What a cute little boy!

The first time my fiance saw this picture, he said "You can totally tell that is you!" I on the other hand, disagreed completely. How is it that this 5 year old korean boy would end up being me!? And, I am not being too self-critical. My adoptive mother confessed that many times after I had arrived, she would take me to the grocery store and people would compliment on what a cute boy I was! My mother must have finally gotten tired of correcting people and resorted to clipping a barrett in my hair in hopes to clear up any confusion. Although the good intentions were there of having kept our hair short due to the fear of spreading of lice, in the end I entered the U.S. with a head full of lice. (I know, gross!) No worries now, for those of you who have been in contact with me, I have been lice free since '88.

I also entered the U.S. with turberculosis and a carrier of Hepatitis B. This is how the assumption was made that my biological mother must have had this, and was very sick with it, most likely before I was born since I was not infected by the virus but a carrier of it. In 4th grade my mother also found out that I would need glasses permanently (before Lasik surgery was even an option). The doctor revealed that I could never wear contacts due to an eye infection I must have had back in Korea where it went untreated and left scars in my cornea that could not be covered up with contacts. Thank goodness for the advances in technology and now I am able to see clearly without the aid of glasses.

This is how I learned small pieces of my life, through events that would happen during my life that revealed small slivers of information from my past. This is the only picture I have of my life in South Korea. I don't have pictures of my first through fifth birthday, and I don't have pictures of my biological mother and father. I don't know what my home looked like, nor can I remember any days or moments growing up there. I don't even know entirely what I might be looking for. All I know for now is that these small slivers of my past, I fear, are growing bigger each day. The more grounded my life seems to get, the more unsettled I seem to become. It's hard to explain, but when I make more connections in my life, with family and friends, and as I see the love of family which my fiance's family is the epitamy of a close family, the more curious I become of what my other family was. Did we have family dinners? Did we get together on the holidays and did I have grandparents? Would I get presents on my birthday or help in the kitchen? Are all these questions fruitless, or is there meaning? Hopefully, time will tell.