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064 - Unraveling Identity: Ed Di Gangi’s Search for His Birth Mother & The Power of Adoption Stories
13 Plays10 days ago
In this deeply moving episode of Vulnerability Muscle, host Reggie D. Ford sits down with Ed Di Gangi, an adoptee who embarked on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery at the age of 69. Adopted at birth in New York City, Ed never sought out his birth family—until a visit to a cemetery changed everything.
Over eight years of DNA testing, archival research, and serendipitous discoveries, Ed uncovered a fascinating story of resilience, love, and identity. His birth mother, once an unknown figure, was revealed to be a renowned ice skater who traveled the world in the 1940s and ‘50s. Through meticulous research, Ed pieced together his birth mother’s emotional and physical journey, leading to his bestselling memoir, "The Gift Best Given."
Join us as Ed shares:
- How a simple visit to a cemetery sparked a life-changing journey
- The emotional revelations of uncovering his birth mother’s story
- The challenges of reconciling identity as an adoptee
- Why he believes adoption is often misunderstood and how it shaped his life
- His inspiring perspective on gratitude, vulnerability, and resilience
- The upcoming release of his second book, "Gliding Through Goodbye", chronicling his birth mother’s journey
This episode is a must-listen for anyone who has ever questioned their roots, struggled with identity, or wants to understand the power of self-acceptance.
Contact Info: Website: www.digangiauthor.comEmail: edward.digangi.author@gmail.com
Books:
- The Gift Best Given: A Memoir – Available anywhere books are sold
- Gliding Through Goodbye – Releasing June 2025
If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, rate, and leave a review to help us continue bringing inspiring conversations to Vulnerability Muscle!
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Transcript
Introduction to Vulnerability Muscle Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, i i it's hard to look back and say wish something was different because like I can't imagine having had a better life. And my concern is if if we had that discussion, it would have screwed everything up. and yeah And that's not what I wanted.
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Vulnerability Muscle, the inspiring podcast, challenging norms, and helping you redefine vulnerability as a strength. I'm your host, Reggie D. Ford. Each episode of Vulnerability Muscle dives into a variety of topics such as mental health, social issues, and mindset shifts.
00:00:36
Speaker
We explore the power of vulnerability in fostering meaningful connections, healing, building resilience, and promoting personal growth. Sometimes these conversations are uncomfortable, but good workouts often are.
00:00:50
Speaker
So join us and flex that vulnerability muscle. Welcome to this episode of Vulnerability Muscle. I'm your host Reggie D. Ford.
Ed Diganji's Adoption Journey Begins
00:01:00
Speaker
In this episode we have my man Ed Diganji.
00:01:03
Speaker
Ed was adopted at birth in New York City. An only child, he made no effort to explore his hereditary until at the age of 69. ah for it would A visit to the cemetery where members of his adoptive mother's family were buried stirred his interest.
00:01:21
Speaker
Over the past eight years, through extensive archival research and DNA testing, Ed has peeled back the layers of his once unknown family and has revealed still still more questions seeking to be answered.
00:01:35
Speaker
Ed is an author. He's authored authored the book, The Gift Best Given, where he is set in the 1940s America emerges from the Great Depression and went to war.
00:01:47
Speaker
ah where he recounts the search for the identity of his birth mother and tells the story of a young woman's courage as she overcame obstacles to achieve her dreams. Ed has another book coming out this June, Gliding Through Goodbye.
00:02:01
Speaker
ah It continues the detail ah to detail his birth mother's journey, physical and emotional, as she traveled the United States, South America, and Europe in the years after his birth and subsequent adoption.
00:02:15
Speaker
Ed and his wife, Linda, live in Hillsboro, North Carolina. their son and his wife re Their son, James, and his wife, Renee, are expecting their first child in May. Congratulations. Thank you. And I live in nearby Durham.
00:02:30
Speaker
Ed, the Ganji, welcome. How are you, my friend? I'm doing fine. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to join you, Reggie. I really appreciate it. um I appreciate you and taking the time to share your phenomenal story. I mean, just from that description alone, it's very captivating. And I can't wait to hear all of what you've uncovered with your self-discovery, with your family discovery.
00:02:54
Speaker
um I'm umm um'm really excited for this journey we're about to take. ah Thank you. and Yeah. So I got ah i got ah the first segment, just a couple of questions. um And it's called what comes to mind.
00:03:05
Speaker
So you just let me know. First thing that pops into your mind. And yeah, we'll go from there. So what comes to mind, Ed, when you hear the word vulnerability? Yeah, I hear vulnerability and I see that as your willingness to open yourself both to yourself and to others.
00:03:26
Speaker
ah Let others see inside you, take a look inside other people. You don't necessarily have to agree with what's there, but but at least look and think and make ah make an informed decision at that point.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I love what you started with, with looking inside yourself. And I think that's hard for people to be vulnerable with themselves and be honest and true and open with themselves. So that's really good.
00:03:54
Speaker
What do you do to center yourself if you're feeling chaos, stressed, depressed?
Defining Vulnerability and Daily Routine
00:03:59
Speaker
What do you do to center yourself?
