
I want to go back and tell you to keep that smile, to keep trusting people even though they will hurt you, to know that even after the state took you away from your Deaf mother 3 times, placed you in abusive foster care, tried to place you for adoption...the abuse and emotional hurt will linger but you will use that to tell stories that help and heal others.
Why am I so loud and proud about being a daddy? Because growing up I had three different last names and one real dad.
Last month I went to San Jose CA, the area I grew up in, and shared some videos about some of the areas I went to church, school, and lived as a kid. I got some private messages from some people who also grew up there in the same time but said they don't remember a keith "wann".
From the age of 3 to 12 my last name was HALE. I was Keith Hale. When my mom and dad were discussing a divorce around my age of 12, the state took me away for a year and placed me in a foster system where I was abused physically, verbally, and sexually. This wasn't the first time I was placed in the system, three different times from birth to 3 years old I was taken away from my mom and placed with foster familes (I am not saying foster families are bad, but the ones I was with did the bad things when I was this young age too) My mom almost lost me while she was dealing with her own issues, most recently me being born as a product of a rape from a hearing married man and this after years of terrible abuse at the residential deaf school. At the age of me turning three Doug Hale came into her life, married her, and raised me as his son. The most gentlest, loving father ever possible, one that I try to live up to as I raise my kids.
My son is named after this role-model, Douglas.
They divorced from my mom's unresolved issues.
After the divorce is when my mom told me about what happened to her and how I came into this world. She stated the man's last name was COX, and lived in the same apartment complex when it happened. And so then I would be Keith Cox. Just getting out of my own abusive experience and hearing about my moms I never wanted that last name (never wanted to know anything about that person but doing a 23 and me, DNA thing I found my half brother about 2 years ago, and we have had some great conversations and I have found out about any medical concerns on that side of the family).
So at the age of 13 I became Keith Thomas Wann, taking my mom's maiden name, resembling my grandfather's name "Keith Dale Wann" her dad that she never met. He died in ww2 when she was months old, and left her with an alcoholic mother, who she never grew up with, and stayed in the abusive deaf residential system all her life.
So with the hurt I have already had growing up a few mean posts or comments here or there on social media, pale in comparison to the love and support that overwhelms. I appreciate all of you and thank you dad, Doug! (Who remarried a great woman and we still keep in touch and he has met his grandkids several times being able to do his grandfather thing. He never had his own kids but his legacy will live on)
So if you remember that Keith Hale kid growing up in San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos... guilty me!
I love you DAD and now it's my turn to be one
To all my deaf parents who have had their children taken away by the system and no interpreter provided - sorry.
I was taken away from my deaf parents for a year (my 5th grade year) and placed in an abusive foster home just because my parents started discussing 'divorce'. No interpreter provided...they just came and took me (1979).
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