Transcript

#67 Jenna · Heavyweight

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin.
0:24
Speaker 2: Jackie?
0:24
Speaker 3: Hi, honey.
0:25
Speaker 1: Why are you calling me from FaceTime? Well, you know,
0:29
Speaker 1: it's the first episode of the new season, season 10,
0:32
Speaker 1: and I thought it might be a fun way to
0:34
Speaker 1: mix things up a little. Sorry, I'm eating a bowl
0:38
Speaker 1: of soup. Where are you right now?
0:42
Speaker 3: I'm at a nursing home.
0:45
Speaker 1: So you're having some nursing home cafeteria soup? No, my
0:48
Speaker 1: own soup.
0:49
Speaker 4: No, no.
0:50
Speaker 1: You brought it with you? I bring it in a thermos. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: it's a storm outside. I always carry a thermos of soup.
0:56
Speaker 1: Do you wear it around your neck like a St. Bernard?
0:58
Speaker 4: I'm not going to laugh because I'm in a public place.
1:03
Speaker 1: Okay, call me back. Yeah, yeah.
1:04
Speaker 4: Goodbye.
1:05
Speaker 1: Oh, pick me up some hard candy from the gift shop.
1:14
Speaker 1: From Bushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight.
1:20
Speaker 1: Today's episode, Jenna. Right after the break.
1:36
Speaker 4: My girl's rooms are here.
1:38
Speaker 1: So neat.
1:39
Speaker 5: Wise's room.
1:41
Speaker 4: She's got a cello and a ukulele. She would correct
1:44
Speaker 4: me and she would say it's an ukulele mama.
1:47
Speaker 1: If love means doing anything for your family, then Jenna's
1:51
Speaker 1: kids truly know the meaning of love. For what, if
1:55
Speaker 1: not love, is listening to hours of amateur ukulele or ukulele?
2:01
Speaker 1: The childhood Jenna's giving her kids is quite different from
2:05
Speaker 1: the one she had. But Jenna's mom would have done
2:08
Speaker 1: anything for Jenna too. Oftentimes, though, there wasn't a lot
2:12
Speaker 1: she could do Growing up, it was just the two
2:15
Speaker 1: of them, Jenna and her mom.
2:18
Speaker 4: And my mom was incredibly lovely. She absolutely loved me,
2:26
Speaker 4: and she also had paranoid schizophrenia.
2:30
Speaker 1: This meant periods of instability, times when Jenna and her
2:34
Speaker 1: mom lived in cars or homeless shelters. It meant cooking
2:38
Speaker 1: them both dinner when her mother was having an episode. And, importantly...
2:43
Speaker 1: It meant always being on the lookout for child protective services.
2:47
Speaker 4: Anytime I saw anyone in a nice outfit or driving
2:51
Speaker 4: a nice car, I would hide. One of my very
2:54
Speaker 4: first memories was being physically taken away from my mom
2:59
Speaker 4: by CPS workers.
3:01
Speaker 1: How old were you, do you think?
3:03
Speaker 4: I think I was like four or five.
3:04
Speaker 1: What do you remember of it?
3:08
Speaker 4: I remember the feelings. of panic and terror. I remember
3:14
Speaker 4: the look on my mother's face. I remember the physical
3:19
Speaker 4: pulling away.
3:22
Speaker 1: That separation lasted a few weeks. Jenna's biggest fear was
3:26
Speaker 1: being separated for good. In the second grade, that fear
3:36
Speaker 1: came true. Jenna was in school when she heard her
3:39
Speaker 1: name being called over the P.A. She was told to
3:42
Speaker 1: go to the principal's office. When she got there, a
3:45
Speaker 1: social worker was waiting. The social worker told her she
3:49
Speaker 1: wouldn't be returning home. Instead, she was to be placed
3:52
Speaker 1: in long-term foster care. Jenna knew there must have been
3:56
Speaker 1: some incident with her mom, but no one would tell
3:59
Speaker 1: her what.
4:00
Speaker 4: Eight years old, like, adults are just not interested in
4:02
Speaker 4: telling you anything. And I got into a stranger's car
4:07
Speaker 4: and drove, having no idea what... Who I was going
4:11
Speaker 4: to meet.
4:12
Speaker 1: Do you remember if you had any belongings with you?
4:15
Speaker 4: My backpack.
4:16
Speaker 1: From school?
4:17
Speaker 4: My backpack and the clothes that I was wearing.
4:20
Speaker 1: The social worker drove further and further into rural Georgia.
4:24
Speaker 4: I remember going through my head of, well, maybe that's
4:27
Speaker 4: going to be my new house as we were, like,
4:28
Speaker 4: driving by houses. Or maybe that one's going to be
4:31
Speaker 4: my house, or I hope it's nice.
4:33
Speaker 1: Finally, they came to a farmhouse by a pond. A
4:37
Speaker 1: tall blonde woman emerged and introduced herself as Rhonda Grizzle.
4:41
Speaker 1: Rhonda would be Jenna's new foster mom. Jenna says the
4:45
Speaker 1: first thing Rhonda did was sit her down on the
4:48
Speaker 1: screened-in porch to talk.
