Soul SiStories
Soul SiStories was born out of a mutual desire to bring forward hope and healing through sharing our lived experiences. Hope is embracing life despite adversity. Hope is our reason.
Soul SiStories
Hope Through Surrender: Debbie McDonnell's Story
What happens when a 16-year-old girl makes the hardest decision of her life, then spends decades wondering about the outcome? Reverend Debbie McDonnell, sister to podcast hosts Dona and Diana, opens her heart to share a profoundly moving adoption story that spans 44 years.
Debbie takes us through her unexpected teenage pregnancy in 1976 and the spiritual experience that guided her choice to place her son for adoption. With remarkable candor, she describes her conviction that she had "made an agreement with this soul" to bring him into the world, even if she couldn't be the one to raise him. This early surrender became the foundation for her life philosophy and spiritual practice.
The conversation weaves through the challenging realities of adoption in the 1970s – from being removed from school during her pregnancy to the emotional isolation of giving birth on Mother's Day while family celebrated nearby. Debbie shares the heartbreaking moment she chose not to see her baby, knowing she couldn't bear to hold him and then let go. Yet this painful chapter eventually transforms into a story of healing and connection when, during the COVID pandemic of 2020, Debbie and her son Larry finally reconnect through DNA testing.
What unfolds is a beautiful testament to the healing power of openness and surrender. As Debbie meets not only her son but his wife and daughter, she discovers the joy of seeing family resemblances, shared traits, and the confirmation that Larry had a wonderful life with his adoptive family. The sisters reflect on how this experience influenced their own lives – particularly Dona's journey to become an adoptive mother herself.
Whether you've been touched by adoption or simply need inspiration for navigating life's difficult crossroads, this episode offers wisdom on finding hope through surrender and transforming pain into purpose. As Debbie says, "Surrender isn't giving up – it's letting go and allowing your best life to emerge."
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Welcome to Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Soul Sisteries. We just had probably one of my favorite conversations with one of our other sisters, Debbie McDonald.
Speaker 1:I mean, come on, that was just glorious. I mean, come on, that was just glorious. And we continue to have these easy conversations. But the grace and the openness with which she shares her story and you know, the adoption story, which is so close to my heart and is something that we experienced from the perimeter with her, but to go in with such, like I said, grace and beauty, just man, I love that girl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for me, any time I get to spend with my sisters is, you know, a blessing. Here we are at Soul Sisteries, and welcoming one more into this journey with us has just been incredible. I can't wait for everybody to listen in and hear what she has to share.
Speaker 1:Sister, time is good time. Enjoy everyone. We're so glad to be here today talking to the wonderful Debbie McDonald, who just happens to be another of the sisters. We have quite a few sisters. Here's a third for everyone to get to know. She's obviously been a part of our lives always. She's our older sister, so we've both lived our lives always with our beautiful Debbie here with us, and there's so many wonderful parts to her story that she's going to focus on one particular area today with us, and so we're so grateful for that. Just so everybody knows, debbie is Reverend Debbie. She's a minister at a spiritual center and she's also had a diverse career path that has included life in Hollywood and has included interior design and art in so many different forms and counseling and all sorts of wonderful paths. But welcome, welcome, sister Debbie. Thank you.
Speaker 3:It's good to be here, how fun it is. You know this soul sistery and we certainly have a lot of stories over well, my 64 years. You two came in a little bit later, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Collectively, we have some years under our belt.
Speaker 2:We do, and I was sharing with you both recently that it was 20 plus years ago, 23 years ago, that we were chatting on our weekly calls and talking about what does the future hold and what are we doing together. And this is kind of cool to see us right here and actually see us not just on calls, because now we have zoom also.
Speaker 1:So very, that's true back then.
Speaker 3:No zoom and people that's right, we were doing the dial-in conference call, remember, yeah yeah, people listening right now are probably going.
Speaker 1:I can't tell any of you apart, because this is what diane and I keep hearing you guys sound so much alike, and obviously I know that your voice sounds a lot like our voices too. So here we are, three little birds with a similar tune, but we want to talk to you about your tune and your path, and when we asked you to come on our podcast with us, there were so many different areas that we could have talked about, and you are certainly somebody we both admire and love so much and are just so grateful for having walked this path with you. But one of the stories, one of the parts of your story that resonates, I know for me a great deal and I feel so grateful to have followed the path, is your, your adoption journey, your your journey of making an adoption plan and all that has unfolded, and I'd love to focus on that today. So that's where we're starting, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess maybe we'll leave it to you, sis, to just kind of share what you want of the story that gets us to where we are today and also, let's just say we want to say your word too, because we asked you to come up with your hope through and share that with us, if you would. What is your hope through?
Speaker 3:because it's well, yeah, I, you know, um, when you all were talking about launching this podcast and doing the hope through and the different words, of course I thought, well, what would my word be? What would I? What would I be talking about? You know, and and um, because a big part of my life is in recovery.
Speaker 3:I stopped drinking and using 37 years ago, which is crazy. So I always thought, well, hope through addiction, that would be a thing you know. But then when you asked me to speak about the adoption and all of that and the releasing of my son for adoption, you know, when I was just 16 years old, you know, and I had to think about that and go like what was that about and what would that hope have been? And it didn't really feel like a very hopeful time to me, you know. It felt like a really really sad time. And then I realized that the really the process and really for many things in my life has been hope through surrender, like that final surrender of letting go, you know, and literally and figuratively, and that that that is where the hope was birthed for me. So I think that hopefully that makes sense to people.
