kimette's blog

This an update to my previous posts  The lies  behind my adoption and My past legally erased

So, before starting, here is a summary of these posts.

I was 9 years old (korean age) when I lost my father; I knew my full ID informations then.

(Holt was in charge of me from the beginning of my stay there).

Today,  I miss my mother, not the one that the adoption industry gave me in the name of Jesus, but my real mother, the one who gave birth to me. She died in a bus accident when I was 6 years old while going to the funeral of my grandmother. My sisters and I didn't go to the funeral, so I didn't see the accident that caused her death. I told her goodbye just like if she would come back the same day. My oldest sister was the first to learn about her death. She wept and yelled non stop while going to the place where mom was hit by the bus. My other sister began to cry non stop when we heard that our mom was dead. But I didn't cry because I didn't know the meaning of death. I cried at the day of funeral only because everybody was crying but I didn't  cry for the death of my mother. After the burial, my cousin and I played like if it was a happy day.

I didn't mourn my mother because I was too young to understand the meaning of death. I was told that my mom would stay at the mountain (where she was buried) so, I thought she has chosen to live there. My sister found that I was cute because I was saying that mom was living at the mountain, in the city of ... Even after understanding a little bit more about the death, I didn't mourn because I didn't want my sister knew that I knew. I thought my mom left us to live with the other dead persons because I have been bad with her but I have never shared this secret with anyone until recently.

  Today, I also miss my father, not the one that the adoption industry gave me in the name of Jesus, but my real father, the man who impregnated my mother and the only father I knew during 9 years. I didn't say him goodbye because I didn't know I would never see him again.The day he abandoned me in a street, I cried very hard non stop until night. The following day, I cried silently sporadically. I tried to find a reason of my abandonment but I didn't find any: that day, I understood the meaning of the death because I wished to be dead with all my heart. I was 8 years old and for the first time of my life, I thought of commiting suicide and I prayed God to make me die. I know that if I had died that day, I wouldn't have known some happy moments I have known later in my life but until now, there is no one day that was worth of living for the pain I had to endure for being abandoned.

No day will ever erase the pain of having been abandoned by a father who loved me and whom I loved; no joy will ever compensate the saddest day of my life which is the day I lost my father.

 While living in the orphanages, I had hope to be reunited with my father. I'm sure that if I had given the chance to live again with him, it would have erase the pain of being abandoned but the people of the adoption industry never searched him after promising me they would. I never had the chance to say him goodbye, I never had the chance to ask him why he abandoned me, his favourite daughter.  Instead of searching him, they made me adopted by two strangers, a woman who wanted a baby girl and a man who already had 5 adult children, in a foreign country.

The day after my Arrival Day, I woke up late. When I opened my eyes, I remembered I was in USA.

I felt anxious and loneliess in the new enviroment. I wanted to cry but I was a big girl so I have chosen not to cry. The cloths on my bed showed me the yellow-haired lady had been in my room while I was sleeping. The yellow-haired lady came in, showed me the cloths and without saying a word, left the room. I got dressed quickly before she came back, then I felt alone again.

The yellow-haired lady brought me in front of my mirror. She wanted to brush my hair but I stiffened. I didn't want my hair be brushed by this stranger.

She had many items and trinket to give me. I only remember few of them.  It happened in silence, she showed me an item, I nodded or I shook my head. The silence was embarrasing. I thought maybe the American lady was shy as I was because she said nothing.

She showed me a ring, I nodded, she put it on my finger. She showed me a trinket, I nodded, and she gave it to me.

I recognized the American couple that I had seen on a photo.

I was told by the lady who gave me the photo  that the couple would be my new American appa and oemma (respectively dad and mom in Korean).  My thought then was: "The American lady is well-dressed and pretty but she doesn't look like an oemma, she wears too much of make-up; the American man can't be an appa, he is too fat."

I was still having the same thought in front of them when the yellow-haired woman grabbed me. She hugged me, she touched my face , she took me in her arms, she touched my hair, she touched my arms and she talked non stop in her strange language. Meanwhile, the babies who had travelled with me were given to other Americans. It was very noisy. Everybody was crying and talking aloud. The yellow-haired woman was still hugging me and she gave me a kiss. Yuck!

If you want to know how I felt among these strangers, take a look at the faces of children on the video

I was born at Kenndy Airport, on December 2nd, 1975.

I'm 42 years old... No, it's not a mistake, I was born at 9 years old.

