An Exploration of My Adoption

Recently, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I’m adopted.

That statement may seem rather odd; I have, after all, been adopted now for almost thirty years. I didn’t just find this out - growing up Korean with Irish-American parents, it was rather obvious that I wasn’t their biological child.

Being a child, though, I never learned to process any feelings that were related to being adopted. My mother used to say to me all the time that all of my problems were because I was adopted. I used to turn to her and respond that she used that as a convenient excuse for being a {{insert nasty words here}}. Why do adoptive parents love to throw that around, and then wonder why adopted children have a hard time being adopted? Well, that’s a subject for another day.

After a handful of tries getting in touch with Wide Horizons, I finally had a great conversation with a lady who deals with post-adoption issues, such as searching for a birth parent. One of the services that they provide is that they help with Holt International, the Korean adoption agency. One of the things that Holt asks for is a letter to my birth parents. I’m not sure if this letter is given to the birth parent if we find each other, or if this is a psychological exercise to come to terms with my adoption.

In either case, here is my letter.

Dear 어머니,

A few months ago, my adoptive sister, Mary, came to visit. As she walked into the door, she exclaimed, “Oh my! She looks just like you!” She was pointing to my five year old daughter, Stephanie. Stephanie looked back at her, her eyes filled with fascination, and ran over to me, shying away from her aunt, and peeked at her around my legs.

This is a comment that I’ve heard a thousand times since my daughter has been born, but one that I’ve never heard growing up. Sometimes I sit beside her while she is sleeping and amazement fills me. This is the only person that I know who looks like me.

She hears those comments that other people say, how much we look like each other. She studies her hands and says to me, “Mommy, we have the same hands!” She will never know what it is like not knowing her mother. She will never know what it is like not looking like me. And when she is older, she can still look at my hands and say that they are the same.

When I was a child, I used to dream that my daddy and my mommy spoke Korean and that we used to eat kimchi and bulgogi for dinner. I used to dream that when other people pointed at us in the store, that we just lived in an all-white neighborhood and it wasn’t because I was adopted.

But, even though I’ve never met you, I know that you think about me too. Maybe you’ve dreamed that you’ve called me to sit at the dinner table, to eat kimchi and bulgogi. Maybe you dream that I sit across from you, and you hold my hands, and I say, “Mommy, we have the same hands!”

There have been countless nights that I’ve wondered about you. I used to cry and wonder why you hated me so much that you gave me away. I know better now, I know that you loved me and that there are countless nights that you lie awake and wonder about me too.

A piece of my life has been missing for thirty years. It’s a powerful force, the bond of maternal love. It’s one that I know exists because I feel it when my daughter is near. It’s one that I know you had for me, and that I have for you and it’s eternal, because you are still there and you are still my mother. It transcends continents, or language, or even time.

Because one day, I hope that I sit down at the dinner table, to eat kimchi and bulgogi, and I can tell you that we have the same hands. It won’t be a dream then.