Speaker 1:You know it's gorgeous. I think that, hopefully, that makes sense to people. You know it's gorgeous. I mean it's you know what. I think, though, that there are probably a number of people who don't really know what it is that you mean when you say that Hope through surrender, because that can just like hope through giving up, hope through throwing in the towel, hope through and that's not at all what you're talking about. So you want to talk a little bit more about what that means Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Because, yes, it is a different kind of a surrender and it's different than the surrender that I think a lot of us grew up with knowing and understanding. Like you know, never give up and never say, uncle, and don't you know surrender? We're not talking about surrendering and being a doormat, or surrendering and just giving up all hope. No, it's that irony of you know, in the 12-step community they talk about surrender. Power is, you know, a power that is greater than us, that knows all, and we can just allow ourselves to feel safe in that place. And it takes time to do that and it's not always done consciously. And oh, yes, I, I'm gonna surrender and the universe will take care of me. You know, it's like, yeah, we may take many, many steps before we get to.
Speaker 3:oh my gosh, I just can't do it anymore and I'm gonna let go and allow the universe to work through me and know it'll be good you know, know, and the more that we practice that and we get the results that are amazing and good and the more we can trust in, the more that we can do that kind of surrender.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it's kind of what a lot of people today talk about with like mindfulness practices, right, not not fighting the waves, just laying and letting the weight and it take you and move with them, instead of always fighting against them. Right, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that was, you know, when I look at the whole process of adoption and it certainly was a process for me, again, you know, I was very, very young, you know, and I didn't realize really at the time of how young I was.
Speaker 3:You know, I was very, very young, you know, and I didn't realize really at the time of how young I was, you know, but the surrender came through, what was really one of my first spiritual experiences, and I I didn't know that that was what it was at the time, but I remember, you know, being pregnant and of course, I was so young that I really didn't even acknowledge the fact that I might be pregnant.
Speaker 3:You know, I was just in absolute denial about that. And it wasn't until four or five months into my pregnancy that I thought, well, I better go and find out if I really am pregnant. And, um, you know, you guys grew up in the same home. I did. It was a little bit dysfunctional, to say the least. And so I found my way to, uh, a Planned Parenthood, you know, and I got a pregnancy test and I found out that I was pregnant, you know. And and in the crazy part of that is, you know, it wasn't suspected by anybody, you know, by my parents anyway, or our parents. And so when I finally went to talk to mom and tell her, and then my experience of having to tell dad, I mean all of that was just horrendously awful, you know, and um, and then I had to make a decision, you know, about what was I going to do. And this is where spiritual experiences comes in, and I haven't told this to larry yet and larry is my son who, um, I had I was 16, almost 17. And in 2020, my gift of COVID was that the year that I got to meet him and start a relationship with him. So that's amazing.
Speaker 3:But at the time I got really quiet and I did spend a lot of time with just myself during that time, because I couldn't go to school, I was home alone and I always had this connection with some kind of spiritual thing, and somewhere it got really clear to me that I had made an agreement with this soul to bring it forth into the world, whether I was the person that was going to be his mother or not and raise him. And now I had no idea. I mean, I've learned so much since then, but at that point it was really, really clear that we had made this deal. You know, and that was my first surrender to okay. You know, that was the agreement, as weird as it seems I mean, it seems weird to even say it now but it was very, very clear to me that that was the deal and so I did make the choice and there's a whole bunch of weird synchronistic things that happened how he ended up with, the family that he ended up with and all of that. But it was the letting go and allowing that to be and trusting it. Oh, there's so many little things that happened.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't know if you girls remember, but I didn't fully and I hope this isn't too much information for your listeners, but I didn't fully expel the placenta and I think that was. You know, it's like a symbolic of holding on, like I wasn't really releasing it. And I came home and I got really sick and I had to go back to the hospital. I don't know if you girls remember that, yeah, and mom was all like, well, this has never happened to me, I've had five children and why did this happen? And you know, and it was just really interesting and and I remember being in the hospital and there was this one nurse who was just so sweet and and back in then I guess it was 1976, they did it.
Speaker 3:It was very different than birthing a child now. It was very much the way that probably mom had to do it and the women before, where they just kept you laid down, strapped in. You couldn't get up and walk around. It wasn't natural by any means whatsoever. It was a long, long, long, long birth, which is so weird because Sean and Brianna, my two children that I had later in life, were like speedy birds. Like you know, four hours start to finish, but Larry was long. It was long and uh, and did we say he was born on mother's day? That's kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:There was a family gathering celebrating Mother's Day at our home. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:And mom came, you know, and she stayed with me that whole time and it was finally when the doctors, after many hours of labor, they said we're going to have to do a cesarean if you don't, you know, start having some movement. And then it was there. So I mean now in retrospect, and after many years of therapy and body work and all kinds of things, you know, I realized that there was this holding on, even in the letting go and physically holding on and psychologically holding on. But there was this one nurse and that's what I started to say that she came to me because they put me on a surgery floor. They didn't put me on the maternity floor because they thought, I think, that that was being nice, so I wouldn't be with all the other mothers and babies.