00:04:02
Speaker
Fortunately, I don't get depressed very much. Yeah, I'm fortunate that way. I live a pretty good life. You know, I've been i've been blessed. But the the thing that gives me the greatest comfort and relaxation is really getting outdoors. i'm i'm up early every morning and I'll go and I'll walk any place from two to seven miles. And we have a, you know, we live in a place called Hillsborough, North Carolina.
00:04:32
Speaker
There's a river that kind of snakes through town. It's not much of a river, but, but several years ago, they built what they call the river walk along it. And it's a, it's a path that follows the,
00:04:45
Speaker
the river and they'll get out there and it's, you know, you see deer, you see birds, you see other people with their dogs. And and and the nice part is if you go any place at the same time ah reliably, you start to meet people and know people and you know so there's a in addition to the the river walk and the relaxation of the walking you there's company out there there's community oh i like that that may be the secret to why there's little depression in your life we got to get up and walk in the morning i like that there you go not everybody's cup of tea yeah when you say early what what what time are we thinking because i tell my brother tells me early and it's like noon so like uh
00:05:28
Speaker
that that so Yeah, i I'm typically up someplace between five and six. There we go. And yeah I'll make myself breakfast. I'll take a little bit of time to check yeah check my email and then get dressed and go out and I'll get my walk in and then I'll, I've got three different stops depending on the day of the week and I'll stop for a cup of coffee and maybe a pastry or something. And yeah same thing, you know, if you go to those same places on the same days, you meet the same people and, and the community just gets bigger.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. I love that. And I love it. um What is one of your favorite childhood memories? No, we used to go out to my grandmother's house and she lived on Long Island in New York.
00:06:12
Speaker
And she she was first generation Ukrainian. So she had a big, big garden. I i suspect that yeah the people before her had been peasant farmers.
00:06:26
Speaker
So she had a big vegetable garden, but down the side of her property, there was a wire fence and there were raspberry bushes. And in season, I remember we would go out there, I would be the first one out of the car, over the picket fence and right to those raspberry bushes and start picking and start eating one at a time.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I could still, I still taste those raspberries. Wow. Wow. Oh, that's amazing. I love it. I love bringing that image to my, oh, that's really cool. You, you, you grew up in New York. Can you tell us what that was like, what year you were born and how are you today? ah I'll 77 May.
00:07:09
Speaker
let's go yeah So I was born in 1948. Yeah. yeah I was adopted at birth.
Discovering Adoption and Family History
00:07:17
Speaker
You know, my adoptive parents took me home from the hospital at one day old.
00:07:22
Speaker
And, you know, and then there's ah there's a period of time where where the courts are involved and they make you a foster child. And then 18 months later, assuming everything has gone well, they would they would then approve an adoption.
00:07:36
Speaker
hmm. So, yeah, I grew up around New York City. ah Yeah, New York City has five boroughs. ah I grew up in Queens, which is probably the easternmost borough. Around high school time, moved into Midtown Manhattan, though, and lived on the corner of 55th Street and 6th Avenue. And there is no no more central place in New York City.
00:08:00
Speaker
Nice. And it's yeah i just amazing. It's an amazing place to spend those years. ah you know I would come home from school. i would I would get my baseball stuff and go walking up the street to Central Park to play baseball there. And back then you could walk up 6th Avenue with a baseball bat over your shoulder and nobody bothered you. yeah Now I suspect you might get arrested for it.
00:08:26
Speaker
ah Or your go downtown. yeah There was a great music scene down in Greenwich Village. and you know So it was it was a wonderful experience. That's amazing. That's amazing. And you mentioned your, your, so you were adopted at birth and I was, you, did you have, have, did you ever get to meet your biological mother or your biological? Sadly, I didn't, you know, i I, I embarked on this search that the book is about and i I waited a very long time and I waited as long as I did because I just had a wonderful adoption, adoption experience.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah. And I could tell you, there are a lot of people out there who do not, you know adoption is a very fraught subject at the moment. Yeah. And I, I think I probably benefited because, you know, I was adopted so long ago. Yeah. And yeah, so I think the direction that parents received back then was different. Yeah.
00:09:24
Speaker
ah not having social media was probably a very good thing. Yeah. Because i I tend to think now, you know, with social media, Yeah, it gives a people a place to vent. And I think the more they talk about how bad things are, the worse they get.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, i I had some adopted friends, it was quite by accident that I found out. But, you know, was a period that preceded what they called the baby scoop era.
00:09:53
Speaker
And, you know and that's where... And women who unexpectedly became pregnant were forced, in most cases, to surrender children, and then the children were placed into adoption. And you know and and that's what I would always assume my situation was. When I started the search, I found out was it was quite a different situation.
00:10:15
Speaker
It was different. Yeah. um We're
Uncovering Birth Mother's Past
00:10:17
Speaker
going to get there, but I want to i want to know what at what age did you find out that you were adopted and how did your adoptive family treat that experience with you?
00:10:27
Speaker
To my recollection, and this is you know it's now almost 77 years, my parents and I never had a discussion about my adoption. Oh, wow.
00:10:38
Speaker
I... I always joke that some kids you know spend their time going through their parents' liquor cabinet. They sort of went through my parents' file cabinet.
