This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you
hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. John Bame is an Atlanta based independent producer
with a specialty in non fiction projects, and this new project of his was
quite surprising to him. It's called Filling in the Blanks, and let's just
start with the charming picture we're all seeing about when people fill out that DNA
report to start the search for their ancestry and where they came from. For
John, it wasn't that charming a process, was it. Well, it
started charming, but it ended up as quite a shock. I found out
as I was got my results back that I saw all these half siblings who
I knew nothing about. Who are these people? It was the scariest thing.
First I thought, well, maybe maybe the tests a joke, you
know, maybe I was catfished. But it turns out that one of the
people who was listened as a half sister sent me a like an in massage,
just like you can do on Facebook, and she said, I see
we're related on face on Facebook on twenty three and me and if you'd like
to know more about how related, I'd be happy to tell you, I
respect your privacy, enjoy your experience. And I had no idea what that
meant. Uh yeah, I too have filled out one of those and who
is this person? And I've had to go to mom and say, Mom,
who is this person? Oh yeah, that's your cousin so and so's
daughter who married this person, and that's why the name is. But I've
not had anything as shocking as wait, what dad had a whole other family.
Well, it wasn't even that. It wasn't that Dad had a whole
other family. It was that when I asked her to explain everything she did,
she said, well, I know your biological father. And they said
that your parents were part of a program at Mount Sannah Hospital in New York
in nineteen sixty three for infertile couples. So if you had a couple and
mail was not fertile or was not able to have enough sperm, essentially they
would provide anonymously a sperm donors sample and then you would go ahead and get
pregnant. And nobody was now And that was what they did. And that
is what I found out one day in twenty nineteen and was in a state
of shock. My dad told me. I'd said to him, I wanted
to take a DNA test. We'd actually talked just socially at a birthday dinner
about it, and in the middle of the dinner, he looked at me
in front of his there were some friends there of his, and he goes,
I don't want you to take that DNA test until I'm dead. And
I thought he was joking, and he was dead serious. And you know,
what do you think I did the next day said, okay, let's
find out, yes, exactly. And I did find out and found out
that he he was not my biological father. Now there he was fine as
far as the dad goes. He was not a bad man by any means.
There are terrible things fathers can do to their children, and I was.
I was not that that was not what the stories about, but he
it was a surprise. They kept this secret. I was fifty four years
old when I found out. I have two older brothers. Apparently my mom
went to the same U program at Mount and I to get to get spermed,
basically because my dad was unable to was unable to have kids. And
I guess he was just I guess back in those days, you know,
they were kind of shame and men wouldn't really talk about it, so they
just kind of kept secret and made it look like everything was fine. Well,
you did have a lot of that, And we're talking to John Bame.
He is an Atlanta based producer. He specializes in non fiction projects and
reality shows. But little did he know his own genetic search would a whole
documentary would just spill right out of the pages of his DNA and on film.
At what point did you say to yourself, I've got I've got to
document this when things slowed down during the COVID It really started out as a
COVID project and I basically just interviewed my half siblings woo I discovered through twenty
three in me and my donor dad, who I met on Zoom and I
thought halfway through, you know, maybe I could do more with this than
just sort of make a little, a little mini project. I can actually
make a real documentary. So I just hunkered down and did it and it
worked out. It worked out really well, So I'm really glad. I'm
really proud of what I did. You know, first, I was very
angry at my parents were keeping this kind of a secret, But as I
made the film. It was kind of a cathartic experience and it really helped
me process. So the film had two two roles, you know. One
it was it was kind of an interesting project, and the other was kind
of expensive therapy in a way. Well, the name of the documentary is
filling in the blanks, which is exactly what John Baim had to do.
And this happened to you later in life. John. So there's so many
things I look back on, not only with the behavior of my parents,
the behavior of my grandparents. Now that I am the age my grandparents were
when I was young, I have a different take on it. And so
since you discovered this kind of late in your life, it probably is sitting
a lot easier on you than it would have if you had been younger.
It depends. I would say, if I had found out at fourteen from
a DNA test, which didn't exist back then, but just hypothetically speaking,
yeah, it would have. It would have really twisted me. If my
parents had sat me down and said, look, there's something we want to
tell you. You know, it's it's similar to finding out your adopt You
know, you want to know, you want to know the truth. Everybody
has an origin story. And when you think you know you're one person and
then you find out, I don't know, five and a half decades later,
you're not. That's something and you know, I had to make the
decision do I tell my parents I know this or do I let them take
it to the right They have since passed on since twenty nineteen, and so
the movie kind of explores that, you know, do I approach them,
Do I say, hey, I know your secret, I know what you've
been you've been keeping, or do I not. But it's been a positive
experience. I have a lot of Donor siblings. We just got together two
weekends ago in New Jersey, just had a little reunion. I've met my
Donor dad. He's a very nice guy, and in that way, it's
kind of rediscovering yourself. It's the oddest of midlife Crisiss, That's probably the
best way to put it. I've reconnected with very very distant cousins, and
I am pleased when I and I've met them for the very first time.
I'm talking, you know, some of them first cousins, some of them
second cousins. But I'm so pleased when I find that we have so much
in common. I imagine you found that too. Oh yeah, yeah,
definitely. Look there are some people who you find out are your half siblings
and you each out to them and they say, look, this is too
weird. I don't want to deal with it. In my case, that's
a little bit more of the exception than the rule. Most of the con
it's really nice to connect with people you don't really have anything in common with,
but you know, but you do, you find out you have it.
I kind of say, when we get together, it's like book club
without the books. It's DNA club, if you will. And John Bamana.
John Bam is the producer. Filling in the Blanks is the documentary he
had to do exactly that with his life when he took a DNA test,
and the documentary is available everywhere you get documentaries. John Bam, thank you
for joining us today. All right, thank you very much. One of
those places Apple TV or Amazon Prime. You can find it there or on
your local pablebond Max. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation