letters to my mother: questions

 letters to my mother 

I've spent the last few months trying to process every complicated feeling I've harbored since my daughter's birth to no avail.  In an attempt to hurl myself forward through this next phase of acceptance, the next series of posts will consist of letters I never intend to send.  

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-one: questions-

Dear In-Suk,

           So it seems not a day goes by that I don't think about you in passing.  Being a mother now, I can't help but think about you and wonder what our relationship was like before you gave me away.  I can't remember what it was like...but you can.  

My daughter is nearly seven months old now.  Your granddaughter.  She is, what I like to call, a ham.  My honey ham.  I just mean she's rather silly sometimes.  When she gets excited she starts flapping her arms like a baby bird eager to fly and turns her head side-to-side while inhaling through her nose with such force that she lets out a huge snort.  Then she smiles and does it over and over again.  It makes us all laugh.  She's also super sweet though...hence the 'honey'.  She's babbled "mum" for months now, but

a few weeks ago I was reading a book to her before her nap when she looked right at me and said with such a sweet and careful distinction, "mom."  Her eyes were big and brown and beautiful and in that moment I knew she understood exactly who I was.  I cried and gave her a kiss, then laid her down for her nap.  

Since that moment I've wondered if I knew who you were back then.  I came to America understanding a few Korean words.  Eomma (mom) was one of them.   

I have so many questions to ask you, but every question I've asked so far has been ignored and remains unanswered.  You only share what you want to share.  I only learn what you allow me to learn.  The questions pile up in my throat one-by-one creating a bottleneck of pressure and pain.  Why did you give me up?  When did you decide to give me up?  Was it awful trying to take care of a newborn without any support?  If you had more support, would you have kept me?  Who is my father?  What kind of man was he?  How do I resemble him?  What are my half-sisters like?  Do I look like them too?  Who are my grandparents?  What were they like?  What was their life like living in Korea during Japan's rule?  What was your childhood like?  What do you enjoy eating?  What was your home like growing up?  How was your pregnancy?  Did I make you sick?  How long were you in labor during my birth?  Was it difficult becoming pregnant after me?  Did you think about me often?  

...do you think about me often now? 

My questions, like this letter, have nowhere to go so I try to push them back down to my belly and breathe through my nose.  Some days it feels like I can't catch my breath though.  I go on walks and try to take deep breaths, but my chest falls too soon after it rises and I learn to live in its shallow depth.  

I've been trying to read books about Korean culture lately.  When I first set out to do this I admittedly patted myself on the back, feeling like I was doing something noble seeking out some sort of cultural enlightenment.  But after a few books I realized I'm just trying to find out more about you, and so now this endeavor is anything but celebratory.  It's just more grief.  I look for fragments of you in the characters and I wonder if you spoke like them, thought like them, lost like them, or loved like them.  I wonder where I fit in amidst all of that.  

You wrote to me telling me my baby was pretty.  While I agree, she is the most beautiful little human I ever could have dreamt of, I wish you wanted to know her.  I wish you had asked me a question about her, any question.  It's been almost two years since I found you and you've never asked me a question.  How is it that I can have an endless number of questions for you and you can have none?  How is it that I want to know you, but you don't want to know me?  Is the pain much too difficult to bear?  Is the risk far more dangerous than you're willing to take?  I know you said that you're a sinful woman for giving me away, but I wish you could find enough forgiveness for yourself to break the chains that shackle us both to this prison of isolation and loneliness.  I wish you found reassurance in my words of gratitude for and to you, but it seems they have fallen on deaf ears.  

It's difficult knowing we can communicate within hours.  I can send a letter to you before bed and wake up the next morning with a response.  Despite being on the other side of the world, because of technology, social workers, and translators, you and I can communicate within hours.  You responded to my last letter so quickly, but parts of it continue to torment me, namely, "I feel so sorry for you," and "Please understand..."  I do understand.  I understand that you have a life separate of me.  Daughters separate of me.  A completely different world...separate of me.  I don't wish to disrupt any of that.  I just wish you understood.  Understood that I'm desperately trying to put together a puzzle, a puzzle in which you hold all of the pieces.  I feel like a beggar on the street, ashamed and embarrassed because I'm asking you for things I feel like I should already have.  You are my only chance of knowing these things.  What if you decide to never share them?  What if you pass?  Would a piece of me die with you as well?  I think it would.