Stephanie: Hi, MJ. Welcome to the show.

Melissa: Hello, Stephanie. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: It's so good to have you. This is a story today that I haven't experienced too much of in the course of the show in all these interviews. I'm always so excited when I get a story that feels unique to me, although I know that these kinds of things, whatever I'm talking about, happen to so many people out in the world.

Why don't we start by, tell me a little bit about what life was like before our story begins. What were the forces that shaped you? What did childhood look like. Tell me a little bit about who MJ was?

Melissa: For the first seven years of my life, my mother and I lived with her parents and her younger siblings. it was different. I grew up in Texas. I was also the first grandchild. So I say that I was the golden child. I was the princess. I was the favorite. I still am.

So I was pretty spoiled. Granddaddy adored me, Granny. it was wonderful. My uncles were ten and 13 years older than I was, the two that were closest in age to me. And then my aunt was ten years older than me. They were twins.

They weren't just my aunts and uncles. They were my siblings. They were my friends. That's what the very first looks like. And then my mom met my dad. Or who I call dad.

And life took a little turn. They moved in together, got married, I got a sister a couple of years later and life moved on. During all of that, because I didn't know my birth father, I was definitely a people pleaser. I was a good girl. I followed the rules. I did everything I was told to do. Pretty much you name it, I did it. I didn't want anybody unhappy with me or just in general.

I smoothed the waters constantly and I was definitely a people pleaser.

Moving into life and growing up, I still did that. I made decisions based on what would make other people happy, and how they felt.

I wanted to go to college and I wanted to be in law enforcement. I even thought about joining the military. My parents, they raised me not to go into debt, which isn't a bad thing. So I didn't go to college, which meant I couldn't be CIA, which is what I really wanted to do. Yeah, I could have joined Police Academy but didn't think about that. I thought that was out of it.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: But I knew that certain decisions I was making, I made them with my mom in mind.

Stephanie: You knew that consciously while you were making them?

Melissa: Actually, I didn't.

Stephanie: Oh you didn't, Oh okay.

Melissa: It wasn't until recently that I realized that, and I'm 57. And, some of it I did consciously know some of them, but not all of them. I didn't realize, not some of the big ones. I thought they were my decisions. And it wasn't until the last ten years or so that I realized, no, they weren't.

Stephanie: Yeah So your mom got married. She met your dad when you were seven and he adopted you. Am I right?

Melissa: Correct.

I was ten when he adopted me.

Stephanie: Let's just sort of fast fast-forward. That's a nice foundation.Now your 20s and your 30s and you're into your 40sand this is where our story begins. Tell me a little bit about the hobby you were working on when everything kind of changed.

Melissa: Yeah. So since I didn't grow up with my birth father, I didn't know a lot about his family. And I had finally met him and he died when I was 31. And I was working on his family tree because I wanted to know where I came from.

I wanted to know about his family, and I was struggling to find anything about his mother. And she had been murdered four years before I was born. So yeah, I thought, okay, I got her name wrong or I've got some detail wrong, and that's why I can't find anything about her and her family. And I really wanted to know about her family because I thought I was part Cherokee.

Obvious, isn't it?

Stephanie: The blonde hair. The blue eyes they really give it away.

Melissa: The fair complexion.. Totally,

Stephanie: Okay

Melissa: I'm obviously Cherokee. So I was looking, I couldn't find anything.I had a file folder of his birth certificate, his death certificate, his military forms from when he joined the military, his DD214, which is military discharge, paperwork and everything. And I'm looking through everything.

And I saw his blood type and I heard a voice say, he's not your father. I knew my mom's blood type and I knew mine. And when I saw his, it was the only blood type my father could not be. I've had those papers all my life. For at least 15 or more years. I don't know how many times I saw it and didn't see it. And I was like, oh!

Stephanie: Let's back up a step. Tell me about what your mom told you

about this guy that was your birth father or that she said was your birth father,

Melissa: because met him when in your early 20s

Correct.

So they had gotten married when she was five months pregnant with me? Yeah. And then got divorced when I was about six months old. So he was there for a hot minute. And then I found him and got to know him for a few years before he died. And yeah,He was the guy.

Stephanie: Okay, But now scientifically,

Melissa: yeah.

Stephanie: he couldn't have been?

Melissa: He couldn't have been. It was an impossibility.

Stephanie: And you were 45 when you saw this.