00:10:50
Speaker
And I found an envelope with my mother's name on it. Wow. And I opened it up and looked at it. And there were documents in there. One with something called Certificate of Birth by Adoption.
00:11:04
Speaker
And this is a New York City form. And, you know, I. How old were you at the time? I'm thinking seven, eight years old, somewhere, somewhere like that. And ah and I intuitively knew, you know, most kids probably don't have one that says by adoption. But that certificate basically took an essentially nameless child.
00:11:32
Speaker
and gave him his adoptive parent's surname. And the other document that was in there turned out to be my adoption decree. And I remember looking at it at the time, it had both my parents' signatures on it.
00:11:49
Speaker
It had the signature of a man named Francis Carberry, who for whatever reason, I recalled as being my parents' lawyer. And it had still one other name, which I didn't recognize at all.
00:12:03
Speaker
yeah And I took those papers, I folded them up, I put them back in the envelope, put the envelope back into the file, and sort of took the approach that my parents were not talking about this, and I guess I wasn't supposed to ask about it.
00:12:20
Speaker
Wow. wow Wow. Having now gone gone through the the discovery of all of that and then digging up even more research, what do you think or or or what would you have hoped your parents had done in that time period in your life when you were a child? Do you wish you had been communicated and understood a little bit more?
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, i i it's hard to look back and say where something was different because I i can't imagine having had a better life. And my concern is if if we had that discussion, it would have screwed everything up.
00:12:57
Speaker
and yeah And that's not what I wanted. yeah it periodically I would think about those papers and and say, I wonder what that really means. And probably somewhere around that same period, I think I was seven years old, my parents took me on vacation in Europe.
00:13:18
Speaker
And we were in France and we went to an orphanage. And i i as I recall it, I asked, how come we're going to an orphanage? And I get an answer, something along the lines of, well, wouldn't you like a little brother or sister?
00:13:32
Speaker
oh wow. Wow. And even at that age, I'm thinking, well, why don't you just make me one? And the other thing was, was I am perfectly happy being an only child. And I wasn't an only child. I grew up alone.
00:13:46
Speaker
yeah And for whatever reason, I, perhaps it was their age at the time, you know, they were not able to adopt. So I, you know, so I had the, yeah know, the, the experience of growing up as an only child.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which is a, I I've, I'm not the only child, but I grew up feeling like the only child for a really long time. i was 10 years older than my, my, so my sister. yes fifteen inprint Yeah. And 15 above my brother. And so I was so much of my identity had been established in those early formative years to where i was doing a lot by myself.
00:14:24
Speaker
And I, and I enjoyed that. I enjoy being alone. And ah but but yeah, that that's that's interesting. um and And when you said the Ukrainian grandmother, was that the adoptive grandmother went on the adoptive parent side?
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, she was my adoptive mother's mother. OK, OK. Yeah, it was kind of an interesting, day interesting heredity because, you know, ah as an adoptee,
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, my adopted father was Sicilian and my mother was Ukrainian. So it was kind of a, it was an interesting mix. Yeah, that is cool. I like that. I like that. That's the melting pot that New York City was. Absolutely so. Both, you know, both in the Lower East Side.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um'm I'm curious. So at the age of 69, you decided that I got to go do some research and figure this stuff out. What prompted that? and And what have you uncovered?
00:15:22
Speaker
what What prompted it me was I had read, and I think I was on my second or third reading of it, a book called The Lost, The Search for Six of Six Million.
00:15:35
Speaker
And it was written by a man by the name of Daniel Mendelsohn, who's quite a prolific author. um He writes nonfiction. He's actually ah a scholar in Greek tragedy.
00:15:48
Speaker
And he went on a journey to find out what happened to six distant relatives who had perished in the Holocaust. And you on a general level, he knew precisely what had happened to them.
00:16:04
Speaker
He wanted to know specifically. Yeah. Wow. And he, because of his stature, I think as as an academic and as an author, he likely landed a pretty good size advance for his book that followed.
00:16:20
Speaker
And he traveled around the world twice tracking down people from a tiny Ukrainian village who may have known his distant great uncle and his great cousins.
00:16:35
Speaker
And he ultimately, you know, found out precisely to the time and to the place what happened to them. And this it's an amazing book. I still recommend it to people.
00:16:47
Speaker
ah And I read that and, you we were in a cemetery up in New Jersey where my adoptive mother's family was all interred. And i was standing over the gravestone of of the grandmother who I mentioned and her husband who had passed many years before. And I was looking at that and saying, you know what, if Mendelssohn could go around the world twice, now with Ancestry.com and everything else, I bet I could find out more about these people.
00:17:22
Speaker
And, you know, because they would they were my family. And I was curious that whole, you know, the Ukrainian connection was very interesting. So when we got back home to North Carolina, i went to our local library.
00:17:38
Speaker
They had ah an institutional version of Ancestry.com. And I went and I typed in my grandmother's information and my grandfather's information.
00:17:50
Speaker
And i was well yeah I was rewarded with a wealth of... of information about the time they got here, where they lived.
00:18:01
Speaker
wow you know I found out that they lived in an apartment right over what is now a Starbucks in the Lower lower East Side. Then they moved to the Bronx. Then they moved to Long Island.
