What if you spent more than half a century knowing you were loved, but still wondering where you came from?
For Julie Melanson, being adopted was never a secret. She grew up surrounded by family and love, yet questions about her biological identity remained part of her story. Then, at 51, Julie made the decision that would change her life: she went searching for her birth mother.
And she found her.
In this deeply moving episode of A Voice and Beyond, Julie shares the extraordinary story behind her memoir, Not Yours to Keep—a story of adoption, identity, belonging, motherhood, grief, courage, and the complicated emotions that can accompany discovering where we come from.
Julie takes us inside the moment she finally connected with her birth mother and heard the words that changed everything: her mother had been looking for her too.
What followed was an opportunity Julie could once only have imagined—the chance to know her biological mother, connect with birth siblings, discover extraordinary similarities within her biological family, and begin filling in pieces of her own identity.
But this isn't simply a story about finding a birth mother.
In this conversation we explore:
- The emotional risks involved in searching for biological family
- What it feels like to recognise yourself in people you've only just met
- Nature, nurture and the formation of identity
- The complicated emotions surrounding adoption
- Julie's experience of loving—and losing—two mothers
- Grief, resilience and the enduring nature of family bonds
- What Julie would like other adoptees to know
- Why understanding our past can sometimes transform our relationship with the present
This episode will resonate far beyond the adoption community.
Because underneath Julie's remarkable story lies a question almost every human being asks at some point:
Who am I and how much of who I am has come from where I came from?
Find Julie Here:
- juliemelansonauthor.com/
- linkedin.com/in/julie-melanson-3b27124/
- facebook.com/juliemelan/
- instagram.com/julie_melanson_author/
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