4:50
Speaker 4: The only thing that I remember about that conversation was
4:54
Speaker 4: that Rhonda turned to me and said, is it okay
4:57
Speaker 4: if we call you Jenny? And it was a question,
5:01
Speaker 4: but you know how parents or adults ask a kid
5:04
Speaker 4: a question, but it's not really a question? I think
5:07
Speaker 4: that I was very aware that this was not up
5:10
Speaker 4: to me.
5:12
Speaker 1: Jenny was close to Jenna, but it wasn't her name.
5:16
Speaker 1: No one had ever called her Jenny. Here she was
5:19
Speaker 1: entering a strange new home with nothing much but her name.
5:23
Speaker 1: And now she was losing that too. Jenna became a
5:31
Speaker 1: foster daughter to Rhonda and her husband, Eddie Wayne, and
5:34
Speaker 1: a foster sister to their three biological children, a toddler,
5:38
Speaker 1: a preteen girl, and a boy that was about Jenna's age.
5:42
Speaker 1: And how did you fit in with the Grizzles?
5:44
Speaker 4: Well, let's start with the appearance. I was absolutely not
5:51
Speaker 4: like them. You know, the game, like, one of these things...
5:55
Speaker 4: doesn't look like the other, one of these things doesn't belong.
5:58
Speaker 4: Everyone else was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and I was this
6:02
Speaker 4: dark-haired kid with dark eyes that bore no resemblance. And
6:07
Speaker 4: so there was certainly a lot of eyebrows raised in
6:10
Speaker 4: public places, like, who is this kid?
6:13
Speaker 1: Her new brother, Cody, made it known that they'd had
6:16
Speaker 1: foster children before her. In fact, only a few months earlier,
6:20
Speaker 1: they'd fostered a girl around Jenna's age, and her name?
6:24
Speaker 1: Also Jenna. Jenna 1.0 had bullied Cody, and so he
6:32
Speaker 1: was understandably wary of this new Jenna's arrival. When Rhonda
6:37
Speaker 1: sat her down on the porch that very first day
6:39
Speaker 1: and turned her into Jenny, maybe that had been Rhonda's
6:42
Speaker 1: attempt at wiping the slate clean. Jenna cried herself to
6:51
Speaker 1: sleep most nights. She missed her mom and only got
6:54
Speaker 1: to see her during their weekly supervised visits, which often
6:57
Speaker 1: went poorly. So poorly that eventually her mom's parental rights
7:02
Speaker 1: were legally terminated.
7:04
Speaker 4: And it felt like I was grieving her as if
7:06
Speaker 4: she had died, because at that point I would not
7:08
Speaker 4: be allowed to see her again until I was an adult.
7:11
Speaker 1: With her mother's loss of custody, the Grizzles house became
7:14
Speaker 1: Jenna's new home. She grew close to her foster dad,
7:18
Speaker 1: Eddie Wayne, a high school teacher with a warm presence
7:21
Speaker 1: and a big, booming voice. Eddie Wayne taught Jenna how
7:24
Speaker 1: to fish, and Rhonda cooked her delicious meals every night.
7:28
Speaker 4: And that was very, very different from my experience. My
7:31
Speaker 4: experience was like cereal or like cheese puffs, and I
7:34
Speaker 4: was being exposed to homemade fried chicken and fried okra
7:39
Speaker 4: and green beans.
7:41
Speaker 1: Life was filled with vacations, boating, visits to the grandparents,
7:45
Speaker 1: new friends, birthdays and Christmases, board games and family dinners.
7:49
Speaker 1: In this way, two and a half years passed. For
7:53
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, the Grizzles were now her family.
7:57
Speaker 1: So it came as no surprise when one day, while
8:00
Speaker 1: the other kids were playing by the lake, Eddie Wayne
8:02
Speaker 1: called Jenna over.
8:04
Speaker 4: I just remember this very distinctly that my foster father
8:08
Speaker 4: brought me downstairs to the basement to have this conversation,
8:12
Speaker 4: which was, we would like to adopt you. Would you
8:17
Speaker 4: like that? Would you want that? And, of course, I
8:19
Speaker 4: said yes.
8:22
Speaker 1: It was official. Jenna was going to be a grizzle.
8:26
Speaker 1: But that never happened.
8:34
Speaker 4: So what happens next is my mom, she had mental illness,
8:38
Speaker 4: but she was not dumb. She's a very clever person.
8:43
Speaker 1: Jenna's mom had somehow figured out where Jenna was going
8:46
Speaker 1: to school. And from there, she found out Jenna's address.
8:50
Speaker 4: How she did that, I don't know.
8:52
Speaker 1: What she does know is that in the aftermath of
8:55
Speaker 1: her mom's discovery, something changed at the Grizzles.
8:58
Speaker 4: They decide that it's just simply not safe for me
9:03
Speaker 4: to stay with them anymore.
9:06
Speaker 1: Jenna's future was being yanked away from her. She wasn't
9:09
Speaker 1: going to be adopted. Instead, she was being kicked out.
9:13
Speaker 1: And this all happened in a matter of days.
9:21
Speaker 4: The way in which I left the home was so unemotional. Like,
9:26
Speaker 4: there was never like, this is unfair.
