Meeting Strangers & Our Community.

Hello Readers. This week I found an email from a few months ago that had been unread and unanswered from a reader. She asked how I think I'd feel when I meet my birth family. People rarely ask me how I think I'd feel, or how I hope it happens. They just hope that it does happen for me someday.

I've heard of many stories from other adoptees saying they felt very little for their family, but when they met them all they could so was cry and feel waves of love. Other adoptees have only felt love and when they meet their birth family the fact that these people are strangers hits them like a brick wall. But in almost every reunion story I've heard was that the family always feels love. To them they lost a child. No matter the circumstances and the fact they surrendered you to an agency, they lost you.. And it kills them everyday.

Can you imagine not knowing who your baby grew up to be? Not know it if you have grandchildren? You go your whole life with questions of never knowing, full or fears, and which full thinking, full of love of or the loved one you barely got to meet. And then they find you, but they can't love you back? It must be heart breaking.

As adoptees who can't be 100% certain of what we'll feel till we meet them, we must be accepting of their love. Even if we feel like they're strangers. We must respect the loss our birth family has felt, like we want/expect others to respect the loss of culture we feel.

We must also keep in mind that the perfect ending we want might never happen. I always think of my mother lovingly, but I may find her and freak out that she's a stranger to me. She might not want to deal with the challenges of me being American. She might really be a rape victim and hates me. My worst fear is that she's already dead. But I do accept that as a possibility.

The truth is we can speculate all we want, but we'll never know till if and when we get there. But I hope no matter how it happens or what we feel, that we can all handle it together. That's what myself and other adoptee bloggers, YouTubers, writers, and artists are all about. We're not just activists for speaking out on and bringing understanding to the real meaning of international adoption, but to build a community of Asian-adoptees.

No matter how things go, and the many colors of our emotions we'll always find understanding here.