Ep. 193 - Al Isaacs: Searching for My Mother after 53 Years

0:01 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC. On this edition of Stories from Real Life with Melvin E. Edwards. Today's guest has lived a story that sounds like fiction, but it's absolutely real. Al Isaac spent most of his life believing he knew exactly who he was until a chance revelation in his 50s uncovered a family secret that changed everything. What followed was a journey through hidden history. DNA Discoveries, a decades-long search for his birth mother, and ultimately a memoir about identity, truth, and the strange ways our lives can suddenly make sense. Today, he joins us to tell the story behind Finding Mary Smith.

0:43 This is Stories from Real Life, hosted by the 2026 American Writing Awards Male Podcast Host of the Year, Melvin E. Edwards. And today's story is Al Isaacs, Searching for My Mother After 53 Years. You are listening to Stories from Real Life, a podcast by engaging storytellers for engaged story listeners. Here's your host, author and journalist, Melvin E. Edwards. Hello again, and welcome to another episode of Stories from Real Life.

1:26 I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for joining me for the podcast where our real stories are so much more interesting than fiction. Like this one. What do you do if you discover at age 50 that your entire origin story wasn't true? Comedian and writer Al Isaacs joins the show to share his unbelievable moment he learned he was adopted and the year-long search that uncovered a hidden family, a decades-long secret, and a reunion 53 years in the making. So, Al, welcome to Stories from Real Life. Thank you, Melvin. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah, looking forward to hearing this story. Yeah. Let's jump right into it. Go ahead. You were about to say something.

2:07 No, just... I'm happy to be here. And it's kind of tricky to tell you even where to start. I'm all prepared. Okay. Let's go. Might as well start at the beginning. Yes, sir. All right. So if identity is a story that we tell ourselves, what happens when you discover the first chapter was different than what you thought it was? Yeah. Yeah. Boy, the life just kind of pulled the rug out from under me. As an only child, growing up here in Long Island, New York, I just assumed things were the way they were because I didn't know any different.

2:52 I never suspected anything. So when I found out that I was adopted, First, I didn't believe it. I was told quite by accident. In the middle of COVID, both of my parents were ill. They both had dementia. With the dementia, my mom had been telling various doctors a lot of interesting things. put it that way, stories. She would tell one doctor that she had surgeries that she never had. She would then tell a different doctor that the surgery she did have, she didn't have. Symptoms that she was going through, she would claim that my dad was the one going through it. There were a lot of things.

3:32 And you combine that with COVID where a lot of her friends and family You know, their relationships were basically five-minute phone calls every couple of weeks. They weren't on social media. So they were very good at hiding their situation. So I was at work one day and my mother's oncologist had called because she was trying to get family medical history from my mom. And my mom kept hanging up on her. Again, the dementia. So I told the doctor, I said, well, let me see if I can help you out. If she keeps hanging up on you, I'll try to help you with whatever medical history I know. And the oncologist said to me, well, I don't need your medical history because, you know, after all, you're adopted.

4:19 I need your mom and dad. What a way to find out. Yeah. But the thing was, at the moment, I thought it was the dementia talking. I thought this was just another story that in the moment she told the doctor and the doctor didn't know any better. And I literally went home. I took this opportunity to reach out again to relatives who didn't think anything was wrong to say to them, you're not going to believe what she said now. Now she's telling people that I'm adopted. I reached out to an aunt who was in her 90s in Staten Island. And like I said, I said it just to show how bad things had gotten. And there was radio silence. for about 24 hours.

5:00 And then I got a message the morning after that that just started with, I always wanted to tell you. And that was kind of the last thing I expected to see. But the honest truth is between COVID, because with COVID, I was no longer doing comedy. I wasn't doing live shows. The theaters, the comedy clubs are closed. I was teaching comedy. Classes were gone. So that part of my identity was gone, had nothing to do with the adoption. My dad was sick and literally as I'm finding out about this and people are confirming it, he went into hospice.