9:28
Speaker 1: You were never able to say to them, but wait
9:31
Speaker 1: a minute, what happened to that conversation we had? You
9:33
Speaker 1: said you were adopting me.
9:35
Speaker 4: Right. I never had that conversation with them. And the
9:38
Speaker 4: last day I was there, I was just kind of
9:42
Speaker 4: like packed my stuff. Like no one cried. That last
9:46
Speaker 4: day was like, do you want to go take a
9:48
Speaker 4: bath in like the jacuzzi tub? It's like the last
9:50
Speaker 4: time you're going to get to.
9:51
Speaker 2: That was said to you. Mm-hmm.
9:55
Speaker 1: Over the years, Jenna kept up with the Grizzles' lives
9:58
Speaker 1: on Facebook. She even saw the Grizzles a couple times
10:01
Speaker 1: in person, once at their grandmother's funeral and another time
10:05
Speaker 1: at their daughter's wedding. Did they still call you Jenny?
10:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, they to this day call me Jenny.
10:12
Speaker 1: At the wedding, Jenna remembers Eddie Wayne greeting her by saying,
10:16
Speaker 1: we never should have let you go. But Rhonda was
10:19
Speaker 1: quick to jump in and say that it all worked
10:21
Speaker 1: out for the best. And Jenna largely agrees. She ended
10:26
Speaker 1: up with a family called the Parkers. the Parkers gave
10:29
Speaker 1: her a good home filled with a lot of love.
10:32
Speaker 1: But at the same time, she feels like it all
10:35
Speaker 1: worked out for the best is an easy thing to
10:37
Speaker 1: say in retrospect, that as far as epilogues go, it's
10:41
Speaker 1: missing something. Jenna still doesn't understand how the Grizzles were
10:45
Speaker 1: able to give her up so easily, especially since she
10:48
Speaker 1: saw the lengths they went to for their eldest son, Cody.
10:52
Speaker 1: As an example, she tells me about the time their
10:55
Speaker 1: neighbors began building chicken houses. and how, because of Cody's allergies,
11:00
Speaker 1: the whole family relocated.
11:02
Speaker 4: For the sake of their son, they picked up and
11:04
Speaker 4: they moved. And as I got older, I began to
11:08
Speaker 4: ask myself, why couldn't they have moved for me?
11:12
Speaker 1: For Jenna, this resulted in her always feeling like she
11:17
Speaker 1: just wasn't good enough.
11:19
Speaker 4: Not pretty enough, not smart enough, just not lovable enough. I...
11:27
Speaker 4: didn't matter. I just didn't matter to them. There's got
11:34
Speaker 4: to be, I know there's more to it, but I
11:37
Speaker 4: carried those stories into my teenage years, into all of
11:41
Speaker 4: my dating relationships, into my marriage, into my divorce. I've
11:47
Speaker 4: been carrying this weight of not belonging and not being
11:53
Speaker 4: enough for Nearly 30 years. I also lost my son
12:06
Speaker 4: in 2020 to a heart condition.
12:10
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so sorry.
12:13
Speaker 4: Thank you. He was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome
12:18
Speaker 4: in 2018. I think people around me The way that
12:22
Speaker 4: they were responding to this devastating thing, you know, it
12:26
Speaker 4: was like, oh, you know, everything happens for a reason,
12:28
Speaker 4: and I'm like, well, fuck your reasons, I don't care.
12:31
Speaker 1: Everything happens for a reason. It all works out for
12:34
Speaker 1: the best. For Jenna, the platitudes are a cop-out.
12:38
Speaker 4: I think sometimes things just happen, and they're really bad,
12:42
Speaker 4: and you do your best to take a pile of
12:45
Speaker 4: horse shit, frankly, and turn it into a compost pile,
12:49
Speaker 4: which may be later turned into a garden. But that
12:52
Speaker 4: doesn't change the fact that the initial dump was horseshit.
13:01
Speaker 1: Jenna's now almost 40. Her biological mother has long since
13:05
Speaker 1: passed away, and she's a mother herself. At long last,
13:09
Speaker 1: she finally feels ready to have the conversation with the
13:12
Speaker 1: grizzles that she couldn't have as a kid.
13:15
Speaker 4: It would be helpful for me to know What was
13:19
Speaker 4: going through their minds as all of this was unfolding?
13:23
Speaker 4: How is it possible to want a future with someone
13:28
Speaker 4: as your kid, but not want it enough?
13:33
Speaker 1: What happened? Why did the grizzles give her up so easily?
13:37
Speaker 1: Why didn't they fight for her? Jenna wants answers, but
13:41
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to ask the questions alone.
13:44
Speaker 4: I also think that you may be able to ask
13:48
Speaker 4: questions in a way that allow them more comfort to answer. Because,
13:55
Speaker 4: I mean, these are questions that feel very kind of
13:57
Speaker 4: accusatory if they're asked in the wrong way.
14:01
Speaker 1: And so, I agree to accompany Jenna and help pose
14:04
Speaker 1: those questions the right way. But first, a question for you.
