my mother's letter

Here is a letter that my parents received from our social worker about my adoption. This letter was written on July 15, 1987.

Though I referred to the records of the above child, I couldn't find any special information except those you already had. So I traced the place where the child had been found as an abandoned child. Fortunately, Mr. Jin Nam Kang who had found the child was still living there. And I could have a conversation with his wife by the telephone. She still remembered the child vividly.

According to her, one day she opened the front door in order to greet her husband who was coming back home from his store late at night. At the very time she and her husband heard of a baby crying. The baby was crying in front of the front door of their house, wrapped in swaddling clothes. In the swaddling clothes a memo written by the birth parents and a milk bottle which was still warm were found.

Though she wanted to raise the baby as her daughter because the couple only had two sons, it was impossible due to financial reasons. So a night guard took the baby to a police near by. The very next day she telephoned the police in order to inquire about the baby. But the police side told her that the baby was already transferred to another agency.

Since then she had been anxious about the baby, sometimes feeling guilty. For she thought that the baby might live in a bad circumstance because she also abandoned the baby as the birth parents did.

However, through a contact with me, she could hear that the baby had been adopted to a good family and brought up in more desirable circumstances than her house. She was very pleased at such good news.

Since the baby was transferred to the police, she has never met a woman considered as the birth mother of the baby. But sometimes when someone peeks around her house, she thinks that the person may be the baby's birth parent. She promised that she would inform me that if she could contact the birth mother or get any information on her.

This is a copy of my birth mother's letter that she left with me on the doorstep. It translates as:

Birth Date: May 10,1982

We can not but do this because it is impossible for us to raise this baby due to financial difficulties. I hope you would bring up the baby well.