00:18:13
Speaker
And I sat and I said, gee, if it's this easy, i still have that piece of paper at home, my adoption decree, Hmm. And now, you I intuitively know that one signature on it that I didn't recognize had to be my birth mother.
00:18:30
Speaker
Wow. Wow. So I went home, I got the piece of paper out, I wrote down the name, went back and that's where it all began, really. Wow. Wow. So so you I'm assuming this is after your and adoptive parents passed away, you were able to obtain that document and keep and hang on to it.
Understanding Adoption through Private Arrangements
00:18:48
Speaker
My mother held on to it forever, my adoptive mother. And I i suspect she held on to it knowing that one day I might want to know. And I was very yeah i was very privileged in that my adoption was privately arranged.
00:19:04
Speaker
And yeah in most states, and New York has eased up in the past several years. But in many states, birth records are sealed tight. yeah And adoptees cannot get to them.
00:19:17
Speaker
Had that been the case, wow you know i I would never have had a place to even begin. But i was I was privileged to have a piece of paper with my mother's name on it.
00:19:28
Speaker
wow And when I plugged that name back into Ancestry, when I went back to the library, yeah, that's where it started to roll out to me. I'm curious, what were the the most surprising revelations that you learned about about your birth mother's life when you started to uncover some things?
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, as I said, when I... My first thought would be that I was one of those baby scoop era kids who had a mother who stayed out after the prom and and unfortunately came back pregnant, got sent to Aunt Martha's house where they hid her for you know for however many months.
00:20:09
Speaker
And then I was put into the into the system. Mm-hmm. But what I found out was that was not the case at the time she gave birth to me. She was 23 years old.
00:20:20
Speaker
And through a series of, ah through deduction and a series of ah just very lucky connections, I found out that my mother was a celebrity performer in the big ice skating shows that were so popular in the Wow.
00:20:39
Speaker
wow The first document I pulled up when I put her name into Ancestry was a visa application to go from Miami, Florida to Rio de Janeiro.
00:20:51
Speaker
Wow. And I pulled that one up because it was the one that was dated closest to my birth. And you and it it was written all in Portuguese because that's what they spoke in Rio.
00:21:02
Speaker
And yeah it listed her profession as an artista. And, know, we just pondered well yeah what kind of artista. And ultimately, I met a woman who was an antique stealer.
00:21:17
Speaker
and that this is where the story got really complicated. But through that woman, I found out that my mother had been an ice skater. So when I plugged her name, I went and Googled her name with ice skater.
00:21:31
Speaker
and you know, and then I found another woman with the blog online who probably had half a dozen of my mother's promotional photos on the blog, plus my mother's middle school diploma.
00:21:43
Speaker
Wow. Plus my mother's first professional contract. And it was, it was just one thing after another. but So, so she was a big deal. was like, for someone to keep that for all this time, she was a big deal. She we yeah she was a big deal in her time. You know, ice skating was a a very, very popular thing in the 40s and 50s, particularly, he you know, because not everybody had a yeah television set yet.
00:22:10
Speaker
of
00:22:13
Speaker
And if you had a TV, you know, you didn't have the 68 different channels to choose from. you know So ice skating was, it was music and it was dance and it was colorful and and people just flocked to it.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. That is that is beautiful. I'm curious what the emotions were like. What came up for you as you were uncovering all these different layers of of your birth mother and understanding what her life was like? what What emotions came up for you?
00:22:45
Speaker
would do I think the first really... right between the eyes, you know, emotion was, you know, when I pulled up that first document, the visa application, it was accompanied by her photograph.
00:22:58
Speaker
You know, so on one piece of paper, I had all of the stuff about, you know, what was her address and what was her age and what was her, were her parents' names.
00:23:09
Speaker
The other side was just a sheet with her picture on it. And I looked at it and I said, boy, this is it. you And i I kept on looking for the similarities. And I honestly didn't see them.
00:23:21
Speaker
I sent the picture home to my wife though and said, oh, that looks just like you. And it looks just like James, our son. and But it's funny. I recently got a photograph of her when she was...
00:23:33
Speaker
later in her life, probably already into her 80s. Now I see that. Now I see the resemblance. She also had a receding hairline, I think. Yeah. Wow.
00:23:44
Speaker
You know, but I think the as yeah As I said, I had an ideal adoption experience. Yeah. So I didn't have any compelling need to know.
00:23:56
Speaker
i didn't have any anger or feeling like I had been abandoned. So like I was fortunate that I could go into the experience kind of open-minded. what I found...
00:24:09
Speaker
what i found as I searched was a was it real profound appreciation for what a birth mother, and not just her, but any birth mother, must go through yeah in one, making the decision to give up a child, yeah number two, handing that child over, and then number three, in the you know and the days and the months and the years that follow that,
00:24:36
Speaker
And that that's sort of what led to the to the book that I'm currently working on is just that you know the the appreciation for the you know for what a ah birth mother goes through Wow.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's a that's a tremendous experience. ah The perspective to to even think through and think about because you you build so much empathy and compassion for that birth mother, those birth mothers who are faced with the choice or with ah the decision and to make um to give up their child. And it's not an easy one for and as some of those here early in early in the adoption era, that baby scoop era, a lot of those women didn't have the choice.