Speaker 3:And then, when Larry was born, I saw him for just a second and they took him to the nursery and there was this one nurse who kept encouraging me go go see him, go see him, go see him, you know. And and everybody else just pretended like I hadn't had a baby, I just there. It was very, very weird and, uh, I, um, I couldn't go. I couldn't go see him because I knew if I held him, there was no way I would be able to release him, you know, and I um, over the years, I wondered if that was the right thing or the wrong thing, or the good thing or the bad thing, you know, but it just wasn't what it was, you know. And then life changed a whole bunch after that, yeah, you know, and then coming full circle with having a sister who then adopted a little boy, and I got to see both, it was just, it's just been this crazy part of my life, you know. And then, of course, now meeting him and knowing him and all of that.
Speaker 2:So anyway, and it's the way it's supposed to be right, because it is what the universe unfolded for you. But listening to you tell the story that I hadn't ever heard before about when you made the decision of what you were going to do, it reminded me of a book that you turned me on to many years later, after you know my own kind of spiritual journey, but that Neil Donald Walsh book, the, the children's book, you know, the little soil where you know they make kind of this, packed together to this, is the journey we're going to go on, and that's very cool because it was. You know, I don't know who was speaking to you, right? Was it the little soul speaking to you? Was it spirit? You know, I don't know who was speaking to you, right? Was it the little soul speaking to you? Was it spirit speaking to you? Who knows? But something came to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's beautiful. Well, your journey had a profound effect on me. I can tell you a little. You know, middle child role that I had was to observe, be hyper observant and vigilant of everyone and everything right. So I was very aware of you at this time in your energy, and I can tell you my experience of your energy and your presence through all of this was that you were incredibly mature, mature and you were incredibly grounded and in this it felt like you were in this separate space of creativity and I don't mean that in a silly way you were creating a child, I don't mean that you were just in a creative space and you were in this space of growth and it was. It was like palpable, it was just. It was really palpable and calming for me to feel.
Speaker 3:Now I know you had your own experience internally, but that's what you were radiating always through. That, I mean, I know it really wasn't out in the open because, you know, Diana, my baby sister didn't even know I was pregnant till the day I went to the hospital, and that's like when you talk about the family system, that's just cuckoo.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, maybe that's one reason why we're so adamant to be out here talking, talking, talking.
Speaker 2:And we're going to share stories because you know there's a whole lot of you don't speak, and certainly why I probably, you know chose the field I did, going into, you know, family therapy for sure.
Speaker 2:But also, I guess I just want to second what you said, donna, because I was young, I was eight, and I didn't know what was going on, but my recollection of you was that you were very nurturing, that you were very much of a caretaker for me. I mean, I remember you spending one-on-one time with me. I remember you taking me out to Marie Callender's for pie, which is still one of the most, you know, memorable moments in my life, to remember my sister who, at 16 years old, was, you know, taking me out. That's cool. I remember the dress you made for me during that time that I wish I still owned. So I think you were, I think, emotionally, you were nurturing and taking care of little Larry inside of you, even though you knew this was a gift for somebody else, that he wasn't yours to keep. But I think you did all of these very nurturing, caretaking things during that time.
Speaker 1:So very beautiful, very beautiful, amazingly profound and at the same time I'm very aware and you know, think back, my God. You were just a kid. You were totally a kid and a kid without a lot of information or resources, and yet you found this yourself through your own surrender and listening to your inner guidance, I would assume, because you were really self-directed too, because I know you had a lot of other information coming at you about the shoulds and the choices and you made your own way and there was, just say, there was a whole lot having. You know, we all went to the same Catholic girls school, which there were a lot of great things about that school for us in various ways, lot of great things about that school for us in various ways. But you know you weren't, wasn't that you couldn't go to think they wouldn't allow you in this school, to continue your education there at this time, while you were pregnant, like what a what a thing? Yeah.
Speaker 3:But you know what they did do, and there were some good things, you know. Now I was went to an all girl parochial school Catholic school and in my class I was not alone in being pregnant, which is very interesting. There was two other girls who were pregnant at the same time as me and we were all you know. It was our junior year and we were asked not to come to class, you know, during that time. But they did let us come for our ring ceremony.
Speaker 3:Do you remember getting in your ring? And they let us come for our ring ceremony. Do you remember getting in your room? And they let us come for our class rings. And the students had petitioned and asked if we could come and they did allow us to do that, which is interesting, you know, I remember the dress I wore, that it didn't going there, you know. And then I remember now I just got to put this in because when I went back to school, uh, the principal called me in the office and she asked me what it was that they could do to help other girls so they wouldn't be in this situation. And I said well, you know what we should teach about birth control?
Speaker 3:Yes, and the guy was like flabbergasted like there's no way we're doing that and I go all right. Well, you asked.
Speaker 1:I mean. Well, three girls out of a class of what was it like 100 girls are pregnant.
Speaker 2:This tells us that maybe you know what's funny. I mean clearly different experiences, right. But here I am. What, eight years after you and at the same school but certainly you know, Donna, you shared your middle child kind of reaction.
