well. Yeah. And therapeutically, when I get really down, I let the fact that happy Paul is also me. That's not a fake entity. That person really exists, and that helps me. And that's what I would love to say as we connect here in adoptee land. That's true of [00:48:00] all of you. If you're a painter, if you have kids and you love them, whatever it is you do, that's also real. And to acknowledge that does not make the pain go away, but it also helps a great deal.
But you're right, I don't want people staring at me, and I don't know how I'm gonna feel. So when I went down there alone, and I remember having weird feelings in the hotel room beforehand. I go looking for her grave and they give me the chart. Here's exactly where she would be, and I cannot find her. I cannot find her. And I'm looking at probably where she should be, but there's no marker. There's no nothing. So finally I get ahold of a worker who comes over, who calls the main office. They figure it all out and go, Yeah, she's right there, nobody did a grave marker for her. And [00:49:00] again, this is a person on TV. This is a person written about in some publications. This is somebody who really meant something, but in the end, there's nobody there for her when that happens. And that's why, by the way, I feel like I have permission to say her name, even though a lot of us don't want to out people, etc.
So I just, again, maybe it's a similar question: How did you feel when that happened, Paul? Very similar to when she, my mother-in-law, reads me what she'd written down from the phone call. Very similar to finding out that she had passed and I didn't know. Anger at being in this situation. Deep sadness. But also, after all the searching, knowing she's down there. I now know where you [00:50:00] are. And luckily, it's a huge place and there was nobody around, and I'm out in nature. So I went down to the office and told them exactly who I was. I am Wendy Brennan's birth son. Can I design the marker, the grave marker? And they said, Sure. And so I did. And beloved mother with a treble clef, put her dates on there. There's a nice rose, and I worked really beautifully with the people there. And they created it, and they send me ideas of how it would look. And probably about three months later, they let me know that it exists. Then it took me months to go down there. So now I finally make it down in about early [00:51:00] February, and I know exactly where to look, and there it is. There is that marker and we connected. I couldn't kill her off in my head when she tells me, "Go away." I couldn't do it. What do you do with all that emotion? What happens with it? It still churns, so you express. I could never hate her. I, in a way, understood so much of what she was going through from that one conversation that she has with me where she uses the slut word. But with this, she matters. And I cleaned off the marker the best that I could and had my own little memorial service. I played some horn for her. I listened to the cello, I guess on my phone. Nobody was around. [00:52:00] I cried. I couldn't leave. And then finally you do leave, and it was this mixture of not quite relief, but I did do this as her son. We were together. She was the very opening of my entire life, and I was able to do this for her. How she would feel about it, I will never know. I...Clearly there weren't relatives to do this. So that's kind of where we are. But life goes on and we work through our pain, but we don't run away from it. And I think when I hear so many of your guests talk about it as an ongoing process instead of a you can tie something up and [00:53:00] we're now in happy land. I think acknowledging it provides an opportunity for more happiness than we would have if we just buried it
Haley Radke: I think that's so true. I really do.
Paul Kimball: Yeah. Well and look at you, this is what you do for a living. And it's wonderful.
Haley Radke: I may confess on occasion here, though, that I'm very good at stuffing things down, Paul. No, but I appreciated what you said just a little bit earlier when you were talking to us as adoptees, and I want to give you an opportunity to do that before we do our recommended resources right away. Just share more of that because I think it is so important for us to hear that we're more than the brokenness and all the baggage we're carrying around of being unwanted and having those thoughts and feelings our whole life of maybe not fitting in and all those things. We're more than that. [00:54:00]
Paul Kimball: You better believe it. As I say, we are all human beings, not just people that weren't adopted. We adoptees are human beings like everybody else. We get to enjoy Pam's waterfalls. We get to enjoy the ocean. We get to enjoy our music that we personally love. Anything that human beings get to be a part of in terms of the larger picture, we're human beings, too. Now of course, original birth certificates is a whole nother story where you just go, We are in this other category. Which we shouldn't be because we're all part of the big deal. One thing that helps me so much is this connection, not [00:55:00] only here in the internet world, but in the regular world. My students know I'm adopted. They sure don't know this whole story, but they know that and they get lots of bits and pieces, and I've had so many heartfelts over the years. Even, was it two weeks ago? This cute little eighth-grader who lives in my neighborhood mentions tomorrow's my birthday, Mr. Kimball. And she's a foster kid and says, I'm not sure exactly how I'm feeling about it, Mr. Kimball. I said, You don't forget that I was a foster kid as well and I know how complex it is. So maybe instead of saying it's your birthday, unless you want it, you could do what I do. Acknowledge the people that want to wish you. Accept their love, but also think of it more as this is the accepting-of-love day [00:56:00] and looking out for people and then knowing I'm gonna have my own sadness.