00:25:20
Speaker
It was dictated for them. It's, you know, you're going to have your baby, you know, we'll, we'll keep you here for another couple of weeks. The baby's going somewhere else. Wow. Wow. And you know, and I've met a lot of those ladies and,
00:25:33
Speaker
You know, it's just kind of like it's it's a very tough thing. And very few of them have told me that they don't think about that child. Some of them every day of their life since.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it'd be torture to do so. um Were you ever able to find any reason as to why your mom ah put you up for adoption or or anything like that?
Speculating on Birth Mother's Decisions
00:25:59
Speaker
Well, I think it was many several pieces. You know, number one, it was the era. ah You know, a single woman 1948 with a baby. It would be ostracized. It was it was just shame and and humiliation and embarrassment.
00:26:16
Speaker
wow um My mother's career was ice skating. And you she already was making very good money doing it.
00:26:27
Speaker
Had she given me up, she could not have gone back to ice skating. yeah They would not have accepted her back. yeah so you know So she would have wound up at working at the Five and Dime or something.
00:26:39
Speaker
yeah and And that was not a good answer. you know She wanted more for me. And yeah the other option, I guess, had they taken her back for ice skating, she could have stuck me in a backpack and dragged me all around the the country and the world with her. And she just didn't see that as a...
00:26:56
Speaker
as the as the right option yeah yeah and you know through deduction yeah i really believe she came up with a list of she arrived at the decision she would place me for adoption yeah yeah i'm sure she was very thoughtful yeah then came up with a list of what she wanted my adoptive parents to be able to provide for me and she just nailed it on the head or or my adoptive parents nailed it on the head Yeah, that it sounds like it it makes sense when you say you had, you know, the perfect adoption story because ah so many pieces were put together to to see that you got what you needed. i don't think it was an accident. Yeah, yeah. I don't think was a matter of luck.
00:27:38
Speaker
That is beautiful. Did you ever pick up ice skating in your life? Everybody always asks that and they always say, well, I had weak ankles. Yeah. But my son, James, is a very accomplished ice skater. He still plays.
00:27:54
Speaker
ah He played hockey at pretty high level through his college years. Okay. And still plays on Sunday nights in an adult league. And before this all happened, he...
00:28:09
Speaker
met his now wife who just happens to be a certified figure skating coach oh wow but so no you know so i always say things happen for a reason i don't think that's an accident either that's i think no it's just just hopped there yeah oh that is amazing that is so cool kudos to them i'm did you ever did you ever find any other family members that were connected to your mom in your research Well, I did. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
i I spent a lot of time just trying to find out, was she alive? And eight ultimately met somebody who confirmed for me who who had grown up in their same neighborhood down in rural Georgia.
00:28:55
Speaker
Actually, they this was in the Atlanta area. And then my mother, her then husband, And their two sons moved out to a farm in rural Georgia.
00:29:06
Speaker
But this friend told me that, no, my mother had passed away. And I started my search in 2017. She passed away in 2014. okay So had I not waited quite so long, yeah there may have been a reunion.
00:29:22
Speaker
But he put me in touch with one of the two brothers, um The other brother had unfortunately passed away under kind of unfortunate circumstances.
00:29:33
Speaker
But yeah I made contact with my half brother, maternal half brother. And it took a very, very, very long time for me to explain to him and then convince him that he and i had the same mother.
00:29:53
Speaker
He just, you he asked me on three or four different occasions, tell me one more time, what kind of kin are we? Wow. And I would say you and I have different fathers. We have the same mother.
Finding Paternal Roots and Writing a Memoir
00:30:07
Speaker
That's hard to fathom if you didn't grow up with this brother next to you. like that Yeah, you know, and it's and i've I've said it, you know, had I found out my mother was alive,
00:30:19
Speaker
I would have taken a lot of time thinking about how do i approach this woman? You know, after 70 years, how do I walk into a room and say, hey, you you may remember me.
00:30:30
Speaker
But when I, you know, when I found that she had passed away, I sort of assumed he would take the same kind of interest that I did. So I just came bombing in and it took a while. And I thought, I thought, know, it was really kind of sweet because he, he had our mother up on a pedestal.
00:30:50
Speaker
He could just not possibly fathom his mother had had an illegitimate child. Yeah. And so he was younger. though Once I convinced him,
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was fine. everything Everything's good. Yeah. Yeah. And so he was younger than you, correct? Yeah, he was born in 56. So he's eight years younger than me. Okay. And his brother was born in 58.
00:31:15
Speaker
My mother ultimately got married 1955. Okay. Okay. i was I was the product of a summer romance. Yeah. Yeah. and And what about the father? Did you ever find any information on that? Yeah. I went on, ah even before I started this search, I went, the Christmas prior, I bought some DNA kits.
00:31:38
Speaker
So every time I buy my wife something, she returns and says it doesn't fit. So I said, okay, DNA kit has to fit everybody. And she ultimately told me she was too busy to spit into the tube, but she did ultimately.