5:41 So it was kind of everything all at once. to the point that I couldn't process any of it because it was happening so fast and just so much. In retrospect, my life has never made more sense than it does now. But at the time, it's like, what? It made no sense. I never saw any signs. And the fact that my entire family knew, all my cousins, aunts, that everyone knew, that was, yeah, that was, I think that was, you know, that was a one-two punch for me.

6:24 Okay. Let me go into these details a little bit. So was that the hardest truth to accept, that everybody knew this for 50 years and you didn't? That was tricky. That was... It hit on a couple of fronts. The first one being that I was shocked because both my parents couldn't keep a secret to save their lives. They were walking spoilers, no matter what it was. And I think the problem was that they were spending all their bandwidth on this one giant secret. So they couldn't... If you were watching Planet of the Apes on TV, they'd walk by, what are you watching?

7:07 Oh, you know, it's Earth all along. Enjoy. So that was amazing to me. The thing about my family knowing, on the one hand, I get it. My parents swore them to secrecy. They were being loyal to them. I get it. And it was tricky because when word started getting around my family that I knew, I think a lot of them, I don't know if they felt guilty or if they thought I was going to be angry. I think the entire experience, and we can go into it more in a bit, just the fact that It's a 50-year-old man with a family of his own and a life of his own finding out versus, say, an 18-year-old kid.

7:51 I think it's a very different thing. But that being said, I went through different stages after I found out that everybody knew because there was one aunt who had reached out to me and I totally get where she was coming from. But she had said to me, because of this, I always tried to give you a little more love. And I know she had the best intentions in the world when she said that. And I know where she was coming from. But man, it hit me like a ton of bricks because now my brain is thinking, you know, that was the foundation of my relationship with everybody. Here comes Lucy and Shelley's adopted kid.

8:34 You know, let's try and let, you know, that it wasn't built on a natural relationship based on who I am, my personality. And it was, you know, that it was all on this secret. No, I was just going to say, it's insane that they kept it for 50 years. I don't know how we, at some family function, at a bar mitzvah somewhere, someone had a little bit too much to drink and would stop by my table and go, by the way, you're adopted. I don't know how that did not happen. Wow. I was about to say, one of the favorite podcasts that I listened to I don't remember the title of it, but it's about NPEs, non-parental event.

9:18 So that's when people find out the man they were told was their father or the man who raised them as their father was not their biological father. In your situation, the man who raised you was not your biological father and the woman who raised you was not your biological mother either. Correct. Correct. So how did you handle that, just knowing that neither one of them was biologically related? Neither one of them. Yeah. It was tricky. With the story, every time I thought, well, the worst thing you can ever do in any situation is to say out loud, well, it can't get any worse than this.

10:02 Because the universe goes, really? Hold my beer. Let me show you what we can do here. And that was kind of it. Because it was like, there was one surprise after another. I get my parents... generation when it comes to secrets and whether it's pride or you could say that they would think it's nobody else's business, whatever. That's cool. My first problem was they both had dementia. My dad was in hospice. I couldn't ask them for any answers. This was like, okay, now it's on me.

10:47 I would find out Because here comes question number two. So my dad goes into hospice. He passes away. Three weeks later, I never tell him that I knew. My mom first admits that I was adopted. And the second time I approach her about it, she denies it and says it's all a lie. Okay, we're not going to get anywhere with that. But then her dementia got to the point that I had to put her in an assisted living facility. And as I was gathering her clothes, I found my adoption papers, which my big question that I'll never know the answer to is, why did you keep them?

11:32 If you weren't going to tell me, if you were taking this secret to your grave 52 years later, why didn't you burn them? Why didn't you shred them, throw them away? No idea. But now I had the papers and it was a closed adoption from 1969. And in trying to do research to find out any further information, I was going to try and contact the lawyer on the letterhead. And I'd never seen a name before. The gentleman's name at the top of the letterhead was Stanley Mickleman. He's a lawyer. All you kids out there, go ahead and Google Stanley Mickleman. Turns out he was the biggest baby broker in the country. And it was a gray market adoption.