My last birthday, I literally had that moment where you just drop to the bottom and I'm just in that despair on my birthday and then my brother Seth calls, Happy birthday to you! And I thought, I'm going to accept him. It was almost like a divine intervention comes down and says: Yeah, Seth, could you call Paul at this point? But all of that complexity, the complexity of Mother's Day, all of these things. But in adoptee land, whatever you can do to express, if you paint, if you act. I love acting. I love music directing. I love being a different character and exploring that character's feelings. [00:57:00] Whatever you find yourself doing, let it happen naturally. Is that pretty good?
Haley Radke: Pretty good. Good job. Good job. Very inspiring.
Paul Kimball: Yeah.
Haley Radke: I can tell you've given one or two of those-rousing … I'm sorry. So my father-in-law was a band teacher, and he did become a pastor, but music has always been so important to him, and so I've been at a lot of concerts. So I'm picturing you, conducting and doing your interludes in between the concerts. Okay, Paul. Okay. So Paul said, “We Are All Human Beings" and that's the name of your memoir, and you add, "An Adoptee Ponders." And I'm gonna show you: look at my little book tabs I made. How about that?
Paul Kimball: Oh. Wow!
Haley Radke: You sent me this earlier this year, and I got the [00:58:00] chance to chat with you before I read it, and so much of your heart comes across in your writing. And just as you hear Paul's heart coming across through his voice, I just loved reading your story this way. It was really meaningful to me. And I like how, as you share, how do I say this, the facts of what's happening, you have these sections where you comment on them, the internal voice of what you're feeling about these things, how they impacted you. And I really appreciated that, and I was like, Oh, I'm, like, in your head. So that was really special. And I just keep coming back to the word wholehearted. And you have this big, joyful personality, and you're full of love, and I can tell that you must be a fabulous teacher and mentor to your students and the people that you impact on a day-to-day life, just from [00:59:00] your words and hearing you share. And we have had several conversations now before recording, and it's you. It's you. You're consistent.
Paul Kimball: Oh, good. When I started writing the book – because I'd gone to therapy and the therapist said, You have quite a story which could help other adoptees. Why don't you write a book? I went, Oh, okay, I'll do that. If that's what the end product is or the end outcome is, I'll do that. Before that, I wasn't so connected. I listened to your show. I can't think of too many other connections. But in the structure of the book, I don't know how to write a book. So doing that, I thought of that really early: Tell what happened in any instant that I want to comment on, put it in italics.[01:00:00] And that got me through the book, and I did it in order except when I went to finally see Wendy's grave and I came back home. I immediately wrote that chapter. But it's agonizing to write one of those. I could do maybe a page at a time, often in nature, often outside surrounded by beauty and my little laptop. I would do that. But it's worthwhile. Even if you never share it, but you do it that way and just, again, say what happened and then whatever comes out. And I find in the book I ask a lot of questions.
Haley Radke: I think that was what was so validating for me because sometimes when people are expressing, which is...Okay, listen, it's great if you had great adoptive parents and a great upbringing and you're happy. I'm glad. [01:01:00] That's what you want. If an adoption had to happen, that's, of course, what you want. But even as you're expressing those quote “happier” sort of thoughts, you also go back and you're like, Oh, gosh, I hope I don't hurt their feelings when I search. You're expressing those inner things that are true, I think, for most of us. What we're thinking, right? Even if everything looks perfect and happy and part of us is happy, there's all these things under the surface that maybe we're not brave enough to say out loud yet or feel safe enough to say out loud yet. So I really like that part.
