Baring My Seoul

Yes, by now you should see a trend that I'm using the cheesy "Seoul" sayings in my blog post titles. And you know what? I'm not going to stop.

So, to pick up where I left off, when I met with my Korean Social Service, Inc. (KSS) case worker, she opened our conversation with stating that she had made copies of the, not one, but two letters my birth mother had hand-written and left when she dropped me off at the orphanage. Again, a surprise because I had just learned the day before that there was a very short note in my file, not two letters.

I understand that there are Korean adoption privacy laws that prevent KSS from disclosing my birth mother's full name and birth date along with my brother's. However, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I become that they didn't include at least the rest of the content along with my adoption paperwork. All this time, these letters existed that piece together some of the answers to some of the questions I've carried for so long.

My case worker whited out the names but left the birth years. My birth mother was born in 1949 and my brother was born two years earlier than me in 1980.

I've thought a lot in the past couple of days about how much I would share of these letters. I am still processing my birth mother's words written during an extremely difficult time in her life. Out of respect for her, I will not share all of their content. Here is a small piece that I cropped out of the larger letter. It is hard to describe the feeling I have just seeing her handwriting, rushed though it was.

There is a major discrepancy between the two letters. In one she references only dropping me off and surrendering me for adoption. In the other, more hastily written just outside of the orphanage, she wrote about surrendering both my brother and me.

The main points of the letters are that she and my birth father separated. She tried hard to take care of both my brother and me on her own but wasn't able to find work and an affordable place to stay with the two of us. We lived in a car for a short time. She felt terrible about leaving us but didn't think she had a choice.

It gives me some answers but opened up many more. Something that I'm observing within myself is that, prior to this trip and most of my life, my questions about my adoption were very inwardly focused and centered around how things affected me. Now, I've shifted to a more outward focus with questions now about both my birth mother and brother.

• Are they both alive?
• Are they both okay?
• Did they stay together?
• Why did my birth mother separate from my birth father?
• Does he know what happened to everyone?
• Did my brother end up in an orphanage and get adopted somewhere?
• Does he remember having a younger sister?
• Is anyone searching for anyone else?
• Etc...

So, where do I go from here?

G.O.A.'L. should hear back from the police agency working on locating my birth mother and brother tomorrow or the following day detailing the results of their search. If nothing is discovered, the police search will conclude. 

In the meantime, I'm traveling to the Kyŏnggi-do area tomorrow where the orphanage is that I was left at prior to being transferred to KSS. Though I'll speak with someone who works there to see if there is any additional information about my case, I'm fully expecting that there won't be anything new to go on. Instead it will be more about making an emotional connection being in the area where I was presumed to be born. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I will go with the group to the police station to do a DNA test to see if there are any matches against the DNA of folks in their database. 

I have the feeling that it will be an emotionally charged next few days as the other KADS will be experiencing their individual itineraries and uncovering the next pieces of their stories. 

What a journey it has been!