12:15 So all the information, it's not like I was starting off with no information. I was starting off with all lies for information. Nothing in the adoption papers was real. So, you know, there was a part in there about my birth father passing away before I was born. That wasn't true. There was no information in there about my birth mom. So, you know, it was just like one thing after another. Just the universe was going, okay, you like that? How about this? Because, you know, well, I'll let you ask him this quick. I don't want to answer something before you ask it. So how do you, or do you now feel differently about who you are than you did before?

12:58 Yes, completely. If for no other reason, my life makes sense now. As an only child growing up, you don't know any better. There's a line in the JFK movie, how do you know your dad is your daddy because your mama told you so? I just, you know, they, there were so many times that they would give me, oh, you get your height from uncle so-and-so. Yeah, your eye color, blah, blah, blah. You know, I had like nothing in common with my parents. I looked enough like them that it wasn't like I was asking any questions. And like my wife would say to me, you never noticed that there were no pictures of your mom pregnant with you? I was a boy.

13:39 I didn't look for that sort of stuff. I suppose if I had suspected something, I might have looked, but it never occurred to me. So, you know, I could say now in the moment, yeah, I absolutely definitely feel different. Having now jumping way ahead, learning who my birth mom was and finding out who my birth dad was and finding out about their lives. It's like, oh, yeah, those are my parents. I get it. You know, when it comes to nature versus nurture, It's nature by a mile. So, you know, I'm in a good place.

14:24 You know, that's why I sat down and wrote the book was almost therapeutic in addition to trying to help other people who might be going through this. Because, you know, what you were saying before about NPEs, It is crazy how many folks got a 23andMe or Ancestry.com account thinking it's going to be cool to find out that I was related to a king from 500 years ago and all of a sudden discover, oh, wait. You're not even related to that guy right there. Exactly. So I'm hoping it's going to help some of those folks. But yeah. As I was going through it, it was very strange. Coming out this side of it, I'm in a much, much better place than I was.

15:09 And you have a half sister. Did you find her before you found out you were adopted? No. So here's that little piece. So I went and did the Ancestry. And actually, I did 23andMe and Ancestry. And I was finding hundreds of fourth and fifth cousins. Man, as far as the eye can see. But there was one woman who they were identifying as a cousin. And my wife looked at the percentage of DNA. And she looked at her age. She goes, I don't think that's a cousin. I think that's an aunt. And I reached out to her through Facebook, to her and her daughter. And her daughter got back to me almost immediately, which was very cool. Because if you're not friends with someone on Facebook and you message, it's like a Lego piece in the middle of the room in the dark.

15:54 Maybe you step on it, maybe you don't. But the daughter had gotten back to me saying, oh, this is so cool. I think my mom will be really interested in talking to you. And I was very cryptic about it. I was like, hey, they say I'm related somehow. And about three days after that, I got another message from her saying, yeah, sorry, my mom doesn't want to connect. Best of luck. But I had a name. And with the name, I found my sister-in-law, Vicky, actually was the one who did the work at this point. she found her name prior to marriage and from that found an obituary from 1998.

16:37 Now, like I said, the adoption papers said my dad passed away before I was born. So initially we're doing the work trying to find a man who passed away in 1969. Here comes this obituary from 1998 from a guy named Paul Hudgens which was interesting enough until you get to the bottom, there was a picture of him. And when I say it was a clone of my son, I was looking at a picture of my son at the bottom of this article. I mean, it blew our mind and we just went, well, that's my dad. But at the bottom of the obituary, it mentioned he was married and it mentioned that he had a daughter named Molly.

17:26 went back to Facebook, looked up people. I sat down this time and I physically wrote a letter to Molly. She lives in Chicago. And basically saying, hey, I think we might be related. Because Hallmark doesn't make a card for i think your dad might be my dad i said i think we're related and it took about a week and i got an email from her and it was basically we're not just related you dope i'm your sister and it turns out she was looking for me for 20 years she just thought i didn't want to be found you know which is you know the same thing that the oncologist they're like you're 50 you know if you're adopted you know you're adopted No.

