Link: Part 1
Link: Part 2

As much as I’d like to think that all searches and reunions will end up with a “happily ever after” ending, I know this isn’t true. There is a story of a Korean adoptee that I once heard and I’ve been trying really hard to remember where I heard it from. I am pretty sure that I saw it on television, but it was long before I started writing this blog or I would have written it down. It’s a story of a Korean adoptee who was really struggling with reality. I'm telling this story from memory, so if you recognize this story, forgive me for any mistakes.

For this particular adoptee, her adoption story was not happy. She was adopted, but there was never a connection between adoptive mother and daughter. They were like two strangers living together in the same house. When she became an adult, her adoptive mother said good-bye and that was that. A child, who never had a say in her adoption, was on her own.

The Korean adoptee married and had a child of her own, but she always felt incomplete. In this scenario, she really had no family of her own. One family was in Korea and she didn’t know them at all. The other family was here, but there was no connection.

So, she searched for her family in Korea and she found them. She and her husband went to Korea to meet her Korean family, but it wasn’t meant to be. There was a language barrier. She couldn’t communicate without translation and there was no immediate bond – there wasn’t a feeling of togetherness. In fact, instead of hugs and tears, her siblings informed her that she needed to do her share in supporting the family because she had not been there all that time. I remember thinking that she was devastated – she looked devastated.

In these last three posts, I spoke in extremes. Here are things that could happen on the ends of the spectrum. In most cases, things will be a mixture of colors in the middle. My message, I think, is that I encourage all Korean adoptees who want to search to search. I think if you want to and you don’t, you’ll spend your whole life wondering what might have been. Yet, I encourage you not to search for perfection, because perfection is so hard to find. Instead search for reality and be ready for whatever it brings.

If you’d like to respond, but not on this site, please e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.