Hello Readers. Today I got an email from my social worker asking for me to confirm a number to call. She said they've received updates from Korea. Class had just started, but I'd miss a test before waiting to hear ready to go news on my birth search. My phone started to glow and it was her calling. I practically ran out of there; I'm pretty sure I freaked out my classmates. I walked outside to take the call and it was colder than I expected. Rolling down my sleeves we talked, and I paced around the quad.
She said something about receiving news from Korea, asking how I was doing, asked about school and work, and seamlessly she moved onto the news. According to the consult my mother had when she chose adoption in the hospital (the same Initial Social History report they apparently didn't give me all the info on) stated that my grandfather had passed away before I was born. *Like taking a bullet*
My grandfather died of stomach cancer in August of 1990. About 3 months into my mother's pregnancy so he most likely never knew she was pregnant. He never even got the chance to approve of my mother having me.. Be never got the chance to know I existed or to know my mother had chosen adoption.
So here I am at school waiting for me night class to start. We have a big test, and a high scored in class activity after so we can't leave early because it's Valentine's Day. I've been crying in the bathrooms and laying down in the booths around the student center.. Just crying. I feel so much loss today. I always thought maybe if she had passed away or wasn't open to me, maybe my grandparents would be. Maybe they'd want to tell me about her, maybe they'd want to even meet me, and have me meet our family. Maybe I would be invited to come back home.
Maybe they'd even love me.
But my grandfather never got the chance to know I was carried to birth. I also feel the loss that my family must have felt loosing their head elder. How filled with grief my mother must have been to loose her father and her first born, her only daughter.. How my grandmother must have felt loosing her husband. Maybe even though it would hurt her a lot to think about the past, maybe my grandmother would still take me into her heart.
Everything is full of maybes, and hopes, and dreams, and wishes. But then there's the truth and reality. Since I don't have all the answers yet, my reality is that I know nothing. And the one truth that is my reality is that my grandfather is dead, and it's too late for us now,
The draper’s shop my grandmother owned is still stated in my Initial Social History. But there was nothing left in regards to the name of the shop or the location, so it's too difficult to make contact. Unfortunately my birth clinic, Huh Jung OB-GYN Clinic, is now closed. I had hopes to go beg them to give me anything they'd be willing to from my birth records.. Now that they're closed my only option is to beg the city records of the city I was born in and where my mother was born.
My social worker in Korea did say this though, "Through all these many questions, I can feel all the way over here that [the adoptee] Lee, Kang Sun feels sadness and discouragement." Maybe my mother and my family can feel me too..
They've tried on many occasions to obtain more information from KAS regarding people other than the birth parents, like other family members, my foster family, and the witness who signed with my mother. However, they say that based on legal limits, they are unable to provide that information. Because of this they're even pleading with foster mothers to contact the agency to update their contact info and allow contact from their foster children. They're continuously asking KAS to improve their new laws in light of all these difficulties.
I only received one positive piece of news. During the pregnancy my mother did not have any particular morning sickness. I'm very glad I didn't cause her that kind of sickness, and maybe one day if I have a child I won't either.
I did call into work and asked for tomorrow off. It would have only been a 4 hour shift, but it's nice knowing I don't have to go in tomorrow. So if any of my friends are reading this, call or text me, stop by, anything.
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