Speaker 2:Mine at the youngest was like I'm just going to ask questions and I'm not going to let things just go by. If I want to know, I'm going to ask, and if somebody asks me, I'm going to tell so don't ask if you don't want to know, sort of thing. But I remember then me being in high school, eight years later at the same school, and then having a debate about pro-life, pro-choice, but come to find out it was only pro-life. They let us ask questions and I said don't you think that if we're having a debate we should hear the other side, Because wouldn't that be helpful for us? We never got that other side, but I think maybe somewhere along the way I had heard that story of you saying that to the nun or the principal and just saying, like how about we tell us girls what we need to know in the 80s, Right, yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and except the fact that we're sexual beings and all of this kind of stuff. But that's a. That's a whole other discussion, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, the normalcy of who we are, I mean.
Speaker 1:So what a profound experience. And so I'm the one out of the sisters who then became an adoptive mother who was able to have my second son through this beautiful gift of adoption, and knowing you and your story was, of course, enormously helpful to me on that path, and I was immediately aware that this adoption story is this gorgeous triangle of mother, mother and child, and that this gift that I received from my son's birth mother is like just the most profound gift of mother love imaginable gift of mother love imaginable that her choice was for his greatest good. I give you my boy to love and to be his mother, because I love him so much and I want what's best for him. I just I'm blown away by that act, and his birth mother was 14 when she made that choice, and I think of you and she and this gorgeous, selfless, beautiful act of love for your sons, for your sons it's it bowls me over that that you could find that in you and live that, just saying that out loud.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, there's a lot that I've learned, of course, over the years, and I guess everything that happens in our lives is for us to somehow to learn and grow. And I remember, years ago, being in therapy and I don't remember which therapist it was at the time because I've had different ones but I remember them saying to me now you get that you didn't really have a choice, right? And I'm like well, what do you mean? No, I had a choice. And she's like OK, you were 16 years old.
Speaker 3:Your father said if you chose to keep the baby, you would not be allowed to live there, you would have to move out, you would have to go on welfare, you would have to, you know, find a way to do this all on your own, that there would be no family support. And she's like now, that's not really a choice. You know when you're, you know, 16 years old, but I didn't realize that at the time. You know, I didn't realize that at the time because that was my initial response is that I wanted to keep my baby and raise my baby, you know, and of course, the father wasn't interested in any of that at the time, and so it's just these things that I learned, and it's it's like somehow I was carried through all of that, you know, because I certainly didn't know how to do it, but there was something that was guiding me and and moving me through that, you know.
Speaker 3:And now I'd like to say, and moving me through that, you know. And now I'd like to say, oh, and then I had Larry, and everything was hunky-dory and peachy-keying, but then it's like, then the wheels fell off for me, you know, after that, and I really went down a deep hole, you know, until years later, when I, you know, was able to find some kind of emotional, spiritual, you know recovery. But yeah, so life is interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Isn't it Jess?
Speaker 3:And our life's interesting, which I think is like one of the catalysts for you all. Starting this, you know, is out of tragedy and heartache and, you know, all these other things that happen in life. There is hope, yeah that there's hope, like the little green bud starts to grow somewhere you know and new life starts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can share with us. Then you know I have my own ideas, but it's like oh, how much of what I know and believe is real, or is it stuff I made up? So? 76, you give birth to Larry. 2020, COVID, you guys meet as adults for the first time. What do you want to share with us about what took place in those 44 years to get you to that place of ready to meet, ready to reopen a door?
Speaker 3:You know, one of the things that I would want to say is this is interesting because, again, it's life and how it shows up and the synchronicities you know, and I had always made the decision that I would not reach out to him, that I would wait for him to reach out to me if he wanted to meet me, because I didn't want to disrupt his life.
Speaker 3:You know, if he'd created this life and now I had, you know, I had been married and my husband knew well before we got married that I had had Larry and my children, I told when they were a little bit older and then so I was never a secret. You know, it wasn't something that was a secret. But what happened when all these hereditary things came about that you can go online, right, but what happened when all these hereditary things came about that you can go online, right? Our niece discovered that she had a cousin, that she didn't know who the cousin was. So she asked her father and he called me and although it was never really a secret, I guess they did not know that.
Speaker 3:So again, I thought well, I'm going to wait for him to reach out, I'm not going to reach out. I'm going to wait for him to reach out, I'm not going to reach out, I'm going to wait for him to reach out. And then and then I was at a dinner that was for something totally unrelated and this young man walked in and he was really kind of contemplative and quiet and he sat across from me and I'd never met him before, I haven't seen him since and I was started to talk. Talk to him and he said he had just received that day the letter in the mail of who his birth parents were and the state that he had born in was born in, I think, philadelphia or pennsylvania or something had just allowed you to find out who that was.
Speaker 3:So we and he didn't know what he was going to do because he did not want to disrupt his birth mother's life. He wasn't sure and I thought well, isn't that interesting. I wonder if larry feels the same way and like we're both sitting here thinking, well, we're not going to reach out because we don't know if we want to interrupt the other person's life, right, so it just was coming up on his birthday. Um, some other family members had tried to do.
