On Friday, I got a Kakao Talk message from my student. He’s coming back to Daegu from his business trip. He asked me if he could see me on Sunday night when he comes back to Gumi.
Whenever my student asks if he can see me, I know he has news.
And I’ve trained my heart, since age 18, to always anticipate bad news. Not necessarily bad news. Just news that I expect.
My student picks me up and suggests we go get a cup of tea so we head to Cafe Bene. We get tea, chat about his business trip, our English class, things that have been going on for the past three weeks. And then we finally get to that point in the conversation.
“I have news. But I’m sorry, it’s not good news.”
My students hands are shaking, his eyes look a little teary, he sometimes covers his mouth with his hands as if he can’t breathe as he tells me the news.
The police called him. They finished the search.
The police said my birth mother was shocked. She couldn’t speak for several minutes. They said she felt sorry but because of her situation, she couldn’t meet me.
My student searched my face for a look of disappointment, sadness. I just sat there with a blank expression.
I’m just hearing what I expected to hear. It hurt me more when my grandmother changed her mind about meeting me because I felt like some unwanted annoyance. But deep in my heart, I can really trust that my birthmother wants to meet me but she just can’t.
I ask my student more questions about the police’s visit with my birthmother - did they say where she lived, did she say anything else, did they give her any information about me? But the Korea police are strict and follow the rules. They can’t tell us anything else.
From my student’s face, I can tell he’s hurting for me. Someone who only has a connection with me for just 5 months, who only has the need to be in a student-teacher kind of relationship, is truly hurting for me. Although it’s my biased opinion - this kind of love and compassion can only come from someone who truly knows God’s love. I never asked my student to help me. He voluntarily did it. He took the initiative to call and call people, to e-mail, to go to the police after our first attempt failed. I could tell he truly just wanted to see a girl reunite with her biological family members.
Really, the only thing I truly wanted out of this birth family search is for my birth mother to know I was alive and well and at best, to see a picture of her. I think I’ve gotten so much more. I’ll get to meet my Wae-halmauni and ask her any questions about my birthmother that I want. I found out I have a sister and two more brothers. My birthmother knows I’m alive, I’m in Korea and I want to meet her.
I used to think that when I would hear my birthmother give me her straight answer, be it yes or no, that I would find complacency in hearing her answer, that it would give some sense of closure. I thought I’d just be satisfied to be done with the search and know the outcome.
Instead, it’s opened up a door. My birthmother knows I want to meet her. Just because she says no, doesn’t mean her answer will always be no. Who knows - one year, five, ten, 50 years down the road, her answer could change. I really think I, with the help of my student, accomplished so much. We opened up this door that my birthmother can choose to go through at any point. She knows that I’m there, waiting...
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