As I type this, 35 years ago I would’ve been 15 minutes old. The doctors would’ve been cleaning me up and the nurses would be hovering over me doing their job. Soon I will be brought to my mother all wrapped up and she probably held me and looked at me lovingly… perhaps, I don’t know, I don’t remember.
What I do know is that after 35 years I still don’t know the woman, I’ve never had a face to face encounter with her that I can recall and I’ve never ever received a birthday card, phone call or even a post card saying I’m here in so and so having a great life without you.
Anyway this is my journal entry as it was written in its purest, uncut, unadulterated form. In it you will find crass, rude and perhaps very offensive albeit censored language, however you will also find the truth and the inner thoughts of a man who has come to terms with and is at peace with his past circumstance.
Looking back I can only say that it was probably fueled by the pent up anger I had inside at being so far away from my family so close to the holiday season and being angry that I couldn’t come home then for fear of being penalized the next tax season thereby negating the whole reason for going overseas in the first place. In short I felt trapped and that made me a bit perturbed:
11-13-09 9:56 pm
Thought I’d start a new blog entry called, “Son of a -----.” A title that came to me when thinking of my mother (incubator) and how even after 35 years no word or even a letter. I wonder if she even thinks of me. What of my birthday… does she remember? Does she think about that day? How could someone walk out on a child like that? Questions that arise are, “was I that undesirable? Was I an ugly or a mean child, did I have some unredeemable characteristic about me?"
I have heard that when asked if she kept in contact with us (my sister and I) she made a statement to the effect of, “I don’t have any other children” or “I have my real children.”
What did I do to garner such treatment, such rejection? In what ways did I not measure up as an ideal son? Did I stink?
When I was young I didn’t think about it much. Perhaps it was because I had so many other things to worry about or maybe it was some kind of defense mechanism. As an adult I’m pissed off because I feel cheated, I feel short changed, I feel that in a lot of ways her desertion has handicapped me. For this cause she is a b****, in the worst sense of the word. For this cause I despise what she has done, for how she f***** me up and left me to fend for myself. For not protecting me from all the sh**** things that happened and for giving that motherly love and affection to another family and starving me of it.
Maybe I become aware of it when I see movies that portray women who would go to the ends of the earth to fight for their children and how I longed for that and how wearying it was to be my own comforter.
The darkest part of me wants to spit in her face and scream, “F*** YOU Chong Cha Kong!!!!”... but then the emotional storm settles and the dust clears as I see the faces of my son and daughter and my wife (who’s love and steadfastness has been a ballast for us during the worst of times) and I wonder, “what if…?”
…what if the ***** had aborted me?
…or
…what if she had been in my life and been that loving mother to me? Would I have been in Veterans Memorial Park that Friday night (which as it turns out was the Friday prior to
Mothers Day that Sunday… as I hear Alanis Morrisette singing in my mind… “Isn’t it ironic…”) in the month of May to hear the hope of the gospel? Would I have even felt the need to respond? I certainly wouldn’t have met my wife in the church and I would not have had the pleasure of raising my beloved son and my beautiful daughter nor would I have been privileged enough to hear any one of them spontaneously say with the heartfelt sincerity that they do, “daddy/honey, I love you.” Would I even have the privilege to know the love, redemption and forgiveness of a Savior who measures the heavens in a span and holds the waters in the hollow of His hand?
Because of this I had to reexamine my view of Ms. Kong and at least be grateful that she carried me to full term, delivered me and then stepped out of the way.
I don’t know what all went down for her to cut us loose all those years ago, I don’t have that perspective but the question that still lingers is… will I ever get to know her? I don’t know and I doubt that she has another 35 years left to wait, however I am here and will be here… where are you “mom”?