Speaker 3:Ask them not to you know between the lines, everyone my niece to please not reach out, to let him reach out, you know. And then I was laying in bed, like I said, it was a day or two before his birthday, which is May 8th, and I thought what the heck I'm just going to send a letter through this? Oh, because by then I had done the hereditary thing and it came up right away, you know, your son. And so I sent him an email through the app and, uh, I thought whatever's gonna be is what's gonna be, you know, like another surrender, right, like whatever here we go and you know, the next day he emailed right back.
Speaker 3:We talked the next day. Uh, it was funny, we didn't call. I sent him my phone number and he didn't call on his birthday. But he called the day between his birthday and mother's day Cause he thought it might be too much to call on mother's day for the first time. So we talked on the phone and of course it was COVID. So it took a little while for us to get together.
Speaker 3:You know, and, and you know, what you want to know more than anything, I think, if you have released a child for adoption, is that they're happy and that they're healthy and that they had a good life and that they're OK. And, gosh, it was so good to see that he was all those things. He was happy he had gone to SC, which for us we know know we have many, many family members who've gone to usc. Uh, he had um interest in things that were part of our family. Yeah, his daughter, who had my granddaughter she has it's really. It's that nurture versus an age. It's just this really trip.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the first things he said to me, one of the first times I talked to him, was he thanked me for birthing him, you know, and his wife is amazing and it's just a fabulous thing. It's a fabulous thing to know that he's had this great life and his family. He has another brother who his parents adopted and so he has the experience of, like he said, when he was a little boy he thought that's just what you did. You went and picked out your brother, you know. So, yeah, really good, you know he always knew he was adopted, you know. So, yeah, really good, you know he always knew he was adopted. You know, and it's not the question you asked me, I don't know, but it was just.
Speaker 1:It just turned out to be really a beautiful, wonderful, full circle, amazing thing for me comes into your, not only he and his wife, but he has a daughter, who you have this lovely additional.
Speaker 3:Yes, who you girls can spend more time with. Since she's gone to college on the East Coast, she's got to spend time with her aunties.
Speaker 1:We just adore her.
Speaker 2:She is my only niece that's been at my house yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, been at my house yet? Yeah, yeah, it is. It is something. There is something so incredible about that nature versus nurture thing there. You know, we each have within us these things that are uniquely ours and we have those things that are part of the DNA and we have those things that are part of the family and, and so, you know, being the mother of a child through adoption he is, he is wholly my kid, and I have birthed a child also, and I, you know, raising two sons. They both my boys and the.
Speaker 1:The most significant difference is there's there's certain features and certain aspects that you can't say, oh, like that's grandpa's nose and that's what you know. Don't have that with my second son, but in some, you know, he and I have such commonalities as he does with my husband, his dad, but yet I also, because I know many things about his birth mother, who made choices not to remain in our story and for today. We'll see what the future holds. But we have a lot of information and there are many things that he has in common with her, and one is his incredibly gorgeous singing voice and his musicality, which he gets from her. That was one of her greatest joys in life was singing, yes, and he also has a birthmark, like in the exact same spot that she has a birthmark and I just love that. He is hers also and he's mine and he's his. He's his own and all of this is true. Anyway, I just took one on a little side story, but you know.
Speaker 3:But that's interesting because, you know, I haven't met um larry's uh mom and dad and um, I really feel that they're his mom and dad you know, they're.
Speaker 3:They're people that raised him and they're the people that um loved him and they're the people that took care of him and, uh, and I feel like I had the privilege of birthing him. You know, and you know, I'm never quite sure exactly what to call him. Like you know, you say my birth mother, but do you say my birth son? Do you say I don't know? You know, but you know, he's just a beautiful man and I'm glad he's on the planet.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you brought him onto the planet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had a part in that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. What was that like? Tell us, that moment when you got to meet him, see him again for the first time in 44 years, face to face, and look in his face and just Because it was on video first.
Speaker 2:Right, you met on video because it was during COVID.
Speaker 3:No we talked on the phone, gosh. I don't think we did video, I think we talked just. I went up to where he lived and him and I got to sit and spend time together. His wife and daughter were in another part of the house and they just allowed us to be the two of us. Then they came in later and I got to meet them, but it was very exciting. It was very exciting to see him, to meet him. I saw right away a family resemblance. You know we're Italian and he looks like the whole Italian side of our family you know, to me, oh yeah, we can all see it.
Speaker 1:We're like oh yeah, yeah, and I see it in his daughter as well. I'm like right, right, absolutely.
Speaker 3:My niece Yep, absolutely. But what was the thing that really struck me the most was I feel like I knew him forever. Yeah, I just felt like I knew him. That was just yeah, you know, I didn't maybe know all the things that he had done or happened in his life, but I just felt just like, yeah, like I knew him, you know. And that's so to me. There was no awkwardness or weirdness or you know, we just started chatting away and we can talk easily.
Speaker 2:It feels like to me when we talk and um, and I think all of us I mean totally different stories for all of us, right? I was just a little girl when he was born, so he's we're all the eight years apart, but I know my experience of you know, every Mother's Day at least, thinking about him and where is he? And hoping that someday we could meet and I could meet. And I know, before I lost my partner, in 2020, our niece had already done the DNA and already had that connection.
