Abandoned at birth, 70-year-old man reunites with his mother 55 years later

En avril 2024, Daniel rencontre sa mère âgée de 95 ans pour la première fois. Pixabay sabinevanerp

Daniel, un Rennais de 70 ans apprend à l’âge de 15 ans qu’il est adopté. Après cinquante-cinq ans de recherches, il retrouve finalement sa mère âgée de 95 ans en avril 2024.

“The sky fell on my head”. Daniel, a Rennes resident who is now 70 years old, learned at the age of 15 that he was adopted. A discovery made by chance while he was looking for a document to register as an apprentice mechanic in aviation. “My parents were on vacation, I needed a document to complete my file. I called my mother on the phone, she told me to take the family record book in a metal box. That's when I discovered the adoption judgment”, he reports to Ouest France. His adoptive parents had not told him anything and had no information about his biological family. They died in 1988.

“In the file, we understand that she doesn't want me”

Then began for Daniel, years of research to find his biological mother. Fifty-five years to be precise, before the National Council for Access to Personal Origins sent him his adoption file. “I was born on January 18, 1954. I learned that my mother abandoned me, in front of my mother's house in Rennes from which she had run away. My mother was 25 years old, she worked on a farm. In the file we understand that she doesn't want me,” Daniel says.

He passed by his mother's house without knowing it

Thanks to his mother's name, he goes back to Ille-et-Vilaine, the town where she lives. He then discovers that he passed by her house on a motorbike for almost twenty years. He also learns about his half-brother, 16 years his junior. And in April 2024, he meets his 95-year-old mother for the first time. “At first she said “it's not possible”, was very surprised, wondered how I had found her. Then she talked about rape. She agreed to see me.” Since then, Daniel has been in regular contact with his biological family.