Today I also miss my adoptive mom.

Yeah, that’s the truth.  As much as she wasn’t there for me, as much as she was the most repressed person on the planet, as much as she chose to ignore the signs of my abuse or bury it once she knew, I still don’t blame her:  she had her own problems.  Little glimpses of a time when she was carefree would reveal themselves occasionally.  Little glimpses of a real person.  She could smile once in awhile.  Those times were enough.  They were rare, but when they were there, they glimmered like a jewel.

In reality, I just don’t like blame.

I know you probably think that’s crazy, since I have an entire website devoted to blaming Holt for the complicated thing that is my life and thousands upon thousands of other Korean adoptees’ lives.  I don’t blame Holt for the horrors of the past.  I don’t blame Holt for the mistakes they made then.  I blame them for the willful disregard for human beings they continue to commit today, with full knowledge of the mistakes of the past.

Yesterday a friend who has spent the last year TWO YEARS trying to get her adoption records from Holt, but instead only received documents piece-meal, each time being told they had given her everything, each time the documents not quite adding up to the data she already had.  She finally received – only through her own dogged persistence and the encouragement from us and the help of KCARE – her full adoption records, which included ELEVEN more documents than the last time Holt had told her they had given her everything.  ELEVEN.  That’s a lot of documents to over-look so many times.  I guess everything has a different meaning to Holt.  And this friend’s parents are dead.  Nobody’s privacy to protect.  No excuses they could possibly make to this adoptee are good enough.