Melissa: That is correct. I was 45 years old. I actually started laughing when I realized and I thought, maybe I don't remember correctly. So I called a friend who is now OBGYN. Asked her and she was like, I could be wrong, but I think you're right. She was like, but I could be wrong. I'm like, no.

Stephanie: Yeah you went to school.

Melissa: She was just trying to be kind and not hurt me. I hung up from her and called my mom and I was laughing when I asked her. It didn't go so well.

Stephanie: What'd your mom say?

Melissa: At that point. She just denied it and said that the military had it wrong, that they had messed up. And I was like, No, they're not going to mess up. Of all things. They're going to make sure that is correct because that's life and death, if they have that wrong.

So she stuck to that for a little bit. And then eventually she said, I was switched at birth. I wasn't.

Stephanie: Well now talk about her pregnancy and what she thought her entire pregnancy.

Melissa: Well, the whole time she was pregnant, she was supposedly told by the doctors and nurses that she was pregnant with the boy. And so when I was born, how did she not realized that I had been switched? Because, you know, she was told she was pregnant with a boy. The plumbing is different. They're not going to make that your girl.

Stephanie: Okay, first the military got it wrong. Now you're switched at birth what next?

Melissa: After that anytime I would ask her about him, she woudn't answer. So I started playing detective and asking questions around, like why did she move from Texas to Montana, which is where she was living when I was conceived.

She answered questions for a while, peripherally, but then she stopped. She stopped answering questions. She stopped looking at me. She stopped talking to me. And for a year she didn't answer my phone calls or my text messages. That was hard because we went from being best friends and talking all the time to nothing. My dad would call me back and say, Hey, Missy, you called your mom. What's up? Or You texted your mom. What's up? What do you need? What can I do for you?

Stephanie: Did you ever ask him about it? About why she wouldn't talk to you?

Melissa: Yeah, he said she was embarrassed and hurt and she didn't think I'd ever find out.

Stephanie: Okay

Melissa: So she wasn't angry at you necessarily She was more

She was protecting herself.

Stephanie: Okay, at your expense.

Melissa: Yeah,

Stephanie: So now we know it's not Alan. Right We know it's not Alan

Melissa: Yeah. wasn't Alan.

Stephanie: Chuck is your dad that you grew up with.

Melissa: Yes.

Stephanie: Now you put on a real detective hat.

Melissa: Yes, I did.

Stephanie: I got to do what I had always wanted to do. I wanted to be CIA or a law enforcement. So I got to do it for myself. Yeah. You use those investigative skills.

Melissa: Exactly.

Stephanie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about what came next and what where you looked and what you found?

Melissa: I started contacting people that were stationed in Glasgow, Montana, at the time I was conceived. I found a Facebook group and joined it, told them why I was joining. And there were people in the group that were there at the same time, but none of them recognized the names, which was understandable. It's been a few years, plus my mom's maiden name was very common, Smith.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: Then from there I was like, okay. I knew this story she told me about why she moved to Montana, which was that her high school boyfriend's brother suggested she move there since she had just graduated high school. It's like, okay, let me talk to this guy.

Stephanie: But she couldn't remember his last name when she was telling me the story. The brothers had different fathers, Okay I see All right Because this is all sounding kind of fishy.

Melissa: Yeah.

Oh believe me, so much. So fishy.

Stephanie: Okay

Melissa:

So I took and tracked down her high school boyfriend to find out his brother's name, and to reach out to the brother, to talk to him. The first thing out of his mouth when we got on the phone was that his wife was sitting there with him and he had it on speaker.

And I'm like, That's fine. And said hi to her as well.

Second thing out of his mouth, what's your birthday.

And so I told him. There was a slight pause and he goes, oh, k. No I'm not your father.

And I'm like, that had not even crossed my mind.

Stephanie: Right

Melissa: Had not even considered him as a possibility.

Stephanie: And he just kind of unearthed something that we didn't know.

Melissa: Exactly.

Then he shared more. I was actually going to contact his brother to find out if he remembered who she had hung out with, and who she knew. Whole thing come to find out the brothers had both liked my mom. Both brothers were involved with my mom. I was like, oh okay.

The brother was deceased, so he gave me his widow's name and number. I contacted her, a she put me in touch with her son. I drove up to Amarillo and we did a DNA test and he was super excited. And so sweet. Cause he thought he was getting another sister.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: But no, he wasn't the one either.

Stephanie: Okay.

Melissa: I then started digging some more. I ended up doing my DNA. I I did all kinds of questioningdigging and you name it. I finally hit a wall.