Paul Kimball: That's where I gotta tell you the pandemic has been very handy. Because I wrote the book and you finally have the send with the publisher and then it's that sick feeling of it's now out there. Oh, but I can still hide from everybody 'cause it's the pandemic and we're teaching online. [01:02:00] The book, though, I had it cleared with my siblings, who just said, I didn't realize all this was going on in your head. Because it's not the type of thing you talk about. I don't talk about these things at Thanksgiving or anything like that. It's not casual conversation. I also sent about maybe 11 pages of the Armenian section to Vasken, but also to my birth father's wife Rebecca, because here's where I had a huge what-do-I-do? moment. Did she know that Vahe was going to abort me? So she left a message saying, Hey, when's the book going to come? I'm all excited about it. So I called her up and said, Did he ever tell you what happened? And he did. Thank God, because there [01:03:00] are a lot of things getting opened, including part of the book that we're not talking about right here. Which was my adopted father's passing. And I don't want to leave it a mystery. He did take his own life way later after taking care of my mom with Alzheimer's, which left me extremely lost. But I did check with my siblings and said, Can I leave that in the book? What's your opinion? And they all said, Yes, leave it in. And my brother said, Add to the part that he was looking at pictures of Mom when that happened. So I'm in that world of so many of the rocks are gone, those people that you just count on. And yet I was protective of them. They were not...nobody is the perfect family. If you were to ask me right now, what would you say to people that are adopting now? It's the classic: [01:04:00] Please listen to what your adoptive son or adoptive daughter has to say. Really listen to their feelings. And we did that somewhat with my parents, but I think especially from my dad's point of view, there was also the Why did you do that? You've got a great family right here. And that's so hard to explain. And as you say, when they pass, there is a little bit of freedom from that question of am I going to hurt anybody's feelings?
Haley Radke: And it's the same, as you said, that we don't always talk about these things out loud, or your brother saying to you like, Oh, what? I didn't know this. Because if we say those things, then there's the chance for, like, What? What do you mean? And it's such a core, they are such core feelings. To have them questioned. It's so painful.
Paul Kimball: Yes. That scary feeling that they could give [01:05:00] you away any time.
Haley Radke: Yep.
Paul Kimball: And I say that in mega-middle age right now. But still there's a little bit of that. It's just there.
Haley Radke: I don't know if it ever goes away. I don't know.
Paul Kimball: Exactly.
Haley Radke: Anyway, I really recommend your book. I really enjoyed it so thank you for sharing it with me. And what did you want to recommend to us?
Paul Kimball: Well, I have my paper here, but I'm gonna try not to shuffle the papers so that it makes any sound.
Haley Radke: Can you tell I'm like a dictator telling people what to do with sounds?
Paul Kimball: No, you're just damn good. I was so impressed. I told the lady that I work with, a pianist/collaborator, I said, Haley Radke completely knows what she's doing in terms of production value. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? I'm a music director. I want those mics absolutely EQ'd beautifully. We need the balance between the orchestra and the singer. Oh, yeah. I know. I'm with you.
Haley Radke: Okay, you know. Good. [01:06:00]
Paul Kimball: Yes. So even with the recommended resources, I feel a little guilty not mentioning all, so many of these great books that I've read. But I would say the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, specifically their Adoption Happy Hour, which used to be a live event in Indiana, and then COVID happened, and Marcie Keithley put that together as an online event, and I think it's a Zoom deal. So afterwards, after somebody gives their talk, you can have a question and answer, et cetera. So I was on that. So this is the second time I've told all of my inner feelings ... to you, and in their case, I talked to the little green dot since we're seeing people's faces.
