Oct 032010
 

My dearest birth mother,

It’s been 33 years since I last looked at your familiar face, last heard your loving voice, last felt your warm heart beating against mine, last touched your soft hands. It’s been 33 years since I knew safety and trust at my very core. It’s been 33 years since I smiled and laughed without the hidden pain and sadness. It’s been 33 years ….

After all this time do you still ache for me?
After all this time do you still think of me?
After all this time do you still consider me your first-born daughter?
After all this time do you still hope for the best for me?

Do you regret
giving me up?
hoping for an unknown better future?
having me at all?

Now, where are you?
Now, where would we be if we were together?
Now, where are we?

Now,

Omma

Odi?

Always your birth-daughter,

Om Sun Hui.

 Posted by at 23:07
Oct 032010
 

Here are a few writings I’ve been working on:

—-

Dear Omoni,

Where did you go just moments after you left me for the last time? Did you hide somewhere to cry at the loss of your flesh and blood? Or did you hold your head up high and pretend that everything was going to be alright as you walked away? Did you hope that one day you would be able to see me again? Or did you begin to forget me from that moment on?

The story is that you gave me up to a foster family after taking care of me for a year. Did you really sign away your parental right to me or was it a mistake that they sent me away – to a foreign land across the waters?

Now, many years later, I’ve learned that you followed me across that ocean just a short year after I took the same journey there. Did you come looking for me? What were you thinking when you looked down at the land that had become my home for the past year and was now to become yours?

If ever I were to find you, these are the questions I would ask you. However, all I can question at the moment is Omma, Odi? (Mother, Where?)

Your daughter of birth,

Om Sun Hui.

 Posted by at 23:05
Oct 032010
 

It’s been difficult for me to gather together my thoughts and direction lately. While I’m still working and doing my PhD, I feel as if I’m beginning to straddle multiple worlds and am not yet certain how they are going to co-exist or if they can at all.

World 1

For some time, I’ve felt that the time is drawing closer for the right moment to begin to share my story. Since I was 8-years-old and finally found a happy and healthy home, I began writing and wanting to find a way to remember my story so that one day I could share it with others. Somehow I knew then that what my life had been up until then was worth keeping track of and to someday put out in the world so that if there were others like me, we would never feel as alone as I did growing up.

With many Korean adoptees coming to an age of reflecting, more stories are beginning to come out about our adoption experiences. There is a range of emotions that are being revealed from the most bitter to the most content and yet all our stories are different and unique. So, I have begun to follow my path in writing and am looking/searching for the best way to continue along this way. I know more will be coming on this….

World 2

With some overlap is my dream of writing. So, I’ve begun following different writing paths. For a little while now, I’ve been doing some restaurant reviewing – though nothing in print as of yet. Also, I’ve found a couple of sites on which I can write to hopefully make a little income. Most recently, R and I are starting a site on life in Abu Dhabi. It’s currently being developed, but when we’re ready to broadcast, I’ll let everyone know. 🙂

World 3

The one in which I exist most of the time. I continue to enjoy teaching. Surprisingly, this term has been the most enjoyable and relaxing of any in the past year and a half that I’ve been here. The pursuit my doctorate is still going forward, but I’m less motivated now with these other worlds fighting for a presence.

So, this is where I am and while my heart is calm, my mind whirls…

-T

 Posted by at 23:01
error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)