Speaker 2:So I remember us talking about what that's going to be like and we're going to finally meet this kid who's not a kid because he's my peer, but what is that going to be like? And that you know? Are we going to have this other person in our family? Is this going to be part of our family? Or are they going to be kind of, oh, there he is and he wants nothing to do with us and we've been waiting for 40 plus years to get to meet him. Has he been waiting for us also? You know just yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you say, sis, that part of the reason that all of this is as successful as it is is that there's tremendous openness from all parties? I guess what I'm asking is there are a great many people who you know reconnect with birth parents and who do not have this type of experience.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't know. I think about that like how fortunate I am that it has been like really storybook for me, like the way that if I would dream that I would have wanted it to be that it has been. And I know that that's not true for everybody and I know it could have gone on a lot of different ways and it's just, I really don't know, I don't know why. It is just and and yes, I've never sensed from larry or his family any sort of um, resistance and I certainly haven't felt any kind of resistance. And I think our entire family, my extended family, all has that openness to, you know, always consider my no, you know, mom always considered Larry. You know her first grandchild, you know, and it was really important for her to know him and she got much more vocal about that as she got older. She just knew she had a great grandchild and she was, you know, but I think there was that openness to um, yeah, I know that there was a part of our family that was out there, at least biologically.
Speaker 2:You know, part of our family that was out there and so, yeah, biologically you know part of her family that was out there and so, yeah, it's been. Yeah, I don't know. So I'm going to get us to our questions, because I know we don't want to keep y'all all day long.
Speaker 1:So if you're, going to the questions, could I ask one more part of the journey, just to see just real quick? What do you do if she says no journey, just to see just real quick? Uh, well, I don't know. What do you do if she says, no, let's keep talking, no, okay, so I just want it, because I know that your journey and I you don't have to share about it. It's whatever you choose, but I know, along your journey to then becoming a mother to your two children whom you raised, that was a that was a rough journey. That they're, yeah, that that was a rough journey.
Speaker 3:So what we know now and those are, you know, I think it's more common that you've got the somatic, you know, emotional, somatic parts of our body right and that when I decided that my husband and I wanted to have children, I had two miscarriages and after doing the work and going and working with a body worker for a number of years, really realizing I had to go back and I had healing work to do, I had stuff that I needed to do, had stuff that I needed to do, you know, and when I was able to release that and move into the next place, I easily got pregnant and had my little monkey and, yeah, and, as you said, very easy.
Speaker 3:Children are very young anymore, 32, and you know and nor are they very little. These are both very easy birth and easy pregnancy. But it really was it required, going back and doing the work you know, going back and doing the healing and the letting go. And it was still letting go. There was still a letting go of, uh, the past, you know, and that experience and that the traumatic part of it you know, yeah, yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, you also in that arena doing that work, you were a way shower for me. I will say I had a number of childhood traumas in my body and I went to that very same body worker and did a lot of healing and release and a lot of challenges on my own path to motherhood as well. But you really did. You were if I've not told you that before, you should know that you were an influencer and a way shower for me in my own journey. In fact I would go to that. But I remember I would go and I'd like stay overnight at your house because she was down down south, right she was glorious.
Speaker 3:There was a lot of good work. Go and I'd like stay overnight at your house because she was down down south right.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember that she was glorious. There was a lot of good work done there. So thank you for that. And I also followed you into those 12-step rooms, Also a different path. I didn't have the addictions, but I certainly had that codependency in spades and certainly fit in those rooms and there was much healing there. So thank you, sister, for all of that beautiful guidance and holding space for my own healing journey. Truly, you've been just a huge, huge influence and way shower in my life and I'm so, so grateful and a big reason why you are also the godmother of my adopted child, because it's just a beautiful connection there. Anyway, okay, Okay.
Speaker 2:Questions. Yeah, so, because we are chatting for a little bit. But the question that I always like the answer to, I always like to hear what the response is, is what would? I guess I'm going to go to 13,. Right, you had Larry at 16. So what would your 13 year old self, looking at your journey, looking at where you've come from, where you're today, at where you're going, what would that 13-year-old, sweet little Debbie say about you and to you?
Speaker 3:Gosh, I don't know what she would say to me, but I know what I would want to say to her. Say that then.
Speaker 2:What would you say to her?
Speaker 3:You know, I would let her know that she is valuable, that she is significant, that she is somebody and that she deserves to be treated with love and kindness and respect and that she doesn't have to give herself away. She doesn't have to throw herself away, that it's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. You know, I would just love her Because she was so lost. She was so lost and alone and really confused by the world and everything. I mean just all of it was just lost and really had nobody to Ask the questions. I love that that became your process. I, like I'm just going to ask the questions. You know, I was just muddling through the best, that good, and not doing so well, you know.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's so funny because asking the questions I not only just ask the questions I like, I think, purposely put myself in the way of people that maybe didn't want to ask questions. And I'm thinking specifically of, like high school, marriage and family class and my father and stepmother, and asking them questions that I already knew answers to. But I wanted their answers and it was like, sorry, guys, I've got this list of 20 questions and you need to respond, so like for you to talk to. I mean that hurts for me because again, at 13, I was five, I guess, when you were 13. And so I was just the little one in the family that you know.
