1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - DP Family Chronicles: June 20th, 10:25am

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

The craziness that is DP discovering his fathers familyAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Thank you guys on the text line. Don, Magic. Magic goes, yeah, you're not the only one who's crying. It's just, we get caught up in a lot of stuff in life. And like I said, this could have gone left. This could have gone way left. It could have been folks who just wanted no parts of, you know, any of this. And so the story was that, for my 50th birthday, Becky, decided to, to,

because I was poking around a little bit trying to find out. I didn't find out until late in life that Walter Pearson, the guy who gave me his name, was it my biological father? And there were all sorts of stories behind that. But then later, as my mom got sick, it came up. And I wasn't going to push that on her when she was sick. And before she passed, it was kind of, well, you know,

this is, it is what it is. I'll take it to the grave and I asked the rest of the family and it wasn't there wasn't a lot of information available and so you poked around and there was some names that came up and through the process

finally the story has several sides to it. One that the way ancestry works is that it can tag you with whoever you are genetically related to who has taken the test. So directly they can tell you that this person and this person share

X number, what percentage of DNA and on which side. And so then the problem is that if your people aren't taking DNA test, then you're just out of luck. Although then there's a second side where you start getting into family trees. And sometimes family trees can be wrong because if you were on my family tree before, you would not have tied together the Garner family. So a lot of family trees, the information that's passed along is wrong. DNA is right.

It's true. You can't lie to you. So then finally, in the process, months into the process, we get a hit saying that you've got somebody that is your second cousin once removed. And I'm like, okay, that's close. So let me see. And then, of course, you do the social stock thing. and I'm looking at the person's name and where it says they're from, who took the test, and they took it.

They're from Arlington, Virginia. And I'm like, okay, we're in business. So then I jump on social media and I go to Facebook and there he is. He's on Facebook. So I go through his pictures. And then I get the Stone Cold chills because there's a woman in his pictures that I know because I know the name. I know this woman.

And so I reach out to him and I said, listen, this is who I am. You can look on an association and see. I'm not a stalker. I'm just somebody trying to get information. And he goes, yeah. I said, are you open to sharing information? You go, sure.

So I said, the woman in this picture, you say this is your grandma, you miss your grandma. Is that your grandmother? Or is that like, he goes, yeah, that's my grandmother. That's my grandmother. And I'm like, her daughter is my mom. And I'm like, so I know, and I know his mom.

Because if I did her with her, I've ridden her car, like I. So I said, well, so that means that so this guy, Andre, is your uncle. And he goes, yeah. And I'm like, okay. So I sent him a picture. And he goes, yeah, that's my uncle Andre. And I'm like, so here's the story. Growing up as kids in the neighborhood.

So I went to school with this guy, Andre, from kindergarten until we got bused to various points of the county. But we always stayed in touch. Like we were five streets away. And one day I see him in summer and he's going to baseball practice. Like I see him in practice uniform. I'm like, where are you going? He goes, I'm going practice baseball. And he goes, why don't you come with me?

He goes, you're good. Why don't you come with me? I'm like, let me go check with mom. I'll go check with mom. We could walk to practice, so went down and played baseball with him. We became best of friends, even through college. Once we graduated from college, we became roommate. We were roommates for five years.

I was best made in his wedding. When I went to Charlotte to work for the Panthers, he was having, he wanted a life change. And so I said, well, just come to. down here. You can live with me and you'll help me run our foundation. We had a charity called Fat Guy Charities. And you can help me run around with the TV show. And so he moved, packed this stuff, moved to Charlotte. We ran through and people would call us brothers all the time. They're like, you guys are brothers. And it turns out that he was my first cousin. So my roommate and my best

friend was my first cousin. I didn't know it, which led to other questions, right? Because throughout our time, as teenagers, like his mom would pick us up from practice. And if my mom wasn't home from work yet, she would just say, well, won't you come to the house and eat? No, they don't take you home or you can walk home. And this happened 10, 15 times a year.

So we were around. And then Andre and I were best friends through a lot of part of our early adult life. And then they said, well, okay, so let's go. your mom's family, does she have brothers? She had six brothers, which makes it complicated. And two of those were twins. They were twins, which makes it.

And they're both deceased. So then you got to get, when Wendell said he had to get, he got a letter from ancestry, they sent on the letter saying there's somebody that's inquiring, are you interested in sharing DNA or at least dealing with it? So as it comes up, but the letter that was answered was the brother Roy, who was the older brother. And when Roy got it, he said, oh, that's our dad. No, like, no, you don't understand what, no, no, this is, it's more complicated.