00:31:53
Speaker
But I sent mine right in and somewhere in the midst of of my search, when I already knew about my my mother's family, I got my results back. And yeah and if if you've done DNA you know or anyone who has, you get a list with a couple of thousand distant relatives i can and you get your heredity, which was quite different than my yeah my Sicilian roots.
00:32:19
Speaker
But at the top of the list of relatives was listed, I think, as first cousin, close family. h And a name that I knew was not on my mother's side. Wow.
00:32:33
Speaker
And I was, yeah, I was very excited. I said, okay, this may take me to my father then. And I said, if he's my first cousin, then he's got an uncle somewhere who is my father. And fortunately he had a, a rather large family tree online. And he, I think he he had one uncle and six aunts, something like that. So I said, bingo, got me, I've got my father.
00:32:57
Speaker
So I reached out, out to the person who i matched with and, And happily, he responded you know almost immediately. And yeah, he was offered, yeah he gave me a little bit of background, offered to help with whatever he could. And I sent him back saying, this is what I'm thinking.
00:33:18
Speaker
Said, I think it's your Uncle Harris. He's got to be my he's got to be my dad. And a little while later, I got another email back saying, you know your your logic is perfect.
00:33:31
Speaker
But I can tell you, Uncle Harris never left Texas. And you're saying you were conceived in San Francisco. And I can also see that you're 25 or 30 percent Jewish.
00:33:44
Speaker
Uncle Harris doesn't have a lick of Jew to him. He said, but let me tell you what I'm thinking. Said my father was half Jewish.
00:33:54
Speaker
He said, you and I are half brothers. Stop. And that's exactly what it was. in you And its you hear the stories about people who you match with, will who will never talk to you.
00:34:07
Speaker
and never helped with information. He said, this is wonderful. I always wanted a brother. oh my goodness. Wow. So, yeah, he was able to tell me a lot about my father. He was nine years, 19, seven years older than my mother at the time I was conceived, and obviously always nine years or seven years older than my mother. Yeah. At the time that I was conceived, our father was...
00:34:34
Speaker
between the second and third of his five wives. Oh, wow. So he obviously had some element of charm to him. But yeah, it's interesting, both on my maternal side, I've i've been in touch with with somebody who knew my my mother and her husband very well. And on the paternal side, yeah, the feedback I've gotten almost word for word is I don't know where you grew up or with who.
00:35:04
Speaker
but you probably did better with them than you would have with wow either on either side. Yeah. That'll give you a lot of appreciation for the experience. Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
You can't be any more grateful than that. Wow, wow. That is amazing. And so you have chronicled this journey or or how do you describe your book? it It's part memoir, but it's also part creation. The first book interleaves memoir, which is the story of my search and all the elements of the search.
00:35:36
Speaker
And I suppose it's probably his creative nonfiction because what it does is it reconstructs my mother's travels from the time that she left home pursuing her career, she was 17 years old and Her parents put her on a train in New York City and let her let her travel three days to go to British Columbia to begin her career.
00:36:02
Speaker
And then five years later, she came back unexpectedly pregnant and sequestered herself. She you know she managed the pregnancy and my adoption pretty much in total secrecy.
00:36:15
Speaker
Wow. And yes, so. You know, know precisely where she was with, where she was, when she was there, and who she would have been with.
00:36:27
Speaker
So I can be very accurate about her travels. The one thing I don't know is, you know when... You know, when when the two of us talk, you know, what what got talked about.
00:36:38
Speaker
But you sort of start at one point, it's okay, if she was doing this, and then the next thing you know, she was doing that, you can pretty well figure out what took place in between.
00:36:49
Speaker
yeah So the dialogue and such is created, but it's it's it's very accurate. Wow. Wow. That's that's very interesting and and really creative to be able to take that story and put the pieces of the puzzle together like that.
00:37:03
Speaker
That's really cool. Yeah, it's neat that it's sort of interleaves one piece weaves in through the other. Yeah. Yeah. do you Do you have a background in writing or or what sparked like writing a book is an endeavor? I know like it's an endeavor. And so like, where'd that come from?
00:37:21
Speaker
Well, I think I've always had a way with words. you know i I always kind of tease it. yeah I worked for an airline that went bankrupt three times.
00:37:32
Speaker
And so three times i had to explain to the employees and I would have to explain explain pay cuts and things like that. So I had a background in creative writing. Yeah. yeah like I could tell you why a 10% pay cut is going to be good for you.
00:37:48
Speaker
so i yeah So I had that. I'd written a couple of, I was a fly fisherman. Yes, I wrote ah an article about fly fishing for a magazine. I i showed horses for a while. i had a an article about Appaloosa horses published.
00:38:06
Speaker
They were small things. this yeah My wife just saw something one day in the and a newsletter saying the library has a memoir class. Wow. oh that's So I so it went to the memoir class and it was good from the standpoint of, yeah, we didn't meet frequently, but when we did, you had to bring something.
00:38:26
Speaker
So it disciplined me to start committing things to paper. Yeah. And then I got into this search for my mother and these crazy discoveries I was making.
00:38:40
Speaker
And I had a friend who was a writer who kept telling me, you really need to write a book. You need to write a book. So I started writing about the discoveries. And then all of a sudden, I had 90,000 words on paper, not in any particularly good order.
00:38:56
Speaker
But then, you know, I said, okay, I've got something here, you know, so first I said, okay, let me make a two part book. You know, so part one will be the search part two will be what I, you know, what I found out about my mother and I decided to invest in a good editor and she came back and said, why don't we treat this sort of like a deck of cards and shuffle the two pieces together?
00:39:20
Speaker
And yeah, and that's what turned into the book. Wow. Wow. Wow. I love that. I love it. sounds like the library. is a a place of of true discovery for you you. You have found family members at the library. You found your writing at the library. And that's cool. So I'm pumping libraries. Go visit. If you're listening to this, go visit your local library. If it's not a bookstore, it's a library. So the libraries are free.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yes, it's free. And there's so many resources there. ah i have so ancestry and and all of that is very complex and complicated for me as a ah young black person in America. my My grandmother was very into it and she, you know, built out all of her family trees on or her family tree online.
00:40:12
Speaker
And but she was very disheartened. She got to, you know, Fanny, who was alive when she was alive. And she's like, I can't go any further than that. And so, you know, all the other relatives, it takes people to go out and to fill these things out, to find descendants of all of these different people and to do the swabs and to do all of that to really connect the dots. Because without those different pieces of information, you you don't have this story. You don't have this connection to your biological mother or and and father. And like so much of that is lost.
00:40:46
Speaker
So I think the most difficult part you know for an African-American is the records are good to the point that you've come to America.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah. not Not come to America freed from slavery. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and i i I think so in some cases and with somebody who's adept at doing these searches, you can go well back from there. But unfortunately, you know, Aunt Fannie's father may have been in number on somebody's roster.
00:41:24
Speaker
Could have been an initial property and age and Yeah, yeah it's a terrible that's a terribly hard thing. It is. Yeah, it's difficult. I think what she saw was, you know, Aunt Fanny, Fanny Everson was a a black woman. And then above her was a woman, a white woman, Fanny Everson.
00:41:44
Speaker
And so it just flipped to the the the owners. And so yeah that, yeah, it's it's difficult. But I still, I think i'm I'm always very curious and very interested in it. And I went to, i took a trip to Ghana ah this past year.
00:41:59
Speaker
And that just like sparked my curiosity even more. And so I did a swab to see from African Ancestry.com to to see which, you know, set of tribes. And it's it's a mix of a whole bunch of different things. But I came back Sierra Leone um and and there's a specific tribe there ah in Sierra Leone that.
00:42:22
Speaker
um a lot of my DNA is originated from, which I thought was really cool. So um i i think it's just fascinating to learn more. ah I'm curious what the what your overall sense of identity or what you gain most and learn most about yourself through
Impact on Identity and Family Dynamics
00:42:39
Speaker
this discovery. What has that been like?
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know that I changed a whole lot as a person. I think you... know You said it before, and i I take it as a great compliment. it's you know it It brought out a level of, I've always seen seen myself as a compassionate person, but it brought out, ah I think, an extra level there because, you know,
00:43:05
Speaker
My mother was a stranger to me, and my birth mother. She was total unknown quantity. But, you know, I feel like I know her quite well right now. And my greatest regret in not having met her was the inability to say, you know, thank you.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, did something good for me and it turned out better than you could have ever imagined. and you And the other part of the compassion is just meeting these these other women who have given up children. and there's this instinct that you want to go and hug them.
00:43:39
Speaker
you know it's just yeah and And just say, you know I'm not sure what I'd say, but it's just yeah just that i yeah I have such an appreciation for for what you went through. Not necessarily what you did, but what you went through in doing what you did.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. But it's been a learning experience. It's this it's sort of like opened up whole whole other little compartment in my life. Yeah, yeah. has it Has it shaped the way that that your family unit operates or how you communicate or anything like that?
00:44:16
Speaker
No, it really hasn't. You know, we... My son is at an age and a point in life where, you know, he said, oh, you wrote a book. That's nice. and yeah have he's He's met my, put he's actually met both of my half brothers.
00:44:34
Speaker
So, you know so he's been part of that. And I think he appreciates that, but it's not a, not a big part of his life. You know, my wife has been a partner on this trip right from the beginning.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah. So that's been good. And, you we, we talk about, you know, we've, we've We've just added to the family. Unfortunately, we've lost a couple of family members along the way, and we kind of jokingly talk about the new people as our replacement relatives. Yeah, that's good. But it's been a very, very positive experience. And as I said in the beginning, it's not that way for everybody.
00:45:11
Speaker
Wow, yeah. you know You read so much when you go into the online Facebook groups about people who... feel they're rejected from the beginning, people who were not accepted at the other end. And, you know, I'm blessed that I never experienced any of that.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, that is such a such a blessing. And i'm I'm happy that you had the experience that you had. And it's created a human that you shine like you. You exude like joy and brightness. And and I and I can only imagine that has been a a compounded effect of the amount of joy and goodness that has been poured into you from your adoptive family to the community that you surround yourself by. So it's it's really beautiful to to to witness.