14:10
Speaker 1: Do you like deals? Then put on your bargain bib
14:15
Speaker 1: and open up for the bargain choo-choo. Load it up
14:19
Speaker 1: with boxcar after boxcar after boxcar of the biggest, fattest,
14:25
Speaker 1: juiciest deals you've ever savored. Jenna sends Rhonda and Eddie
14:37
Speaker 1: Wayne a Facebook message asking if they'll speak with her
14:41
Speaker 1: about that time. I would love the chance to share
14:44
Speaker 1: what that experience meant to me as a foster kid,
14:46
Speaker 1: she writes, and equally to ask questions and hear how
14:50
Speaker 1: you experienced it as foster parents. She signs the message,
14:55
Speaker 1: not Jenny, but Jenna. Was that a decision?
14:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really was. I realized that I have spent
15:07
Speaker 4: all of my life pretzeling myself into circumstances that are
15:11
Speaker 4: comfortable to others. And I wanted to make myself comfortable.
15:19
Speaker 1: Only 30 minutes after sending the message, Jenna receives a
15:23
Speaker 1: response from Rhonda.
15:25
Speaker 4: It said, dearest Jenna.
15:27
Speaker 1: She referred to you back as Jenna.
15:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the very first time that's ever happened. We
15:33
Speaker 4: would be happy to meet with you at any time.
15:35
Speaker 4: Great to hear from you. Love, Rhonda.
15:38
Speaker 1: So how did that feel?
15:41
Speaker 4: Immediately exciting. And then, I don't know, there's like a whooshing.
15:49
Speaker 4: Maybe like I'd been holding a breath for a while
15:52
Speaker 4: and I got to release it in that moment. And
15:55
Speaker 4: now I just like want to, can we just teleport
15:58
Speaker 4: everybody there?
16:00
Speaker 1: And through the magic of podcasting, we kind of can.
16:05
Speaker 1: Your car is very neat.
16:07
Speaker 4: Well, I cleaned it for you.
16:08
Speaker 2: Really?
16:09
Speaker 4: Yes, because my kids are absolute monsters in this car.
16:14
Speaker 1: From Jenna's house, it's an hour and a half drive
16:16
Speaker 1: through rural Georgia to the Grizzles.
16:19
Speaker 4: They're definitely going to the deep south right now.
16:23
Speaker 1: It's a ride ablaze with southern flair. Waffle houses brimming
16:27
Speaker 1: with grits. Wow. A hair salon showcasing mischievous wordplay called
16:32
Speaker 1: Grateful Head.
16:33
Speaker 4: My partner is in a Grateful Dead cover band.
16:36
Speaker 1: Does he know about Grateful Head? And in the middle
16:38
Speaker 1: of a strip mall. Is that a polygraph service?
16:41
Speaker 4: Yes, you can get your nails done and find out
16:43
Speaker 4: if your boyfriend's cheating at the same time.
16:45
Speaker 1: Do you see truck balls? Yes.
16:49
Speaker 3: God.
16:50
Speaker 1: For the uninitiated. Truck balls, or truck knots spelled with
16:55
Speaker 1: a Z, are genitalia that one hangs from the hitch
16:58
Speaker 1: of one's truck. In so doing, one makes one's entire
17:02
Speaker 1: truck more wee-wee-like, or ding-a-ling-like if you're south of the Mason-Dixon.
17:08
Speaker 4: When I was back in the dating pool, there were
17:10
Speaker 4: some tell-tale signs that, like, we were not going to
17:13
Speaker 4: work out, and swinging balls is definitely one of them.
17:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they seem really amazing. They're really sensitive and
17:20
Speaker 1: sweet and.
17:21
Speaker 4: If you put balls on your truck, I don't think
17:23
Speaker 4: any of that can be true.
17:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a mental note of this. We
17:26
Speaker 1: do an episode where we find the most sensitive, wonderful
17:29
Speaker 1: man who has truck balls.
17:31
Speaker 4: All right, we are three minutes away.
17:38
Speaker 5: All right.
17:40
Speaker 1: How are you feeling?
17:41
Speaker 3: Good.
17:43
Speaker 4: I'm starting to get in that little, like, fit-in-my-stomach feeling. Yeah.
17:48
Speaker 2: Like butterflies.
17:49
Speaker 1: The grizzles have moved since the time Jenna lived with them.
17:53
Speaker 1: Their new place is right on the water, tucked in
17:56
Speaker 1: among the trees.
17:57
Speaker 3: All right, here we are.
17:59
Speaker 2: Okay.
17:59
Speaker 1: Great.
18:14
Speaker 2: Come on in.
18:14
Speaker 3: Come on in. How you doing, girl?
18:17
Speaker 1: I'm good. Eddie Wayne greets us at the door.
18:20
Speaker 3: So this is Jonathan. Hey, Jonathan. Nice to meet you.
18:24
Speaker 1: It's been about 14 years since Jenna last saw the Grizzles.
18:27
Speaker 4: Hi, precious.
18:28
Speaker 3: How you doing?
18:29
Speaker 1: Rhonda emerges from upstairs. She gives Jenna a hug and
18:33
Speaker 1: joins Eddie Wayne on the couch. Jenna and I settle
18:36
Speaker 1: in on chairs across from them.