18:09 I call her my sister, but yeah, my half-sister, and she and her mom were instrumental in me finding my birth mom, whose name is Mary Smith. That's a name you write down when you're checking into a motel, you write down Mary Smith. It's not a real name. Tell me the story about Finding Mary Smith and tell us about your book. Yeah. So at every point, every time we would hit another thing, people are going, you got to write a book. I said, well, I can't write, unless I find Mary, I can't write a book. So, and that's why I tell people like, spoiler alert, I find her.

18:52 Just like right up front, I'm telling you, it's like, because there's a lot of kind of dark night of the soul moments in this where it's like, I'm ready to give up. I'm ready to pack it in going. I can't, even after I found Molly, I didn't think I was going to find Mary. So in my mind, I'm going, I am so way ahead of this game. Molly flew out here and she was pregnant with a brand new niece for me and it was phenomenal. So I said, okay, even if I don't find Mary, this is going to be great. But yeah, we set out to find Mary Smith. And all I had was that name and a picture of her from her yearbook from Michigan from 1968, from a school that closed 25 years ago.

19:40 And I found her. And it's a combination of all the right people being in the right place, trusting me to give me the information, and just a whole lot of luck. And a big part of it was, like I said, I was a comedian. And Mary was a folk singer and a pretty famous one at that in New York in the late 60s. She was basically on American Idol before there was American Idol. In 1967, end of 67, beginning 68, they began a competition called Sound of Youth, where just like American Idol, they were doing city.

20:21 If you win your city, you go to state. You win your state, you go to regional. And From regional, they had the finals in New York in November of 68, hosted by Duke Ellington. And it was televised on WOR TV out here. And she won the whole damn thing. And because of that, I was able to find her. I had a group of people, if you listen to the NPE stuff, you probably hear about Search Angels. who are folks that are online, you know, have a background in DNA research or have been detectives and so on. And I had some good ones helping me out. And they found the first article about her winning Sound of Youth in Michigan.

21:07 Once I was able to plug in Sound of Youth as a search term, all of a sudden, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. It was lighting up with interviews and reviews and we found her record and all this stuff. And that was like at the point of going, well, yeah, of course, she's my mom. And eventually, again, I don't want to spoil anything for someone who might read the book, but the most unlikeliest of things happen, which is we had no idea if Mary was alive. We had no idea, you know, like her paper trail ended in like 1973. She was playing the coffee house circuit. She was all over the place and then just kind of nothing. And one day I was typing into Google, Mary Smith singer, Mary Smith folk singer, Mary Smith.

21:54 And I typed in Mary Smith guitar. And a picture came up on Google Images of this beautiful Martin acoustic guitar. Gorgeous. From a store... that sold it about a year ago, a year prior to when I found it. And I shouldn't have been able to find it, but Google had cached the photo. So even though it wasn't on the website anymore, it was still in Google Images. And next to it was a picture of Mary standing outside the bitter end in New York City. So I sent an email to the store owner asking if he had any more pictures like that was where i was at i'm like i just want to find out more information about my birth mom you know if i can get more pictures if i get more stories if i could find out what happened to her after like 73 74 that would be awesome So I said this thing saying, I know you sold the guitar.

22:46 Do you have any information about Mary Smith? And his answer to me was Mary Smith. Sure. I know Mary. And it's like, and he was in England. So went back and forth and he put me in touch with, with Mary. And it's been amazing ever since. She's a, an incredible lady. And, you know, there were so many emotions simply, you know, To begin with, here I am searching for this woman and basically cyber-stalking her for nine months and getting to know this 19-year-old girl. And suddenly, it's like, wait, she's an actual flesh and blood person.

23:27 And as I was doing it, the back of my head, I had this fear. I'm like, I don't want to drop any bombs in the middle of someone's life. you know, we didn't know anything about her after the seventies. I had no idea if she had, you know, other kids, a big family, if she was married and never told her husband, it's like, I didn't want to, but at the same time, I think it's very different for a 50 year old man to knock on your door and say, Hey, I'm your kid, you know, versus an 18 year old. It's like, I don't want anything from you. I'm not looking for anything. And, you know, I'm at a point in my life, I'm mature enough that it's like, I'm not coming to you from a place of you owe me something.