Advice to Younger Self and Final Thoughts
00:45:57
Speaker
No, thank you. Yeah. I want to hop into a segment before we close out. And it's it's just a fill in the blank. And so first thing, ah vulnerability makes me feel blank.
00:46:10
Speaker
Being vulnerable makes me feel like a
00:46:16
Speaker
complete and understanding person. And that I understand myself and I attempt to understand others. Yes. Thank you. I love that.
00:46:27
Speaker
I love that. My biggest strength is blank.
00:46:34
Speaker
think my biggest strength is just the ability to live in the moment. I don't fret over the past and I... Yeah, I don't know what's coming in the future, but I'm not going to get sick worrying about it.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I can sense that. I can i can control today. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:55
Speaker
If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be blink.
00:47:03
Speaker
take better advantage of your education. You know, I was, I was the classic underachiever in high school or in middle school as well, you know, and I, I look back and there's so many things I'm trying to catch up on now. And I, and you know, and I can look back and I know just, you know, just where I, where I was and what I, you what I should have been doing rather than catching up at 77. Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I got it. This one just came to me. ah If my mom were still here today, she would tell me blank. bio ah Bio mom. She would tell me blank.
00:47:46
Speaker
She would say thank you. I'm proud of you.
00:47:50
Speaker
I'd agree. I'd agree. Lastly, when I need inspiration, I turn to blank.
00:48:02
Speaker
i I turned to my family, to my yeah my family ah unit, you know my wife, my son, yeah and my friends. you know I've got some close friends and and they they keep you filled up.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. i am I am so excited for people to hear this episode and to learn more about you and the writings that you've put out into this world and just your perspective on life. Because, you know, I thought, you know, when when I read a little bit about the adoption and your search and all of this, like there are thoughts that come to mind that that you think it's going to be one of those stories where it's like, man, I had resentment and anger in this. But to see how you have reframed the situation and found the beauty in you being the person that you are today because of this situation, because of the adoption is absolutely beautiful and and brilliant. So um i I thank you for being who you are.
00:48:58
Speaker
Are there any final thoughts that you want to leave the audience members? Well, I guess, you know, they say that one out of every four people is in some way touched by adoption.
00:49:14
Speaker
you know So either is adopted, has given a child up for adoption,
00:49:21
Speaker
has has adopted a child or you or Aunt Martha, has adopted one and you know about them. And ah so the the community out there is is actually pretty big. I think, you know, it's from my perspective is just, you know, if if you're not happy with the situation to step back from it and just give it some consideration. like I think try to look at it compassionately. Yeah. And I think people are angry about what happens and they don't take enough time.
00:49:54
Speaker
to think about why did it happen. yeah And in some cases you may step back and say, no, that's right. i I should be angry. But I think in a lot of other cases, I think, you know, if if you'll give it a little bit of, little bit of time and a little bit of breath You find that, okay, maybe something else was going on that I didn't think about.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah. let us just And be kind to yourself. Yeah, and that's whether you're adopted or not. Just but just be kind to you to yourself. it's ah yeah it's It's a tough world. It's messy world.
00:50:27
Speaker
That's great. That's great. I'm going to listen to that on on like every morning. I just need to hear those words. ah Be kind to yourself. Thank you for that.
00:50:39
Speaker
Ed, how can people contact you? How can they find the book? how can How can they they they just keep up with what's going on in your
Closing and Book Promotion
00:50:46
Speaker
life? Yeah, well, I've got a website and it's www.diganjiauthor.com.
00:50:55
Speaker
And that's D-I-G-A-N-G-I. ah If you want to just reach straight out, you can email me. at edward.dgangi. And I'll spell it again, D-I-G-A-N, like Nancy, G-I, at gmail.com. And i I love to hear people's stories. yeah I'm on Facebook. i don't post a terrible lot. I sort of run in spurts.
00:51:25
Speaker
Same thing with Instagram. And that's that's pretty much it. And yeah, id love to hear from people, love to share stories. And ah the book is available any place you can buy a book.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's The Gift Best Given, a memoir. the second book that's coming out, and it should be out by the beginning ah or middle of June, is Gliding Through Goodbye.
00:51:49
Speaker
And that's a continuation of my mother's story. And it's a continuation which talks about what she experienced emotionally as she resumed her travels with her ice skating career.
00:52:03
Speaker
And I'm in the process of kind of putting the fine final touches on that. And that that should be up on the website pretty soon. And then also available any place you buy books.
00:52:14
Speaker
yeah Yes, yes. Ed, it's been a pleasure having this conversation with you, my friend. And I'm looking forward to all of the the the future books and seeing what you do in life. It's it's it's truly remarkable.
00:52:27
Speaker
With all the things that you could be doing and all the places you could be, i appreciate you being here with me, Embracing Vulnerability. I really appreciate the invitation to come and talk with you. It's been a great conversation. Thank you for joining us in another episode of Vulnerability Muscle.
00:52:41
Speaker
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00:52:54
Speaker
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00:53:10
Speaker
Visit vulnerabilitymuscle.com for additional resources and support. And remember, embracing vulnerability is not a sign of weakness. It is the source of your greatest strength.
00:53:22
Speaker
Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but most workouts are. So keep flexing that vulnerability muscle.