18:38
Speaker 3: Okay.
18:39
Speaker 4: Well, I just want to say, first of all, you guys...
18:43
Speaker 4: We're so quick to say yes to this surprise that
18:47
Speaker 4: you were like, what is this about? And like, who
18:49
Speaker 4: are these people?
18:51
Speaker 3: We're pretty much whatever you want. You were always very
18:55
Speaker 3: special to us.
18:57
Speaker 1: And so we get into it. Rhonda begins by telling
19:00
Speaker 1: us about the first time she ever saw Jenna.
19:03
Speaker 3: I thought you were a little, really, really pretty child.
19:06
Speaker 3: Very pretty child. She was a little timid. But that's understandable.
19:10
Speaker 3: You know, most foster children are. They're stuck in this
19:13
Speaker 3: house with these people they don't know. Strangers. But just
19:18
Speaker 3: a sweet child, very sweet child.
19:20
Speaker 2: Just a little old kid. Needed somebody to look at her.
19:23
Speaker 2: That's about it.
19:24
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:26
Speaker 1: While Jenna was the only one to stay longer than
19:28
Speaker 1: six months, Eddie and Rhonda fostered nine kids in total.
19:32
Speaker 3: Brittany and Justin. That's what I thought.
19:34
Speaker 1: As they begin to run through the list of children
19:37
Speaker 1: they took in over the years... something funny happens.
19:40
Speaker 3: Was Samantha next?
19:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she was.
19:42
Speaker 3: We had one that was a challenge. We had Samantha.
19:47
Speaker 1: It turns out I've already heard about Samantha, the foster
19:50
Speaker 1: kid that Cody had trouble with. But in the version
19:52
Speaker 1: I heard, Samantha had a different name. I don't know
19:55
Speaker 1: why I had it in my head.
19:56
Speaker 4: That Samantha's name was Jenna.
19:59
Speaker 1: No.
20:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, her name was Samantha.
20:08
Speaker 1: Jenna isn't sure why she's had this wrong for so long,
20:11
Speaker 1: but she covers up her misconception with a quick working theory.
20:15
Speaker 4: No, you know what it is? I think what it was, was...
20:19
Speaker 4: Samantha as a sort of doppelganger.
20:23
Speaker 1: Samantha was the same age as Jenna. Samantha even looked
20:27
Speaker 1: like Jenna. They were both dark-haired, dark-eyed girls in a
20:30
Speaker 1: family of blondes. And Samantha's getting kicked out represented Jenna's
20:35
Speaker 1: worst-case scenario.
20:36
Speaker 3: It sounds like it's a subconscious thing that she just...
20:39
Speaker 3: Don't be her, don't be her, don't be her. Yeah,
20:41
Speaker 3: don't be her.
20:43
Speaker 1: But if Samantha's name was Samantha, then why was Jenna's
20:46
Speaker 1: name changed to Jenny in the first place?
20:49
Speaker 3: We just always called her Jenny, and I don't know why.
20:52
Speaker 3: I can't even remember why.
20:54
Speaker 4: I remember being on the front porch, and you asked
20:57
Speaker 4: me if I'd like to be called Jenny. And I thought, well,
21:02
Speaker 4: I wasn't sure if I said no, if I would
21:05
Speaker 4: get to stay. So I said yes.
21:09
Speaker 3: I do remember thinking you looked to me like a Jenny.
21:13
Speaker 1: Jenna becoming Jenny hadn't been done for reasons good or bad.
21:18
Speaker 1: It hadn't been done for much of any reason at all. Eventually,
21:27
Speaker 1: Jenna inches the conversation away from her entrance into their
21:31
Speaker 1: home to the touchier subject of her departure.
21:34
Speaker 4: Eddie Wayne, I don't know if you remember this, but
21:37
Speaker 4: we were in the basement one day. It was just
21:38
Speaker 4: you and me, and you asked me if I wanted
21:40
Speaker 4: to be adopted.
21:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. You remember that? Yeah.
21:42
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
21:43
Speaker 4: You know, I was happy about it.
21:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were fixing to start.
21:48
Speaker 2: We had discussed it.
21:49
Speaker 3: That's what our plan was. We had been talking about it, yeah.
21:51
Speaker 2: Seemed like a good time, get a little feedback. Then
21:54
Speaker 2: I went and told her that, hey, I think Jenny
21:56
Speaker 2: wouldn't mind it.
21:57
Speaker 4: Yeah.
21:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was our plan until your mother threw a
22:00
Speaker 2: wrench in everything.
22:08
Speaker 3: Her mother found her, and that's why they had to
22:11
Speaker 3: move her.
22:13
Speaker 1: Jenna had never known exactly how her mother had found her.
22:16
Speaker 1: According to Rhonda, though, it was all because of a shirt,
22:20
Speaker 1: a school T-shirt that Jenna wore during one of her
22:22
Speaker 1: supervised visits with her mom. Rhonda explains the domino chain
22:27
Speaker 1: of mistakes. First, Rhonda sent Jenna off that morning in
22:31
Speaker 1: a T-shirt with the school's logo on it. When the
22:34
Speaker 1: social worker picked Jenna up, she noticed the shirt, considered
22:38
Speaker 1: stopping to buy a new one, but ultimately didn't. During
22:42
Speaker 1: the visit, Jenna's mom saw the school's name on the shirt.