24:07 Why did you abandon me? It was just like, I want to get to know where I came from. So it was amazing. Wow. So what do you think people misunderstand the most about adoption reunions? Boy, it's so different for each person. You know, that was the thing. When I was reading online, everyone's different. You know, there's a lot of really great Facebook groups out there who help folks out. That's, you know, like I said, where I found my search angels. And there were so many different situations of people who, you know, had as much information as I did, but couldn't quite make the connection.

24:47 People who made the connection, but the other folks didn't want to have anything to do with them. They met and it was, you know, it's like there were so many times that things could have gone sideways for me and they didn't. And I realized how lucky and blessed and, you know, I'm so thankful for everyone. I look at it like this, you know, it always gets me when I watch like the Grammys. And someone gets up there and grabs the reward and says, see, dreams do come true. It's like, no, your dream came true. There's four other people still in the seats who had the same dream. That didn't come true. So it's like, I hope that if someone's reading my book who's in the same situation, maybe they pick up on something I did and it helps them.

25:39 But I'm under no illusion that's like, boy, you know, do what I did and it's going to turn out exactly the same way. And you'll see everything's going to be great. It's just like we said, it's so common now to hear the stories and see this. There's no such thing as a closed adoption anymore. You know, DNA, it's there. And for that reason, I'll say this. As crazy as my story is, and we're just kind of scratching the surface of the insanity, everything happened exactly how and when it was supposed to. I don't remember who said life doesn't make much sense when you're living it forward.

26:21 But when you look back, you go, oh, that's why this was and this person. Yeah, that's right. Because had I found out that I was adopted 20 years ago, I never would have found anyone. New York had laws in place where you couldn't get your pre-adoption birth certificate. you couldn't send your DNA in the mail for 23andMe and Ancestry here in New York. So 20 years ago, I would have been frustrated, angry, and I would have given up. That being said, had I found out two years later, my elderly aunt from Staten Island who confirmed everything for me passed away. And there were a couple of other people who had since moved or left the positions they were in where they were able to help me.

27:07 So it's like, no, that was like in the moment when it happened, that was how it was supposed to happen. Wow. So you mentioned being a comedian. Did comedy and improv sort of help emotionally prepare you, help you navigate this unpredictable journey? Yes. Yes, it did. I just wish COVID didn't happen. so that when I was having some of those really frustrating dark periods, I could have went on stage and worked some of it out. That would have been great. But yes, it did. I don't necessarily think it was because I was a comedian, but man, it's just one of those situations where you got to find the humor.

27:53 You got to be able to laugh. Otherwise, you're going to crawl up in a ball and not be able to move for a couple of days. It was definitely rough. And it helped me write the book too. And I apologize from page one and I say, this is who I am. There's going to be a couple of moments in this book where I turn to humor that you might go, That's not funny. How can you joke about that? And it's like, well, because if you know, you know. If you've been in a situation that stressful or that dark or that anxious, it's like, you got to find something to laugh at. It's, you know, it was just that crazy.

28:36 But, you know, the other point I said in the book, There were two kinds of improv. There's short form improv. If you ever watch Whose Line Is It Anyway? Where it's like little segments. And then there's the long form stuff that you might see where in both cases, the big rule for improv is yes and. That whatever character you are doing, I'm saying yes to you and I'm adding on my offers that you're going to say yes to. And that's how we build a scene, a situation, what have you. You know, it didn't occur to me to later on, but like, man, my parents were doing real long form improv where it's like, are you my parents?

29:18 Yes. And, you know, and for 50 years, they were playing these characters pretty good. They were selling it. So, but here's the thing. I didn't realize because growing up, I was a comedian. I was a drummer, you know, just... I wanted to entertain. I wanted to perform. That was me. I get that from my birth parents, period. My adoptive parents couldn't be further from that. What occurs to me now is that every time I booked a gig, did a show, did a special, won an award, I was reminding them that I'm made of different stuff.