It was my 2nd birth from my adoptive mother. The moment she saw me, she felt the same pain than any other woman giving birth.  It seems that other women have also felt the childbirth pain the moment they took their new babies in their arms.

I wonder how other adoptive parents talk about December 2nd, 1975. To speak of that day, my mother said "the day you arrived" or "the day we got you" but in practice, she spoke as if it was the day I was born. I had mixed feelings about that: knowing that she loved me as if she gave birth to me was a security and it made me feel good but at the same time, it made me feel uncomfortable. More I knew she loved me as her real child, more I was scared to be abandoned again.

I'm so lucky, I remember my birth and the following days after my birth as if it was yesterday. My next blog entry will be on those days...

I first wanted to put a title like "I feel stupid" but after finishing to write it, I changed it to unbrainwashing.

After discovering the lies on my adoption records, my bullshit meter has been slowly destroyed by a bullshit-message that I believed during almost 25 years.

The bullshit-message was that two Christians named Holt  have rescued the biracial babies dumped by their Korean unwed mothers. Whenever the story came out from the mouth of my adoptive mother, the word "Holts" sounded like Saints and the word "Korean mothers" sounded like prostitutes who slept with the American soldiers. I remember at the beginning and at some time of my life being and disgusted by the American soldiers but I was usually more disgusted by the Korean prostitutes. Even if I have lived six years with all my (first) family and that my mother had nothing to do with my adoption, it didn't take long time for the people to make me believe that my birth mother was not different than the other Korean prostitutes who have dumped their babies.

During those 25 years of total assimilation, my anger at Holt resurfaced only once in 1989 during a family tour in Korea. But at that time, I belived that Holt made a huge mistake only in my case and that the other happy adoptees had the truth written on their documents.

Although I felt angry at Holt and at Korea before going there to search my family in 2001, with my bullshit meter destroyed, I went to Molly Holt's house to bring her some toys, sweets and money for the handicapped children that the Saints were taking care of at Ilsan Holt Center.

After we landed in the land of fairy tales, my escort left me to an unknown American woman who took me to a room full of adults. Taking the babies, they were crying, laughing, talking aloud, and showing their new babies to each other. That's what my amother compared to giving birth because these women "were exactly like women giving birth to their babies" and she (my amother) also felt the pain of childbirth when she saw me.

After all new parents were gone, my amother and I waited a long time for my afather in front of a bar. When my afather finally appeared, he seemed very nervous while talking to my amother. She took my hand and started running so fast that I had difficulty to follow her...

My amother often explained to me what really happened the day of my arrival. The US immigration wanted to return me to Korea because my entrance there was found to be illegal. My afather told her: "Take the little one and run! Run fast!" She added proudly that he had managed to obtain another visa for me.

Even if I heard about my arrival day a dozens of times, I realized what really happened only after reading the papers again after my amother's death.

I was sent to USA with a visum for the purpose of adoption which was no longer valid the day of my arrival.

I was 20  when I revealed the secret the first time to a psychologist of a college. I liked her immediately but it took me several weeks before taking the decision to talk about it. I told her that my father touched me repeatedly and did more than touching me during my adolescence. I thought that would be our last meeting, I was sure she would despise me. We continued to meet but I never wanted to talk about the secret again. I told her that he had stopped touching me since four years and that it wasn't a problem for me, the real problem was my mother drinking almost every day. She tried to talk about it once again but I told her that it belonged to the past.

I was 21 when my first male friend almost guessed about the secret. He asked me why I was always so angry at my mother. I answered she was always drinking. He said everybody knew she was alcoholic and that it wasn't a good reason to be angry at a mother like I was. I told him that being beaten by a mother was a good reason to be angry at her.

Then he asked me if I was sexually abused by my mother. He said he was sure because  I was acting like someone who was sexually abused. I remained speechless for a few seconds before saying that my father was the abuser. I begged him to keep it secret. After asking me if he was still abusing me, he promised me to keep it secret.

Few months later, I had a first boyfriend. He was 14 years older than me.  I loved him as if he was my brother and he loved me as if I was his girlfriend.  By dating him, I had a place to go to sleep when my mother was too drunk, so I accepted to be his girl friend. He saw me taking five drugs at once.  He guessed something was wrong, he asked me the question. For the first time of my life, I told him the details of the secret and that it was the reason for taking extra drugs. After talking for few hours, I begged him to keep the secret. I knew revealing the secret would destroy the marriage of my parents. I even threatened him to break up with him. He promised me he would keep the secret between us... He broke the promised. He told it to my mother.

