Perhaps the hardest blog entry is the one I'm about to write. When I first wrote about my adoption story, my emotions were in checked because I had a lot of time to deal with it. While my mother's death is still difficult, I'm finally able to talk about it without bawling like a baby. And I never wrote a reunion story with my mother because it was such a long time ago and my memory is pretty fuzzy. I assure you, it was nothing like what you see on TV with streaming tears and audible crying. It was...cool. It was as if I had returned from several years at a boarding school rather than a separation of 7 years. Well, on to the Korea part.
When my sister came to visit me in May of 2012, I had a sense of urgency for her to meet our maternal side of the family. With our mother gone, I felt we still needed a connection to some kind of family. But for my sister, they were practically strangers with just a bond of genetics. I wanted to show my sister more then the traditional tourist sites. So, we took a trip to the police station with my mentor teacher. She explained our situation to the police, but we just didn't have enough information to give them. We left disappointed, but my sister said she remembered seeing some old documents that our mother had kept. She promised to send the documents next time she was home.
After a long summer, my sister finally sent what she promised. The document contained every resident my mother had ever lived in Korea. Her immigration paperwork listed everyone, except my oldest aunt. This document also included their Korean ID, similar to a social security number. After Chuseok, my co-teacher at my other school came with me to the police station. She knew some people who worked there, so it made the process easier. At first they were hesitant because of privacy laws. But I gave them my adoption paperwork, which got the process started. A little over a week later, my aunt contacted my teacher and we set a date for our reunion.
Reunion with my mother was a very different experience than with my extended family. When I saw my mother after just 7 years of separation, I was a mess. I was still going through an emotional roller coaster with my adopted family and I was just an angry, scarred person. It was really hard for my mother because I had become unrecognizable to her. There was a coldness in our relationship and we just tried to make it through without any big incident.
Meeting my extended family after twenty some years apart was different. I was back to myself as they remembered me. I was happy because I had purged all the negativities of my life. My relationship with my aunts, uncles, and cousins were also dramatically different than with my mother. My younger cousins and I grew up like sisters and we almost became sisters legally. And we fought a lot, as only true family members can. My uncles and aunts were always caring.
Perhaps, it is a family trait to be a little emotionally unavailable. Even with my first meeting with my aunt, we had no tears of joy. She just simply squeezed of my hand and wrapped her arms around mine. Meeting the rest of the family went just as with my aunt. We had a little awkwardness in the beginning especially because I couldn't speak Korean well. As we spent more time together, if was as if I had never left.
But here comes the hard part. I had for most of my life believed to be half Korean because of the circumstances of my mother's marriage and divorce. The truth tends to come out. My mother had mentioned a long time ago that I may be 100% Korean, but my stepfather believed the opposite. I trusted his memory because my mother sometimes chose to believe things she preferred rather brutal reality. Either way, I had a suspicion that there may have been another main male leader in my mother's life. When I asked my aunts about this, they were convinced that I was 100% Korean. As they are telling me this story, all the secrets that have been buried for thirty some years were coming out. It was easier to believe that my father left me and my mother for another woman. But now I have to come to terms with the fact that it was my mother's fault from the start. After my mother moved us back to Korea, my biological father offered to marry her. But she had refused because he was already married and had two daughters. Somewhere in this world, I have two older sisters, who may or may not know about my existence.
Whether my biological father is Korean or American actually makes no difference to me. I stand for what I believe in and not that of others. I pursue my goals and dreams because they are my own. I love my family, but we are different. They are Korean and I am American. We will always share a bond of blood and we will always be family. I can appreciate the culture and the history, but I cannot be like them. Perhaps this is a good thing. And most importantly, they already understand.
Here comes the so what part. I am curious about my possible sisters, of course. But I also know that finding them will be next to impossible. I also have have a younger brother, whom I like to meet. He should be easier to find. I feel that I should just enjoy the people in my life because they are all fabulous people and the thought of digging deeper is scary. What if I don't like what I find?
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