30:02 It was, you know, it's like, I'm not made of the same ingredients as you, but I didn't know that. You know, I had no idea. And so I think some of the things, you know, looking back at some of the reactions to stuff over the years and what they supported and what they didn't support, it's like, yeah, that kind of makes sense now. It's like, I wasn't turning out to be what they necessarily wanted me to be. And it was a reminder to them. And there's also a reminder to anyone in the family who was looking closely enough to go, Oh yeah. Yeah. He's he nature versus nurture. There you go. All right.

30:43 So you found your dad by his obituary. So you learned what your last name could have been or should have been. Did you ever find out what your first name was? Was. Yes. So so here's here's the irony of it all. OK, so I was I was only child. I'll put it to you this way. Years ago, my wife wanted to do ancestry when it first came out before all this was going on. And I told her, go ahead, you have fun. I don't need to do it because I know who I am. I would put it in, and it would come back 75% Russian and 25% English, and that would be that.

31:24 And it would have been really, really funny if my son had done it before me, because we would have gotten that paperwork back, and there would be no Russian on there. I'd be going, hey, there would have been a conversation at night. Yes, yes. It would have been heated. So aside from the Russian thing, I was raised Jewish here on Long Island. And it turns out in the Jewish religion, you are whatever your mom was. And my birth mom was not Jewish to the point that the nurses in the NICU in the hospital where I was born, they named me Christian Smith. So I don't know how the Wanto Jewish Center would have felt about bar mitzvahing a guy named Christian Smith.

32:13 I don't think they would have been thrilled about it. But there you go. So yeah, so my birth parents were not married. I would have been Smith. But yeah, Christian Smith was what they gave me before I made it home and became Al Isaacs. So do you still feel like an Al Isaacs? I'm used to Al Isaacs. It's funny, though, because my full name, Al Isaacs being the shortened version, Albert Isaacs, technically Albert Myron Isaacs. My first name came from my grandfather who passed away before I was born.

32:54 My middle name, Myron, came from an uncle who passed away before I was born. And I never... You know, it was like, I think my parents, my mom specifically used to get upset when I would just shorten it to Al, you know, but I was a kid, you know, in the seventies. So Albert, you know, It's like, really? It's like, that's kind of low hanging fruit. Yeah. If you'd been chubby, that would have been the end of your self-esteem. Yeah. Well, they, you know, that's what they had to work with. So they went with it. But Al, I kind of liked, but you know, it's, it's, it's a funny thing because it just, that's who I was, you know, just like, you know, people ask me, you know, I was going to say with the Russian thing too.

33:42 There are so many NPE stories that I read of people whose identities were so wrapped around they're Irish. And St. Patrick's Day is like a religious holiday for them. And that's their identity. And then they find out they ain't Irish. And it's like... You know, that's it. I never had that. You know, it's not like my parents hung a Russian flag outside and we had Russian babushka dolls and, you know, there was Russian holidays and Cossack. It wasn't part of me. My identity basically at this point in my life was I'm a husband to my beautiful wife, Teresa.

34:27 I'm a dad to my son, Nick. I was a comedian and a teacher. And COVID took away the first two things. So the other stuff was like, oh, okay. I guess that's who I am now. I never felt an allegiance to any of the other stuff really. It's pretty flexible. And I guess, you know, being an improv comic and playing different characters every night. Okay. You know, we're flexible. We can do it. So did you ever do the DNA to find out what your nationalities were? Yeah. Oh, I'm all kinds of Scottish. I am all kinds of Scottish. And my wife, who is a big fan of Outlander, couldn't be happier.

35:09 Al McIsaac's at your service. I'm predominantly Scottish, a little Irish, and a little bit of English. I have a little bit of... But no Russian. No Russian at all. So between me and my wife, who is Italian with a little bit of French, my son is like Epcot. He's got a little bit of everything going on. So... You thought you were 75% Russian and you were 0%. I'm more Russian than you. I did my DNA and I'm 1% Russian. That's one more than me. And that's something. That's something. Yeah. All right. So when you were writing your book, what was the most emotional chapter for you?