My mother asked me if it was true. I told her to ask the question to him.  My father denied in the name of Jesus and said I was crazy. He said  I was projecting the evil action of my biological father on him. My mother drank more and more. Each time  she was drunk, she also said my biological father was an alcoolic and that I was projecting his alcooholism on her.  This life lasted four more years.

The Olympic Games remind me of:

1) 1976 Montreal  Olympic games in. It was the first Olympic Games that I saw in my life. I was at the Olympic Stadium with my mother who was pointing out every Korean athletes.  At that time, I spoke Korean and a little English that I learned during my six months in USA. I was shouting proudly: “Korea! Korea! Uri daehanminguk ! »

A year later, I swore to hate Korea forever for rejecting/selling me after reading my adoption records. I also swore to be a good girl to my adoptive parents.

2) 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. I was proud of Korea. I cried thinking that very soon, I would go back to Korea to take back my place. I told my mother that I wouldn’t know which country to encourage between Canada and Korea.

A year later, I was in Korea with my generous-loving-hypocrite-pedophile-adoptive father and my generous-loving-hypocrite-alcoholic-coward adoptive mother who brought me there for our last family trip before their divorce. My hurt  for being rejected by Korea awoke, I felt angry at Korea and Holt for shipping me to a foreign country. But I had to say thank you and be happy. Burying the wrong feelings was not difficult, it was in my second nature to do that.

My adoptive father is deceased. I didn’t see him before his death because I had cut off contact with him about 18 years ago. He died more than seven months ago but I know it only since two weeks. His death reminded me of my first father. My first father is also deceased. I didn’t see him before his death either. I learned about it 24 years after his death. Both of them loved me in their own way, both provided food and shelter for me, both taught me different things in my life and both abandoned me in their own way.

My first father provided food and shelter for his family (his mother-in-law, his wife, his step daughter, and his three children) until a work accident that left his arm paralyzed. He was not religious but when I was four years old, I convinced him to go to the church; he decided to be baptized to make me happy. After the death of my mother, he drank a lot but never in front of me; at home, he was always sober.  When he decided to start a new life with us, instead of helping him, people used his generosity and his naivety to steal all his money.
In the eyes of society, he was poor, uneducated and without value. In my eyes, he was my hero who knew everything. I loved him and I trusted him. Despite the poverty, I've never suffered from hunger. When he had something to eat, he always thought of me first.
I trusted him until he abandoned me in a street. Some 27 years later, my sisters told me that he didn’t abandoned me; he died of cirrhosis in loneliness three years after losing me. The adoption agency didn’t contact my family before selling me but I still feel abandoned by him.

At the beginning, I didn’t trust my adoptive father. I didn’t want to kiss him, I didn’t want to hug him and I didn’t want to be near him. I started to follow him only to eat the cookies that he kept in his car or to go to church with him. I don’t know how but I started to love him as my father a year after my arrival. Another year later, I started to trust him.
When he became a born again Christian, he also became an abuser. I admired him for his eloquence when he was talking about “God’s grace – Saved by His grace, not by works- forgiven of sins – Jesus”  and I let him touch me. He took me to my piano lessons, he often told me he loved me and I trusted him.
In the eyes of society, my adoptive father was intelligent, rich, educated, religious, eloquent and generous. At home, he was violent with his wife and he abused me. Instead of helping me by telling the truth, he gave me the first anti depressants to keep me silent. Once I got used to the drugs, he continued abusing me until I became anorexic. In case I would reveal the secret, he already started to prepare his defense by saying that I was crazy.
I stopped trusting him but I continued to love him as my real father. Few years later, when I revealed the secret to my first boyfriend, he denied everything using the name of Jesus. As long as my mother didn’t want to believe me, he continued to claim that he loved me.

I had a father who loved me. I didn’t need a second father and I didn’t need another family; all we needed was money and food. But the adoption industry sold me to a couple to create a new family where I was abused.
Some people made money from the transaction behind my adoption; the desire of two strangers who wanted to create a family was fulfilled; my siblings lost their little sister; my father lost his daughter and died of despair. But the society still thinks that it’s okay to be adopted by an abusive man (as long as he is rich) when the first father is too poor.

Two weeks ago, I learned that my adoptive father is dead. He was the last member of my adoptive family but I don't miss him and I wish him to be in the  hell.  I’m still mourning the lost of my birth father, my  birth family and my birth country, my birth culture, my birth language… and I’m pissed!