The little dark one

Imagine finding out that your whole life was a lie.

That your parents were never your parents – that your family was not really your family.

That you had spent a lifetime somewhere you were never meant to be.

This was the truth that Shirley Muñoz Newson of Gillette discovered the day before her 43rd birthday. Two decades later, she chose to write a book about her experience.

Newson will be at the Church of Christ at W Hwy 13 in Sundance on November 11 at 10 a.m. to speak about The Little Dark One, a tale of never knowing why she didn't fit in with her brothers and sisters or why her father didn't treat her as kindly as her siblings – and of finally finding out why.

It's a story Newson wants to share in the hope it can help others understand their own trauma, and that the path to healing is always open.

Left Unsaid

The hints were always there.

With her brown eyes and hair, olive skin and fine bones, Newson didn't look like the rest of her blond, big-framed family.

The neighbors whispered that they wondered when Jean, the woman who raised her, would 'fess up.

A science teacher told several of Newson's adopted siblings that it was impossible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child.

Nobody checked into it.

"It was all just left unsaid. There was always this underlying current of not belonging that was always present," she says.

James, the man who raised her, seemed to know from the start. When the truth came out, four decades later, he said he had known the moment he saw her that she was not his child.

Despite the rift that it caused, the family chose not to look too closely.

"There were numerous opportunities for them to investigate and they chose not to," she says.

"Supposedly, they had been a loving and caring family. Then I was brought home and everything changed."

Finding the Truth

In 2001, when James grew ill and there was thought he might not survive, he wanted to know once and for all if Newson was his daughter. She agreed to a DNA test, having always wondered herself.

"I thought I would go to my grave not ever knowing who my father was," she says.

The day before Newson's 43rd birthday, the results arrived. She couldn't bring herself to open them – eventually, she asked the man she would later marry to do it.

The paper inside confirmed there was a zero percent chance that James was her father.

She barely remembers the trip to see the woman she'd always thought was her mother, but she does remember thinking that it was time for Jean to tell her the truth for once in her life.

"She read them and looked at me and said, 'Well, if he's not your father, I'm not your mother, and I'll take a DNA test to prove it'," Newson recalls.

Sure enough, the test revealed that Jean was, in fact, not Newson's mother.

"I knew right then that I had been switched at birth," she said.

Digging Deeper

Newson didn't want to deal with the emotions at that time, so she focused her energy on finding out who her birth mother was.

Her first stop was the library. Newson had heard the story that she was born in the hallway because another woman was giving birth and having problems, so she knew there were two babies.

Only one was listed in the newspaper, which led her to believe her birth mother must have been unwed.

"It was 1958, you didn't publish things like that – it was frowned upon," she says.

At the hospital, she was told the old records were stored in the Wyoming State Archives. She was able to retrieve them with the help of an attorney, which took five months.

Meanwhile, one of her adopted sisters was able to get Jean's records unsealed and used a solution to uncover the redacted sections. This revealed the first name of Newson's birth mother.

Eventually, Newson was able to find out the full name and contact the woman she should have gone home with that day.

It was, unfortunately, not a simple, joyous homecoming.

"She was not very receptive," she says. "She was so torn with her daughter, Debbie, that she raised. Debbie had called her and said she was worried that she would love me more than her."

Until Newson contacted them, the family had never suspected the truth. Debbie's father was white, so her non-Hispanic appearance was not a surprise.

Adding to the problem, says Newson, was that her birth mother showed love through physical care.

"I was very independent, I was single and raising my grandson and my son, had a really good house and job and everything. She didn't feel that I needed her, I found out later through a cousin," she says.

Newson's birth mother died in 2016. The two were never able to form a mother-daughter connection.

Newson's story made national news, though she herself declined all interviews as she did not feel emotionally capable.

On the other hand, Debbie was embraced by the Morgan family, who threw several parties for her to welcome her back. Newson was invited and did attend one, but the final straw came when she received an invite to a birthday celebration for James and Debbie.

With tears in her eyes, she handed the card to her husband and said, "It's my birthday, too."

Debbie died in 2006.

The Aftermath

It took 21 years of therapy, soul-searching and hard work for Newson to be able to openly talk about what happened.

"I'd suppressed everything from childhood forward. Cheryl [Wales, therapist] would ask me a question and say, how did you feel? And I would say, well, I didn't feel," she says.

"I was really good at smiling and saying I'm fine, everything's good. I didn't let people in."

As it turned out, speaking about it was healing for Newson.

"My goal was to help people heal and know that, even through everything, I healed only through my faith and I was able to survive and thrive. I want people to know that," she says.

Newson's son urged her to write a book about her experiences, an idea she was initially resistant to. Eventually, he asked: what if you help just one person?

Wouldn't that be worth it?

At first, Newson considered using a ghost writer, but then listened to the advice of her cousin that nobody could tell her story better than she could. So, she signed up for a Georgetown University writing course and got to work.

"It took me about 20 months because I had to heal. I thought I was healed and I wasn't," she says.

Newson still had letters from half a century ago, court case documents, counseling notes and more, all of which she had to open up and relive.

"I feel like God had a plan for me and this was His plan. I thought I was writing a book to help people, which I have, but God knew I needed to heal and it was time," she says.

"I was a very strong and independent child. My personality was very different than the siblings I was raised with. I think God gave me those tools, and he knew I was strong."

When Newson set her goal of helping at least one person, she didn't expect it to be someone who had been through exactly the same experience. Newson met a man in West Virginia who found out he was switched at birth at 77 years old.

As far as she knows, flying out to see Johnny was the first time two unrelated people in the United States who had experienced this rare situation had met.

"He was physically abused and he has a lot of anger," she says. "I was really worried about him because I know the toll that suppressed physical trauma has on your body and I'm sure anger does too, so I wanted him to let go."

The two spent time together, talking and healing. A little while later, at a book signing nearby, one of Johnny's friends commented in surprise to see him smiling.

"I have had such positive feedback from people. People haven't gone through the things that I have, but they can relate to so many things in my book. After I do speaking engagements, people come up and talk to me – plus then I learn things that I didn't know," she says.

The Future

Part of Newson wishes her family had investigated earlier, but part of her does not.

When people ask her if she wishes it had never happened, she tells them, "I don't even think about that because this is the life I have. You can't change one thing – it changes your whole life."

If Newson had gone home with the right mother, she might not today have her husband, son, grandchild and all the other blessings she is so grateful for.

Though Newson was never able to forge connections with either of her immediate families, both adopted and biological, extended family on both sides embraced her.

"I'm blessed in that way," she says.

Even overcoming the trauma of not remembering having ever been told she was loved as a child is something she feels has given her strength of purpose. She vowed, she says, that her own kids would never experience the same – and they never have.

Now, she wants to reach out through her book to people who might be struggling. Not necessarily with similar issues, but with the emotional consequences of trauma.

"I want to help people know that, with all the things I went through, I not only survived but thrived – because of my faith," she says.