35:51 Oh, boy. You know. I'm doing the audio book now, so it's like the second time I have to relive this stuff. It is the first few chapters with my parents because I started off on page one with when we really knew they were sick. And my mom, my dad had broken his shoulder. We kind of had clues of the dementia, but they had gotten really good at protecting one another. And it hit them in different ways. Like my mom would have like 10 stories that she would always tell. But if you spoke to her for five minutes and didn't know her, you'd never know anything was wrong.

36:33 My dad, on the other hand, had a different way of dealing with stuff when he fell and hurt his shoulder. when the ambulance came and the medics were asking him, like, just to get cognitive, you know, to see where he was at. If they would ask him what year it was or who the president was, he would just start screaming and ranting and cursing, like, you know, why are you asking me these stupid questions? I'm cleaning it up for you. Thank you. Yes. But it was his way of, like, getting him to stop asking things that he didn't know. He just, you know. So what happened was... I would come home at night from work and I'd pick my mom up and I would take her to go see my dad at the rehabilitation center.

37:16 They were trying to help him with his shoulder after he got shoulder surgery. And that was when I started noticing something was wrong because we would be driving and every night, night after night, a house, a tree, a fence, something would trigger the same story every night. But every night, the same story would have a different ending. It was like she was just kind of, you know, I was getting like the director's cut on Tuesdays and Wednesdays was the alternate version. And then one night she started talking about her brother who passed away when she was 10, but she was working him into a story where she was 15 years old. And I go, man, something's really not, something's not right.

37:58 And he had gone in her, she would like, sometimes she'd get in the car at lunchtime to go visit him. And then she'd be home by the time I get home, we'd go back together. And then one night I came home and she wasn't there. And I figured she was just at the rehab center. I'll meet up with her there. I guess, you know, by the way, I've never met two people who pushed each other's buttons in a more spectacular fashion. I mean, like the screaming and they just and they didn't care who was around. They would just go at it. So I thought like on this particular day, I'm like, oh, I guess they didn't fight and she stayed for dinner. And I got there and I said, hey, dad, where's mom at?

38:42 And his answer was, your mom wasn't here today. Now, again, dad's got dementia. So him saying mom's not here means... Mom's in the bathroom right now. She just left or she actually wasn't there. And long story short, she drove off in the wrong direction and just kept going and she was missing for 14 hours. And yeah, that was like another situation where someone was looking out for me. You know, like we had a silver alert out. It was in the middle of December. Just I was prepared for the absolute worst. But, you know, four o'clock in the morning, I got a call from a gentleman who ran a supermarket.

39:23 He was getting ready to open for the morning and her car was totaled and she was in the parking lot. And still don't know for all those missing hours what actually had happened. But it was like, okay, this is where we're at. It was like a defining moment. And what ended up happening was it was just the first in a long series of my hand being forced before I was ready. you know, like I wanted to get the best help for them. I wanted to, you know, and it was either they would force my hand or COVID forced my hand or, you know, it was just like one thing after another where as an only child, I'm going, okay, I got to take care of this myself.

40:11 Am I ready? And no matter, and no matter what you do in those situations, there's an element of guilt going, did I do the right thing? Yeah. Um, But it all led to what eventually happened. So where was she? Yeah, she was, when we found her, she was about 15 miles away from her house in the wrong direction. And a couple of months later, we actually got a picture from, whatchamacallit, the... the car things when you cross a bridge or what have you. We got a picture of her blowing a stop of a bridge going into New York City.

40:53 So the fact that she didn't hurt anybody and didn't hurt herself is a small miracle. And spoiler alert, I gave her car to the mechanics who were there, they took it away, they towed it away that night, and they're like, you know, she's not going to get it back seven to ten days, you know, at the very least. The tires were shredded, the mirrors were gone, the sides were... It was... She was pinballing off of some barrier somewhere. It was a mess. So... I figured she doesn't have a car. It bought me some time. She's at home. We'll take care of this.