So I did my DNA at Ancestry.com and 23andme, got all these matches. Because I was hoping that I would get a family match, bit of parental match, but I wasn't holding my breath. I figured if nothing else, I would find out where the family came from, cuz' it does the genetics and stuff. But I got all these cousin matches that weren't on my mom's side. They were not familiar names. The kicker was the closest was a second cousin. It was actually her son in law who monitored the account and he was super nice and she was too, helping. But both of her parents came from large families. So it was very difficult to narrow it down.

I ended up hiring the pro genealogist at Ancestry. They figured it out through whatever they do, all that they do. They said I had done a lot of what they would have had me do.

So

Stephanie: You got halfway there. You Yeah. So tell me about when you found out who your dad was. What was that like? And how was he in your mom's world?

Melissa: When I finally got the report, I was actually out of state for one of my son's baseball tournaments. My dad that raised me was with me. He got to be the first one to know that I had gotten the information. He was the first one to hear the name. I was like a kid on Christmas morning and birthday and all wrapped up in one. I was so excited. But he was already dead, so I wasn't going to get to meet him.

Stephanie: Wow

Melissa: But, he has a sister that lives about 3 hours away from me. And she has been amazing.

Stephanie: Talk to me a little bit about the excitement though. What was so exciting about this discovery?

Melissa: The possibilities that it opened up, because my fake birth father, as I call Alan, he wasn't the greatest guy.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm

Melissa: He was abusive. He was an alcoholic. He was a compulsive liar, you name it. He was not a great guy.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Melissa: One of my thoughts, when I first found out was, yes, I get the chance to have a good birth father, and a family that will accept me and want me and love me.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm

Melissa: When I got the report, there was all that.That little girl wanting a daddy popped up again because, yeah, Dad was there and had loved me. But I didn't appreciate him growing up because he was my stepdad.

Stephanie: Right

Melissa: How could you love me as much as he loved his other daughters? But he did.

Stephanie: Yeah. Of course.

A lot of the patterns that we subconsciously reenact over and over again through our 20s and our 30s and into our 40s are things that happened to us as small children during those really formative years. And part of the piece of this transition is that sometime around our 40th birthday, sometime in our early 40s, we finally feel the strength and the confidence in ourselves to start picking apart those patterns and those habits and the things that are preventing us from either being the person we wanna be or achieving the things we want to achieve.

No matter that you had a dad starting at age seven, those really young toddler years, those formative years before you have a higher functioning brain. There's a lot of stuff there that I'm guessing was probably challenging for you.

Melissa: Yeah, very much so.It's silly in a way, but I did not realize how much I searched for acceptance and love in men through my twenties, in my teens. When I made the discovery for a hot minute, it all came back. Even though I was married, even though I had a family of my own, all the insecurities and everything came rushing back. Does he really love me? Does he want? All of that.

Stephanie: But after I got past that, finally at 45, I realized I am worthy of love, that I didn't need to be searching all that time, that I am strong. I am confident. I don't need to be a people pleaser, because I am fine just as I am. I am confident, which I never would have thought I was confident before. But yeah, I am. yeah,

Melissa: It's a whole new world. I don't know that I would have been able to handle it as well if I had found out earlier.

So even though I regret the fact that I never got to meet him or his parents, because his mother died just a few months before I found out who it was. I found out in June, and she had passed away the October before.

Stephanie:

Melissa: It was six months before I found she had died. if I had found out sooner, I could have met. But I don't know that I was ready and so it worked when it should.

Stephanie: Yeah That confidence in yourself and knowing who you were. I love how you talked about when you found out you had that momentary sort of wobble again, of insecurity and all of those things And imagine if that had happened to you at 22 or 25 or even 30, right. You might not have recovered from that wobble as quickly, as easily, as strongly. And in fact you may have then wobbled into putting your identity and your self and your worth into another family, versus it being solidly in your own personal core.

Melissa: Exactly.

Stephanie: Yeah. Tell me though a little bit, when you were growing up you said you struggled and you had lots of questions about your dad. Talk a little bit about that.

Melissa: Because I only had a couple of pictures of him when she was pregnant with me and right after I was born, I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't know what he sounded like. All the things that you know about your father that you take for granted, I didn't know. It was a big, empty, black void.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: I didn't know if I looked like him, if I talked like him, if I walked like him, if we liked the same anything.It was that connection that I craved.