Speaker 2:I think you and Donna both took a role in raising me, you know, especially, mom and dad were working and I had more interaction with you guys than anybody else. Our oldest sister, not really, I think, she was living her own life already, probably by the time I was born, but I think I just remember so much just caring and guidance, and so that's just when I think of you as a little girl, and 16, you're still a little girl. I didn't know that then, but I feel so lost and alone and unsure. But yet make me, but yet make me. I'm going to cry. Make me feel safe and secure, and not alone.
Speaker 1:Same same same. That's huge, that's huge. And then you found it within yourself, even in this space, to make the choices you made for Larry and for his journey, based on this agreement that you understood. I mean, that's like wow, what a flipping rock star.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That little girl is truly what an amazing, amazing powerhouse that, despite all, in spite of all and all that she went on to do and find and discover. Because that's not just like, oh, it just happened to you. There are choices along the way to your own recovery, to your own, you know life's work, to your own motherhood journeys. All of those things, they're your choices along the way. Pretty amazing story, sis, Truly Okay. More questions, Sissy, when are we?
Speaker 2:Here's actually a good one, because you know, donna, you opened this with just sharing what an inspiration Debbie has been to us, and I'm curious, I guess two parts when you were younger, who was your inspiration, and today, who inspires you?
Speaker 3:Hmm, inspiration and today who inspires you. You know, one of my most inspirational people in my life as I became an adult was one of my mentors and teachers who's passed on and, um, she's amongst a group of women who truly do inspire me, in that they speak their truth, they walk their walk. They're not about. One of her favorite sayings was it's not a popularity contest. And I'd be like what do you mean? It's not a popularity contest. You know, like? And she used to always say her, um, she wanted to get to that place where she had nothing to protect and nothing to defend, and that she would just be transparent, and I'd be like oh yeah, I want to be able to do that, you know, and uh huh so.
Speaker 3:so she was very inspirational to me and other women that I know that like her, when I was younger. It's interesting because I don't think you girls have the same experience, but I have very little memories of being little.
Speaker 2:And when they ask questions like what did you want to?
Speaker 1:be when you grow up?
Speaker 3:I'm like oh no, I don't even remember, you know, and so I don't know who my role models or my people were when I was little. Um, I really don't yeah, no, that's okay.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and that speaks volumes to feeling alone and unsafe. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thank goodness for that tribe, that sisterhood that did come in to your world and I know exactly who you were talking about and I know all that she means to you and that group of women. And she, even before you answered, she had come to my mind and I know, I know who she's going to my mind, I know what she's going to talk about, I know what she's going to say and I know the importance and that's just sort of that surrender too right, the surrender that brings these beautiful people into your world. Yeah Well, should we jump into our rapid?
Speaker 2:fire sis? Yeah, except for I was thinking. There's a question that you usually like to ask, and that is you always say it better than I will, but I could try to say it Go ahead when this long journey is over. You know, 40 or 50 years from now.
Speaker 1:Diana likes longevity.
Speaker 2:So, when this part of your journey is over and you go back to wherever we go, how do you want to be remembered by the people that are still here?
Speaker 3:I would want to be remembered as somebody who loved them and didn't judge them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you're good at that, sis.
Speaker 1:I think you've already succeeded on that one, yeah.
Speaker 3:Hope I can keep doing it yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So yeah, donna, I think this is it. I think this is where we get to our rapid fire, rapid fire. Yeah, yeah, okay. So yeah, donna, I think this is it. I think this is where we get to our rapid fire, rapid fire.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so we just have this list of questions. You've listened, you know.
Speaker 3:I have listened and I have thought of a few of these. I'll just tell you in advance.
Speaker 1:We've recently changed some of them, oh, okay. There'll be changed some, okay. Well, the first one is a familiar one. What is your walk-in song? You know, when you're walking out on that stage or up to the pitcher's mound, what's?
Speaker 3:your walk-in song. You know, this is when I thought about it and I have a hard time coming up with it, because one of the songs that I really, really love but I don't know what would be your walk-in song, but it's a country song yeah, everything's Holy Now. Do you know that song? I don't. I play it at my ordination. It's one of my favorite songs Everything's Holy Now. Well then, I've heard it because I was there, yes.
Speaker 3:But then if you think about your walk-on song, then it's got to be like. You know, I will survive. You know, at first I was afraid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your walk in song could be anything. You want it to be. There you go, there, you go yeah.
Speaker 3:I think more upbeat is good, but everything's holy now is like so perfect.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm going to check that out. So what book changed you oh?
Speaker 3:gosh the Secret Garden.
Speaker 1:The Secret Garden. Yeah, it's a beautiful book and it's very layered and rich. It's a great book.
Speaker 2:I have to. I know nobody's watching this, they're just listening, but of course I see a whole wall of books behind you, right?
Speaker 1:And you, and you.
Speaker 2:I used to love as a little girl and you were in high school and you had that bookshelf above your bed and I used to love going and standing on your bed and picking out one of your books and going and reading it, even if it didn't make sense to me, I just wanted to read your books.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent Tree Grows in Brooklyn. That's where I found it.
Speaker 3:Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I would be one of my second runner-ups there, I believe forever I discovered.
Speaker 1:And then I would go to grandma's house to aunt suzel bedroom and her bookshelf. That was my number two favorite bookshelf. Very cute, yeah, oh. Next question um, what movie lives rent-free in your brain?
