Day 3: Dreams of My Father

Last night I dreamt about my adoptive dad, which also led me to questions about my biological dad. 

Oddly, for all times I have thought about my mother and my biological mother — as perhaps being at odds, being different, being parallel but not —for all the times I have imagined my biological mother and endowed her with certain physical features or given her a shadowy face or a back story, I have never imagined my biological dad as anything but an absence — a void. 

A purely biological factor. The missing piece that made me a me. 

Why not? 

First, I fear imagining what his story might be. I fear he forced my biological mom to bear a child against her will. Perhaps he raped, molested or otherwise abused her. 

I imagine her being extremely young. Far younger than I am now. Maybe she consented in the moment, but their relationship bore such disparate power dynamics that she did not have much of a choice.

Or maybe they had a wonderful, mutual, loving relationship and I was born of love, but they could not afford to care for and raise me. Then, the financial incentives aligned so it made more sense to sell me to a white family in a very rich country than keep me there in Seoul, Korea in the mid ’80s.

This may be Pollyannish, but it supports the idea of me being fully gestate then surrendered versus hastily aborted by means grotesque or more humane: coat hangers, back alleys, a D&C in a doctor’s office. I wonder about the prevalence and availability of abortions for women in that country at that time. 

Was it done? Only done for the rich? Was giving one’s baby up for adoption a secret, a source of shame, or a common economic reality? 

Also, what does it say about me that the first scenarios I imagine involve abuse, trauma and disempowerment? Does it paint me as jaded? Or just as someone who lives in the world? 

Finally, does a part of me exist that needs answers to these questions? That demands answers?

Can I make peace with never asking these questions? Can I make my peace with these unknown origins as we all make our peace with hundreds of known unknowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns every day? 

Or, as I grow and mature and want and explore, will it become increasingly impossible to live as someone borne of a void?