41:35 What I didn't know was the next day when I went off to work, she got on the phone with the mechanics and kept saying to them, my husband's sick. I need my car. I need my car. I need my car. I need my car. all day long. And after about the 10th phone call, they slapped on some tires and they dropped her car off. And she got back into her car and she drove off again. And this time I had to go out east on Long Island to pick her up after she drove up on some curb and blew out all her tires inches from hitting a wall of a store. So again, I don't know who was looking out for me, but thank you.

42:20 The book, I hope it helps people who are dealing with folks with dementia, as well as the NPE, as well as the reunion stuff. There's a lot to unpack. A lot, lot. I just have a couple of questions left before we wind up this episode. With everything you've learned, how has your definition of family changed? Boy, I will defer that back to what I was saying to my cousins, the cousins that I had before all of this, which was, you know, I was telling them that I don't harbor any resentment and I didn't want them to feel guilty and I didn't want them to think I was angry, that for me, this was all about addition.

43:12 They weren't going to be shunned or replaced or anything else. And then, getting to meet my birth mom, After we had emailed a couple of times and we got on a Zoom call, and the very first thing I said to her, I said, you know, I don't know you, but I love you. You gave me life and you made this decision. And, you know, they gave me a life and you gave me life. And between that and and having the love and support of my wife and son, who I can honestly say saved my life and had my back in all of this. I don't know if you know this, but professional comedians are not the most mentally stable people.

43:58 They always talk about how they do it. I think every couple of years, they do a study to see what people's fears are. Death is number two. public speaking what we're doing right now is number one so to to do that you know is kind of you know kind of crazy and in teaching it to folks in teaching improv comedy to the folks that i did i always talk to them about the voice in your head that's going to tell you you're not good enough. You're not funny enough. You're not smart enough. You're not good looking enough, whatever it is. And that voice might be a parent. It might be an ex. It might be, you know, a school teacher, something that voice is going to be there and trying to teach them to, you know, get the self-esteem to not pay attention anymore and to replace that voice.

44:52 Um, And man, that voice came screaming back in my head when I was going through all of this. And at the weirdest times where I would just be trying to forget the day and sit with my wife and watch television. And that voice would be there whispering in my ear going, you know, you don't know your parents' names. you know or saying to me you know the only blood relative you know is your son sleeping in the other room and if i was alone with that voice I don't know how I would have gotten through all this, but having my wife and son there to support. And that's what I would say to anyone who's going through anything similar to this.

45:35 You don't necessarily get to have my son and wife to support you, but there are a lot of great people online in these groups on Facebook going through the same thing who are there to support and help, whether it's advice or just to listen. And you need that. You absolutely need that. You just answered my last question. So it was going to be, if someone's listening today, just discovered a hidden truth about their identity, what would you want them to know? And you just, you just, Do that. And that's the support part of it is look for those people. In my book, I talk about it, but they'll tell you the same thing.

46:15 If you found out a weird way, like your mom's oncologist mentioning it to you, get that DNA test done if you do want to find some answers. And don't do one that you find at you know, a drugstore, you got to do the ones online because they'll give you the information where you can plug it into other places and find, because, you know, if you do ancestry, but the people you're looking for did 23 and me, you're not going to find each other, you know, but there are ways. And, you know, if you are going through this, God bless you. And, and, and I hope you find what you're looking for. And I hope it gives you comfort and doesn't disappoint because it ain't easy.

47:02 It's redefined my life. And if I can help anyone the way that people help me, then man, I hope I can. That sounds great. So that's going to be the last question I have for you. So I just want to thank Al Isaacs or Christian Smith. Yes. For being here today. Thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the time. It's been great. So for listeners who want to follow Al's work or learn more about his memoir, Finding Mary Smith, you can visit Al Smith, or sorry, now I've got to suck my head, alisaacs.com. So I will include that link in the show notes. Thank you so much.

47:42 So if today's conversation moved you, please share the episode with someone who loves powerful true stories. That's it for this week's episode of Stories from Real Life. Until next time, don't forget to shine your light wherever you go. That was Stories from Real Life. Join us again next week for another great storytelling journey. See you next time.