22:46
Speaker 1: And when she later lost custody, she was so desperate
22:49
Speaker 1: to get Jenna back that she showed up at the school,
22:53
Speaker 1: where the school secretary gave her the grizzle's address.
22:56
Speaker 3: And what's so bad about it, a week before that,
22:59
Speaker 3: I had actually had a personal conversation with her. You
23:02
Speaker 3: do not give our address, our phone number, our information
23:05
Speaker 3: to anyone. And I personally had that conversation with her,
23:08
Speaker 3: and she gave it out. If it hadn't been for that,
23:11
Speaker 3: he probably would have been with us forever.
23:15
Speaker 1: But just because Jenna's mom had found their address, why
23:18
Speaker 1: send Jenna away? It turns out there was more to
23:21
Speaker 1: the story.
23:22
Speaker 3: Your mother, she was threatening Cody. I don't know if
23:28
Speaker 3: you knew that.
23:28
Speaker 4: No, I didn't know that.
23:29
Speaker 3: She was threatening Cody, and she was threatening Wayne, but
23:32
Speaker 3: that didn't bother us. So she was threatening to kill
23:35
Speaker 3: both of them. And we could take a chance on Wayne.
23:40
Speaker 3: Didn't faze us, but we couldn't take a chance on Cody.
23:42
Speaker 2: I had a lot of people want to kill me.
23:44
Speaker 3: We couldn't, you know. Cody was 12.
23:47
Speaker 5: Yeah.
23:49
Speaker 3: I mean, we had police monitoring our home, and the
23:52
Speaker 3: school was in lockdown. I don't know if you knew that. No.
23:55
Speaker 3: He was nervous. You know, in a way, it was
23:59
Speaker 3: a decision we had to make between Cody and Jenna.
24:07
Speaker 3: You know, I had... In the long run, I had
24:10
Speaker 3: to choose my own child. And, you know, I don't
24:15
Speaker 3: mean to be hurtful with that at all.
24:17
Speaker 2: Well, the decision was Jenny would have a chance going
24:20
Speaker 2: to another home, but if your son was dead, he's dead.
24:24
Speaker 3: And I was also choosing whether his mental state, too.
24:30
Speaker 1: Jenna takes in what Eddie and Rhonda are saying. She
24:33
Speaker 1: then offers this about the family that adopted her, the Parkers.
24:38
Speaker 4: With the Parkers, we had a similar situation. One of
24:41
Speaker 4: the foster kids' parents found out, and we did go
24:44
Speaker 4: into a bit of a lockdown. And it was scary.
24:48
Speaker 4: I remember it being scary for us as well. So
24:52
Speaker 4: I definitely understand the psychological fear that really kind of
24:55
Speaker 4: eats you, like what's going to happen next.
24:58
Speaker 1: Jenna's offering this story in sympathy, letting Eddie Wayne and
25:02
Speaker 1: Rhonda know that she understands their fear because she'd gone
25:05
Speaker 1: through something similar with the Parkers. The difference, though, is
25:09
Speaker 1: that the Parkers kept the child. So with the story,
25:12
Speaker 1: what I'm also hearing is Jenna telling the Grizzles there
25:15
Speaker 1: might have been a different path, one in which they
25:18
Speaker 1: all stayed together. For years, Jenna has been telling herself
25:27
Speaker 1: this hurtful story about not being important enough to the Grizzles.
25:32
Speaker 1: If her hope has been to learn that this hurtful
25:34
Speaker 1: story isn't true, that isn't what's happening, Instead, she's learning
25:39
Speaker 1: it was true. Even though they were set to adopt her,
25:42
Speaker 1: she didn't mean as much to them as their biological son.
25:47
Speaker 1: Jenna raises the difference in her and Cody's status, citing
25:50
Speaker 1: the incident about the chickens and Cody's allergies that stayed
25:54
Speaker 1: with her all these years.
25:56
Speaker 4: The story I told myself was, Cody had an issue
26:00
Speaker 4: and you moved. And the logical step for me was
26:06
Speaker 4: that I wasn't, worthy enough to move.
26:12
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
26:14
Speaker 4: I kind of carried that with me.
26:17
Speaker 3: I don't think it dawned on me at the time,
26:19
Speaker 3: but I did later think, well, you know, we should
26:21
Speaker 3: have just moved. I didn't think it through as well
26:25
Speaker 3: as I should have, I guess. And, you know, you
26:28
Speaker 3: went to the Rays.
26:30
Speaker 1: After leaving the Grizzles, but before being adopted by the Parkers,
26:34
Speaker 1: Jenna lived with a family called the Rays. The Grizzles
26:38
Speaker 1: engineered the move to keep Jenna in their lives even
26:40
Speaker 1: after her departure. The Rays were a family that attended
26:44
Speaker 1: the same church as the Grizzles, and Jenna was friends
26:46
Speaker 1: with their daughters. With Jenna being moved to the Rays,
26:50
Speaker 1: she could at least get to see the Grizzles at church.