And he goes, no, no, no, I know Derek. He lived like one street away from me. Here we go. So I showed RICO a picture of the two twins who were baseball players. and when they sent the picture and said we believe your dad's in this picture and there's two twins and I'm like okay well it doesn't really help me

but now you've got to find people from both twins to and I sent the picture to Becky and Becky I was in DC Becky was in Houston and I sent it to the picture and I go one of these is my dad and she goes it's the guy on your right on the right and I said no honey they're twins like they're twins she goes no it's the one on the right i'm like what do you talk about she goes

i've i've seen that face every day that's your coaching face it's the guy on your right the guy on the right is your dad because he's got and it's my dad is both they're both in baseball uniforms and the cap is down and she goes nope that one so i asked the family i'm like which one his dad and they said yeah the one on the right so becky even knew before i did um and to tell you that when i met the older brother roy we were good it was pure happenstance i was in dc uh this is when i was working for the government at the time and i'm in dc and i get a message on facebook from a young lady who said, hey, I believe you may be my uncle. And I'm like, why?

And she goes, well, my dad got this letter from ancestry. And he says, he thinks you're his brother. And I was like, well, who is it? And she kind of said he had a nickname. And he's called. He called him before. So you talk to my brother Roy. And he said, yeah, it's us.

Like, we were one street away. It's us. So he goes, well, do you want to meet? Do you want to meet up? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, well, I happen to be in Arlington. He doesn't live there, but he happened to be there at weekend. Picked a restaurant.

I got there first. Set the table. When I went out to the car and I told the hostess, somebody may come looking for me. This is my name. If they come in looking for me, just send them to the table. I go out to the car. I come back and the waitress.

The host is going. goes, didn't you just walk by? I'm like, no. She goes, I think your brother's here. I think your brother's here. Now, Rico, I'm going to share this. I'm going to show you this picture. Okay.

So you will get some understanding of what, how, how funny space is. I mean, you were showing me the pictures of your dad, like your dad younger and some of your brothers. And when, listen, when I tell you that deep. P's dad has strong jeans. That man Right, like he just made photocopies of himself and was just like you'd be a little smaller.

Right, right. So, unplanned, didn't know we were going to meet. So imagine this is the first picture that we take together. Oh, yeah. He just has a, like, if you just take your face and you just elongated, little bit. Same face. Right.

Same face. Right. Like we came, we both had on black hats with black clothes. Of course you did. Glasses like we are. You guys color coordinate? No, but we didn't know we were going to meet. The hats are different, but they're close enough. Well, he's a Steelers fan and I had on a black NFL. NFL. Yeah, it's close enough. And like we just walked out with like a logo in the middle. We just walked in and it was fantastic. Now, the story gets more bonkers. Of course it does. Of course it does. Because why wouldn't it? Because like this is, so imagine my head through all of this. so that all this is spinning around. This is too much.

So my oldest sister, Deborah, who her married name is, she married a Garner, a different Garner. Okay. But her name is Deborah Garner. Her name is Deborah Garner. Right?

So she's a Garner. And her oldest son, she named after me. His name is Derek Garner, which is actually what my name should have been. She's there. So she's in tears. She took the picture.

And then after we had dinner, I had lunch, she said, there's some place I need to take you. There's somebody I want you to meet. Didn't tell me anything. We get in a car and it was a very short ride to my old neighborhood. And she turns into and she pulls up in front of my grandmother's old house. So the house that was, that I used to get babysat in until I was 12. And then she moved a block away, but that house still is there.

and we pull up to us and we're like, why are we at a suit's house? Why are we in my grandmother's house? And she goes, shut up, keep walking. We walk up. She pulls the door open. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, you're walking in people's houses? What is, what is happening?

So I stand by the door because I'm like, I don't know what's going to have. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on, but this is my grandmother's house. So it's a little, like, I'm comfortable. And I'm looking around because the thing that I'm looking at is this was my, grandmother's house. This was my childhood. And I'm looking at the wall.

And on the wall are pictures of young, of my daughter. There are pictures of my daughter on the wall. Okay. And I'm like what is happening. A woman turns the corner. And she goes,

hey, Deborah. And the woman had a like a bag in her hand. She threw the bag at me and hit me with it. And she goes, why did you bring him here? And Deborah goes, girl, this is my brother, Derek. And she had a rag and she dropped it.

And she went, I thought it was Roy. This was Roy's ex-wife who was living in my grandmother's house. And the pictures of my daughter on the wall were actually her daughter. Yep, no, okay. And her name is Deborah. So are you living in the twilight zone or something? Wait, right. So then, so the niece that I had, who reached out on Facebook, I had not met her, actually met her.

So she drove over to her mom's house, Deborah. And she's sitting on, she comes in and we just hug each other and we just cry. And then she sits on the couch and we're all just talking, but she's facing me just staring at me. And she goes, it's the weirdest thing to look. I see my dad, but I hear this other man's voice coming out of his face. And it was the weirdest, most amazing, brilliant day that you could ever imagine. Life changes for people. You have to hang on until it changes for you.

Like you're never, like all of them. Like all of my entire reality was just thrown out the window. And I had a new reality because I found out that I had four more brothers and two more sisters. And then this gigantic family who loved me. So I'll, we're going to pause there. I have to tell you the story that the following weekend, the family, that family had to get together. The weird twist kept happening. I'll tell you more.

It's like Tyler Perry and M. Night Shyamalan made a movie. Coming back. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to One-on-One with DP on 937 The Ticket and The Ticketfm.com.