But another, I don't know if this is a resource, but a movie that I would recommend that's not so much [01:07:00] about adoption, but it's about loss, it's called Ordinary People, came out in, I think, 1980. Robert Redford directed it. Timothy Hutton and Mary Tyler Moore are in it, and it's about a teenager who loses his brother in a boating accident. This movie is one of the biggest tearjerkers, has a lot to do with therapy and what a therapist can do for you. And there's one scene where the therapist is saying to the brother who survived–and the brother is in tears, something horrifying had just happened to him–"What is the one thing you did wrong, that you think you did wrong?" And he's in tears. “You can say it." He goes, “When the boat capsized”–the boat capsizes and they're out at sea. He said, "I hung onto the boat." [01:08:00] And the therapist goes, "Exactly." So he was the strong one, and I go all the way back to thinking of me and Wendy. I did hang onto the boat where she let go. I feel like I held onto the boat, and my birth mother just couldn't hold on. So holding onto the boat is saying yes to life with your pain, but still saying yes to life. And the therapist, when he says, "That's exactly it, and you can live with that, can't you?” Yes, I can. So you're living with it. It's not going away, but you're living with it. Side note, the guy who played the son went to my high school. I was literally on stage with him. He dropped out of high school to go to LA to see if he could make it in TV commercials and everything, and he wins the Academy Award for best supporting actor two years later for this movie.
Haley Radke: How about that? So you don't need to stay in school, kids. Is that the message you wanna give, Paul? [01:09:00]
Paul Kimball: Exactly, and I've told kids that story a lot of times.
Haley Radke: Oh, that's so funny. Oh it was such a good conversation. Thank you for sharing your story and your pain with us. I'm so sorry for your losses. Oh, it's a heavy thing. So I thank you for sharing that with us and for letting us know we're not alone. How can we best connect with you online?
Paul Kimball: You can put my email address on there, and my Facebook group of friends, besides my wacky theater friends, is definitely growing in adoption land. It's really wonderful in that. So just do it. I'll love it.
Haley Radke: Send Paul a message request, and it'll just sit in his box for a couple years. Oh no. No, sorry. That's what happens in my mailbox. Yes, I will link to your Facebook profile, and I will include your email address in the show notes [01:10:00] for people if they want to get in touch with you, and also how to get a copy of your memoir.
Paul Kimball: Wonderful.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much, Paul.
Paul Kimball: Thank you, Haley. It was a pleasure.
Haley Radke: I know I was joking around a little bit with Paul about my inbox, but I do want to say thank you to all of you who send such kind and generous messages to me, thanking me for the show, and I just am not able to reply to everyone. So know that I read almost everything I get within my capacity, and I also try to reply to a few. A lot of questions I get regularly are answered on my frequently asked questions page on Adoptees On. So if you go to adopteeson.com, there's a little tab there you can click for frequently asked questions. And I hope to kinda do a little series on that on Instagram in stories at some point in [01:11:00] the next little while. So don't go looking for it right now, but the Adoptees On Instagram is @adopteeson, and once I do those posts, I'll keep them in my highlights so you can go check there too.
I am so grateful for everyone who signs up to be a supporter of the show, helping make it sustainable. There's extra bonuses, so if you go to adopteeson.com/partner, you can find out how to become a patron and get access to the Adoptees Off Script podcast or our private Facebook Group, and I would love to have you over there. I get to chat with more of you there. And we're still doing our fabulous adoptee-authored Book Club this year, which has been such a delight to read through some really different books that I might not have picked up. And we're doing newer books and older books, and my co-host Carrie Cahill Mulligan, is amazing at digging up gems for us to read. [01:12:00] So if you're a reader, I would encourage you to join us there at adopteeson.com/partner. And thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll say it again: I can't do the show without you. And if that's not in the budget right now, no worries. One huge gift you can give is just tell one person about this episode, one person who you know would love to hear Paul's story, and maybe they love music, and maybe they play cello or French horn or are a choir director or a music teacher or someone who has similarly had losses like Paul has. This episode might be an encouragement to them, so I'd love it if you would share it with just that one person. One person.
Thank you so much. It's such a joy to serve you this way. Thank you for inviting me into your earbuds. Paul told me that I go on hikes with him, [01:13:00] and so, Hi, Paul. I'm so glad I get to hike with you. I'm so glad I get to go on drives with a lot of you who listen during your commute or if you're going somewhere on a road trip. And a lot of you listen when you're walking your dog. So I'm so glad that you bring me along for those moments. That's special for me, even if I'm not really there. I love knowing that. It's a gift.
Thanks for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