26:53
Speaker 1: But for Jenna, the new arrangement meant that every week,
26:56
Speaker 1: while seated in a different row with a different family,
26:59
Speaker 1: she had to watch the Grizzles from afar. Every week
27:03
Speaker 1: for six months, she sobbed in her pew.
27:06
Speaker 4: It was like I had died, but I was a
27:08
Speaker 4: ghost and I got to see you guys living your life.
27:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:11
Speaker 4: And I wasn't a part of it anymore. I felt
27:14
Speaker 4: like you guys were just fine without me. Yeah.
27:20
Speaker 3: There was many Sundays that I just wanted to absolutely
27:24
Speaker 3: tear you from them, from the rays and say, come home.
27:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:28
Speaker 3: I mean, most Sundays I would walk in and she
27:31
Speaker 3: would be standing at the door and she would just
27:33
Speaker 3: grab me. And that was terrible. It was awful. It
27:37
Speaker 3: was just heart-wrenching.
27:39
Speaker 1: Did it ever get easier? No. You know, it just
27:42
Speaker 1: never did. No.
27:43
Speaker 3: No. Every Sunday was torture. It was. I have church
27:49
Speaker 3: crying odels of Sundays.
27:54
Speaker 1: I can see that Jenna is surprised. She never had
27:57
Speaker 1: any indication that Rhonda had feelings about any of this
28:00
Speaker 1: at all. To that, She asks about that very last
28:04
Speaker 1: day spent at their house.
28:06
Speaker 4: I remember it not being very emotional. Like, we didn't cry.
28:11
Speaker 4: Did we cry?
28:12
Speaker 3: I don't think so, but I think I wouldn't let
28:16
Speaker 3: myself cry in front of you. Yeah. You did cry. Oh, yeah,
28:21
Speaker 3: I cried. Yeah, when she left, I cried very much so. Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 3: I didn't want her to see me upset, I guess,
28:29
Speaker 3: which probably was not a good idea either.
28:32
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't... It wasn't a light decision.
28:35
Speaker 3: No, it wasn't a light decision, and it was an
28:36
Speaker 3: extremely heart-wrenching decision. Yes. I do have regrets. I very
28:44
Speaker 3: much have regrets. And I still, at times, you know, think, well,
28:48
Speaker 3: you know, you should have just trudged through.
28:50
Speaker 1: Do you still feel that way?
28:52
Speaker 3: At times, yeah.
28:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you, Eddie, ever felt those feelings?
28:59
Speaker 2: No, not really.
29:01
Speaker 1: On this point, Jenna takes exception.
29:03
Speaker 4: I'm going to call you on that because I remember
29:06
Speaker 4: it was the day before Laura's wedding, and I walked in,
29:09
Speaker 4: I believe it was this door. You did, you did.
29:12
Speaker 4: And the first thing you said to me was, never
29:15
Speaker 4: should have let you go.
29:17
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess everybody has their grits.
29:22
Speaker 1: Eddie Wayne's concession is small, and it doesn't last.
29:25
Speaker 2: But as far as the decision, it was just what
29:28
Speaker 2: we had to do. As far as regret, when I
29:31
Speaker 2: have regrets, it's when I do something I know is really,
29:34
Speaker 2: really wrong.
29:37
Speaker 1: If love means doing anything for your family, in Eddie
29:40
Speaker 1: Wayne's eyes, Jenna just never made the cut. We love you.
29:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna give you a hug.
29:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me a good old hug there.
29:55
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
29:56
Speaker 3: I love you, sweetheart. I always will. You will always
29:59
Speaker 3: be very special to us.
30:13
Speaker 4: Sorry, I just wanted to take a breath.
30:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
30:16
Speaker 4: That was a lot.
30:18
Speaker 1: Back in the car, Jenna grapples with contradictory emotions. In
30:22
Speaker 1: some ways, she's feeling better. But in other ways, she's
30:25
Speaker 1: left feeling worse. Especially concerning the choice that was made
30:29
Speaker 1: between her and Cody.
30:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really was between me and him. Because I
30:34
Speaker 4: was hoping that that was mostly in my head.
30:37
Speaker 1: And so, she's still left with that feeling. That the
30:39
Speaker 1: Grizzles wanted her as their kid. Just not enough.
30:42
Speaker 4: And honestly, Eddie surprised me. I thought he would be softer.
30:46
Speaker 4: And the fact that he was so firm about that
30:52
Speaker 4: it wasn't a bad decision. I don't know. That's hard
30:55
Speaker 4: to hear.
31:02
Speaker 5: First time was seeing her walk by the glass when
31:05
Speaker 5: we were meeting in a conference room.
31:09
Speaker 1: This is Jenna's adoptive mom, Pam Parker. Here she is
31:13
Speaker 1: talking with me and Jenna about the first time she
31:16
Speaker 1: ever laid eyes on Jenna. I just was taken with her.
31:20
Speaker 5: And it was just, I don't know what it was.
31:23
Speaker 1: It was just the Lord.
31:24
Speaker 5: It was just an odd, I was just drawn to her.
31:28
Speaker 1: Pam and her husband, Dean, have two biological children. And
31:31
Speaker 1: after Jenna, they adopted four more kids.