Ironically, even though Danny's dead, I have that connection with him. Because if you notice, I do the hesitation when I talk. He did that. His sister told me, and cousins have told me, that he would hesitate before he spoke. So there's that. I can mimic accents. He did. And he liked other cultures. He liked to learning about them. I do too. Even though he wasn't physically in my life, he was in my life.

Stephanie: Interesting. How did that make you feel when you learned those things?

Melissa: Warm and fuzzy is the first thing that came to mind when you said that.

Stephanie: I love it I love it Yeah

Melissa: It made me feel connected and like I belonged, which is what I have been looking for my whole life.

Stephanie: And that's interesting because I too am from big families. Both my mom and my dad are from big families and when I was born we actually lived at at my mom's family's house for the first six months, and with my dad's family for maybe a year or two. Same, like on on my mom's side my youngest uncle is 10 years older than me. On my dad's side it's 12 years older than me. So I know exactly what you're talking about with these sort of like interspersed generation kinds of things. You're growing up in a house with lots of people and lots of love, connection and belonging. All of these things and yet there's still that missing piece.

Melissa: Yeah, my uncles, I mentioned the two younger ones specifically, but an older one. He came home from Vietnam while we were living there because I was two when he came home from Vietnam. Even he I mean, he would let me dress up in his cami's and play with his bow.He would take me in the backyard and give me his knife and teach me how to throw it. Not when I was two. I was a little older at that point.

Stephanie: Yeah yeah yeah

Melissa: My other uncles, one, they taught me to ride a bike. They taught me to tie my shoes and stuff. They did the things that a dad typically does. And then my aunt, she taught me to love mysteries. Most kids get little whatever stories read to them, like Dr. Seuss or whatever. She read me Sherlock Holmes. It was great. And it was different.

Stephanie: Yeah. And yet still. All that love all that attention all that care. And yet still there was sort of a foundational piece missing. There was parts of you that did know you missed it, and then parts of you that didn't even understand how much you were missing

Melissa: Yes, exactly.

The granddaddy. He would come home from work and I would crawl up in his lap while he watched World War Two movies and Westerns and stuff. Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: So that's something you do with your dad. And I was doing it with my grandfather.

Stephanie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your real birth dad Danny. We gotta give them names cause there's three dads floating around here and we we gotta keep it clear. So tell me about meeting Danny's, or you found his sister right? And tell me about how that went.

Melissa: Oh, it was wonderful. And I actually met her. We talked on the phone. I sent her a package in the mail with a letter saying, Hi, this is me, and I think I'm your brother's daughter. And sent her a copy of the report from Ancestry and everything. And she's called me and she was very kind, very warm and welcoming. We scheduled for me to go up to meet her. And she never questioned,

Stephanie: Hmm

Melissa: or at least not to me. She was always very confident with me.

But she made the comment that because I'd had all these questions so many times, she wanted to do a DNA with me so that I never questioned again. To put my heart at ease. Not that she was questioning it, but for me, which was wonderful. So there was that.

I ordered the test and took it with me when I went to meet her the first time. We did it and we both had all these pictures and she talked over the family with me. I got to see what my father looked like for the first time. And what my Uncle David, who died in Vietnam, looked like.

It was wonderful. My youngest son, who is the spitting image of them. He is little carbon copy.

Stephanie: Wow

Melissa: I'm getting a little verklempt over here. My goodness that's so kind and generous of your aunt.

Yeah. It really was.

Stephanie: Be so thoughtful

Melissa: And his whole family has been amazing, has been so accepting, and never questioned.Warmly welcomed me. Planned a cousin reunion. But then there was a storm in Oklahoma so we had to cancel it. And then COVID hit. And so it never happened. But the thought

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: was there and I really appreciate it.

Stephanie: Yeah.

One of the things that happens around midlife is around identity and the fact that we start to move from placing our identity in things outside of us, in the way other people see us, or in some of the roles we play or some of the descriptors we have. And we start to pull it inside of us and start anchoring more internally, because that's more stable. It's more solid. It can't be taken away from you.

I'm really curious to hear your thoughts and reflections on identity, because this isn't really an external marker so much. This is really foundational. So tell me about your journey with identity, even from being a kid to now having found this family.

Yeah, I always struggled with identity and who I was because of not knowing who my father was. And in my twenties, late twenties, I met my husband. He was divorced, had custody of his son, and hired me to be the nanny. It's great.

That is great. Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah.I went from being a nanny to being a wife and mom,

Stephanie: mm-hmm

Melissa: basically the same job, just parks are a little bit better.