Speaker 3:wow you know, I have a movie quote for every single thing that happens in my life. My friends have recently pointed that out to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're all Gilmore girls. We are all Lorelei. Oh well, I'm muted.
Speaker 3:Gilmore girls but gosh, so many. Any musical, you know, I don't know what, which specific one you, you know, I always say sound of music is like my favorite movie, but I don't know that I would say that that red lives rent free. You know, I mean love actually, you know, yeah you know, yeah, perfect, fun, okay, what I?
Speaker 2:I know you said you don't remember much about being a little one, but what did you love doing as a kid that you still love doing to this day?
Speaker 3:I love playing make-believe. I loved playing make-believe whether it was making a store, making a, the Olympics, the carnival in the backyard, the theater, the stage.
Speaker 1:You know being creative and doing make-believe, you guys, you guys anybody listening? You have to just picture this Like her bedroom she would make over, with clothes literally tagged to the walls and price tags and little shopping bags, and the whole like this was a whole boutique that we would then go in and shop. Wouldn't that be fun?
Speaker 3:And then Uncle Roy gave me a mannequin. Remember, I had the mannequin for a while. That was crazy.
Speaker 2:You still are very, very creative today. I mean, yeah, yeah, you still are very, very creative today. I mean, the things you do are very, you know, are driven by your creativity. I do like to create.
Speaker 1:I do dream it. Be it. There you go. Well isn't? Yeah, create, you've got that on your license also, that's your thing. That's your thing, okay. What in your world is lighting you up right now?
Speaker 3:Well, you too, you too, for sure, this journey of yours, and you know the possibilities. I'm at a place in my life where I'm really looking at, you know, the next 20 years, my third act. I'm calling it like. What does that look like? What do I want it to be? What do I want to do? So it's again, it's a way of creating for me, like I'm going to create. One of the things I say in my classes and when I speak is this new thing and I didn't create it. It came from someone else. But are you living by design or default? From someone else? But are you living by design or default? And I'm like, I'm no longer willing to live by default. I'm going to, I'm designing this next act, my third act, and so that's what lights me up right now.
Speaker 2:The possibilities. What could it look like, what is it going to be, where?
Speaker 3:am I going to live? What am I going to do? Who's going to be part of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, living by design. That's a good one, love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. What color is hope? Blue?
Speaker 3:And many of your guests have said it's blue. I'm thinking it's blue.
Speaker 1:Yellow. Yellow is often an answer as well. Blue and yellow.
Speaker 3:Okay, I must pay attention to the blues. I'm like blue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I see the blue. Yeah, what does hope sound like?
Speaker 3:Oh, a big old sigh, just that Ah.
Speaker 1:God, that's great, the surrenders in that also.
Speaker 2:Okay, so complete the statement. Surrender is.
Speaker 3:Surrender is letting go and allowing your best life to emerge.
Speaker 1:Creativity is creativity is that which we are doing at every moment, with every thought we think that was a little rev deb in that one I heard I love it, I love it, I'm just saying what comes?
Speaker 3:it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:It was beautiful. I mean that with all love.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. How about family is?
Speaker 3:Family is those that you consciously choose to walk this path with.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:The meaning of life is.
Speaker 3:Well, it's love.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we'll bring it on home with hope is Hope is.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, my word is surrender. Hope is surrendering, surrendering to all that is. I mean, there's so much that wants to come forth through each one of us, if we just get out of the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Surrender, yeah, oh.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yes. It's beautiful. I what I love that we're on this screen together talking and spending this time, but how nice it's been to to just chat with you about this journey and, you know, being part of it heart that I didn't know needed some healing and I'm feeling it. Just from this little chat that we've had this last hour, I can feel some more sisters. We got sisters for days. I mean, those are the sisters we know about who knows. I mean, those are the sisters, we know about who knows.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go. Yeah, we're more coming our way. Okay, so I know we shared at the beginning that you've had, you know, journeys all over of your, your I was gonna say lectures they're not lectures. Your teachings and meditation, where would they?
Speaker 3:go yeah. So right now I'm working. I do my thing at Seaside Center for Spiritual Living, so the website for Seaside is seasidecenterorg. I'm in the process of building my new website, which is actually going to be my name, debbie McDonaldcom.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that. That's easy to find.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there you go. That's not live, yet I'm working on that one.
Speaker 1:Who knows, maybe it will be by the time this releases, maybe it will be it's part of that whole creation thing you know, recreating myself in this new thingy by design. Yeah, thank you so much, sis, for coming here and being with us and being so generous with your heart and your story. I know that this is going to touch and move and change a number of people. It's just thank you for surrendering to it with us.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I love you both. Thank you, love you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us today on Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 1:And thanks for sharing stories with us. We'd love to hear your stories as well and keep the conversation going Absolutely keeping the hope going. So we're really hopeful that you'll connect with our guests as well and keep the conversation going absolutely keeping the hope going. So we're really hopeful that you'll connect with our guests as well, who have great stories to share. Go ahead and follow them in various social media platforms or live venues, wherever it is that they're performing and sharing what they do.
Speaker 2:We would love to have you follow us on all of our social media platforms, subscribe and rate, as that will help us get our message of hope out to others. Thanks for listening to.
Speaker 1:Soul Sisteries.