31:34
Speaker 4: One of the things they said to me, and they
31:37
Speaker 4: said to every foster kid that came through their doors, was,
31:40
Speaker 4: this is the end of the line. You either go
31:43
Speaker 4: home to your parents, which we're going to be so
31:45
Speaker 4: happy if you do, or we're going to take you
31:49
Speaker 4: in forever. But you don't have to worry about going
31:52
Speaker 4: anywhere else.
31:53
Speaker 1: Wow. That's quite a promise.
31:55
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. And they held true. They never sent any kid away.
32:00
Speaker 1: Do you remember actually saying that, Pam? No.
32:05
Speaker 5: But it was our— we did not want to be one
32:09
Speaker 5: of those trying kids on for size problems. type families
32:13
Speaker 5: to see if they worked. Because quite honestly, when you
32:16
Speaker 5: birth children, you're not guaranteed a personality that you jive with.
32:23
Speaker 5: Love is beyond that. Love is a commitment to care
32:27
Speaker 5: for the person, whether it's easy or whether it's hard.
32:32
Speaker 1: For Pam, you don't love someone because they're family. You
32:36
Speaker 1: just love them. And that's what makes them family. Two
32:47
Speaker 1: years after Jenna moved in with the Parkers, she had
32:50
Speaker 1: her official adoption day.
32:52
Speaker 5: I had said to Jenna, I know this doesn't feel
32:54
Speaker 5: like this to you, but I feel like I've just
32:57
Speaker 5: gone to the hospital and had a baby.
33:00
Speaker 4: I'm trying not to get emotional right now because by
33:03
Speaker 4: the time I ended up with them, I just did
33:05
Speaker 4: not have any courage to love anymore. It took me
33:11
Speaker 4: a long time. I would wake up after my adoption saying,
33:14
Speaker 4: And I would have to remind myself that I wasn't
33:17
Speaker 4: going anywhere for a long time. And so what I
33:21
Speaker 4: admire the most about my parents, and I call them
33:24
Speaker 4: my parents now and it gets deeply confusing because it's like,
33:27
Speaker 4: which parents? What I admire most about them is that
33:31
Speaker 4: they loved me into loving them. Okay, so that's the
33:44
Speaker 4: farmhouse up there.
33:46
Speaker 1: Before heading home from the Grizzles, we decide to make
33:49
Speaker 1: one more stop at the Grizzles' old house, the farmhouse
33:53
Speaker 1: where Jenna first came to live with them. It's been
33:57
Speaker 1: over a decade since Jenna's been here.
33:59
Speaker 4: We play basketball. There was an electric fence, which I
34:01
Speaker 4: got shocked by a couple of times.
34:03
Speaker 1: Jenna wanted to come so she could leave behind a letter,
34:06
Speaker 1: a couple pages of neat, handwritten script. It's a letter
34:10
Speaker 1: to herself at age 10.
34:14
Speaker 4: Dear Jenna, I am writing to you at a time
34:17
Speaker 4: in your life that is filled with heartache and pain.
34:20
Speaker 4: I know how much you want your mom to get
34:22
Speaker 4: better so that you can go home. I know how
34:25
Speaker 4: much you miss your dog Shadow and your friends at school.
34:30
Speaker 4: And I know how much you just want to belong,
34:33
Speaker 4: how hard you try to fit in. You are lonely
34:36
Speaker 4: because you are far from home. You are made more
34:39
Speaker 4: lonely because you sense you don't belong here. how I
34:43
Speaker 4: long to scoop you up and hold you in my
34:45
Speaker 4: arms and whisper that you will belong one day as
34:50
Speaker 4: I stroke your back the way a mother should. My dear, sweet,
34:56
Speaker 4: funny girl, you will belong one day, but not in
35:00
Speaker 4: the way you expect. You will search far and wide
35:03
Speaker 4: to find that special someone, and I am here to
35:06
Speaker 4: tell you that person is you. And when you finally
35:10
Speaker 4: find your truest love has been you all along, you
35:13
Speaker 4: will know you belong everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Your truest love
35:23
Speaker 4: and most ardent supporter, Jenna.
35:33
Speaker 1: And with that, we get back in the car and
35:35
Speaker 1: drive away from the grizzles, away from the farmhouse. We
35:40
Speaker 1: drive back home.
36:18
Speaker 3: If we meant it, if we tried.
36:52
Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Kalila Holt and me,
36:55
Speaker 1: Jonathan Goldstein, along with Lisa Wang. Our supervising producer is
37:00
Speaker 1: Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to
37:04
Speaker 1: Alexandra Garriton, Ben Nattaff-Haffrey, Alex Bloomberg, and Jackie Cohen.
37:09
Speaker 4: And.
37:31
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our free newsletter at patreon.com
37:35
Speaker 1: slash heavyweight. We'll be back next week with a new episode.
37:52
Speaker 1: Unless there's anything else that either of you want to say.
37:55
Speaker 4: Well, can I just tell you that I love you?
37:57
Speaker 1: Oh, I love you too. Okay, come on. Wrap it up,
38:00
Speaker 1: you guys. No, I'm just kidding.