Because I did not have an education, my late teens, I went to a trade school to be a travel agent. Didn't use it, didn't put it to use. I didn't go to college. Got married. Had my stepson, then had a child. Then I studied massage therapy but didn't get licensed, didn't put it to use. So I'm still "just a housewife." But I volunteered at the kids school. We adopted. Then oops, got pregnant again, had another one. Then we adopted two more.

So through that I struggled with identity because I was "just a housewife." I was just a mom. And I never felt like I was doing anything.

I was on boards right and left. I was on the parent board, different positions. President. Helped start the auction. The live and silent auction at the school. I ran that for a few years. I did all kinds of stuff.

Stephanie: I ended up starting my own  501(c)(3) to raise money for orphanages and kids in foster care. Ran that for five or six years. Raised a nice chunk of money. Right. These are all impressive things.

Melissa: Thank you. impressive things things

sitting on my hands doing nothing.

Stephanie: Yeah. And yet your head all you could hear was "just".

Melissa: Exactly. I didn't have an education. I was just a mom. I didn't work outside of the home, so I was not doing anything as far as I was concerned. So I struggled with the identity.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: That being said, once my forties hit and all of this comes out, and I played detective, I actually at the same time did online courses to go to college. So I did one semester online. I was raising kids, doing volunteer stuff, doing online classes, dealing with all of this, and I had a 4.0 GPA. And I was like,

Stephanie: How oldest daughter of you.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly.

And I'm like, okay, maybe I am smart and maybe I could do this, but I don't need this anymore, because what was I going to do with this degree that I was striving for, that I had always wanted and thought I needed? I didn't need it anymore, because I'm not going to go out and get a career. I didn't think. That's another story.

Stephanie: Well and you didn't need it to do all the things you had already accomplished, fundraising, and e-event planning and organizing, starting and running and building a nonprofit organization. These are major things. So it's interesting that you got into it and were finally made aware that I don't need it.

Melissa: Exactly. so my kids now tease me that I'm a college dropout.

Stephanie: I hope you're proudly a college dropout

Melissa: I am proudly a college dropout.

Stephanie: Good girl. I love it. So, so keep going. So once you realized that, again me how identity shifted for you.

Melissa: I realized that, maybe it's not "just a mom" after all, because there is so much to being a housewife, because you are doing so much more than that . So finally in my forties, I realized that it's more than that.

Now that I have written my book, spent the last couple of years writing that, getting it published, learning all about publishing, marketing and now doing podcasts and interviews, which is hilarious because I used to hate to talk in front of people. I could not stand on the stage and talk without getting all flustered and turning as red as my shirt, speaking very fast. Now I've done live interviews on the radio, doing podcasts, easy breezy. And I'm having fun doing it, which 20 years ago I would have told you were crazy to suggest it.

So I went from thinking I couldn't do anything to now knowing I can do anything I set my mind to.

Stephanie: Yeah

Melissa: And I can do this. It's a whole new world.

Stephanie: Yeah

Is there a piece of this that, once you found your dad's family and figured out that mystery, filled that hole, was there ever an element of I had everything I needed all along? Like you weren't actually missing anything. I don't know I am I wrong?

Melissa: Yeah. Nope. You nailed it.

Stephanie: yeah

Melissa: Actually, I realized it before I found them, when I was searching. Even though I still wanted to know, even I still wanted them in my life, whoever they might be, I didn't need them the same way I needed it when I was a teenager, because I knew who I was now.

Stephanie: That's beautiful.

Melissa: And I knew who I was in God.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that's that confidence and that stability that comes to us when we come around the corner and turn into this middle part of our lives, that we do start to understand who we are and what skills, talents, qualities, and abilities we bring to the table and bring into the world. And come what may It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about them because it's

Melissa: Exactly.

Stephanie: who we are.

Melissa: Yes. So true.

Stephanie: MJ this is so wonderful. What a wonderful story. I'm so glad that you solved the mystery. I'm so glad that you got to be an investigator. It feels like there's actually pieces and parts of this that pull together pieces of your life. Your aunt taught you to love mysteries, and you always wanted to be an investigator. You to do all that and solve the problem, and realize you didn't need the solution all along.

Melissa: I know.

Stephanie: It was just nice to have.

Melissa: Beautiful. Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie: MJ, thank you so much for being so generous with your story. I so appreciate you being here with me today.

Melissa: Thanks for having me. It was fun.