Losing My Adoptive Mom
As I got older, I understood more about why my adoptive parents chose adoption. My mom had suffered multiple miscarriages, and adoption became the way she could finally have the family she wanted. She raised us with structure, routines, and a strong work ethic, but she also struggled with mental health challenges that were never talked about openly or understood in our home. As a child, I didn’t have the words for any of it. I just knew some days were unpredictable and confusing.
When I was around twelve, my parents divorced. It changed everything. My siblings and I stayed with our dad after the separation. He worked long hours, sometimes leaving before sunrise and coming home late at night, but even with that schedule, he tried his best to be steady and present for us.
Because he was gone so much for work, I naturally took on more responsibility as the oldest. I learned to cook. I helped keep things together at home. My brother was old enough to take care of himself, but my younger sister needed more help, so I stepped into that role without thinking twice. Those years shaped a lot of who I became.
My dad passed away on February 2, 2008. Losing him was a major emotional shift in my life. He had been the stable parent during my teenage years, the one who showed up every day even when he was tired. His death left me with a huge sense of loss, and it stirred up questions about who I was and where I truly came from. That was when I first began to feel the pull to reconnect with Korea, my birth country, and the parts of my identity that had always been kept in the background.
My adoptive mom passed away later, on January 19, 2019. Even though our relationship had been complicated, losing her brought up another wave of emotions. She had raised me from the moment I arrived in America. Her routines, her cooking, her way of doing things, and even her struggles had shaped my childhood. Her passing closed a chapter of my life, but the desire to reconnect with my roots had already started years earlier when my dad died.