VOICES OF KCCNYC ADOPTEES: MARY K’S STORY
Voices of KCCNYC Adoptees: Mary K.’s Story
By Mary Klein
My name is Mary Klein. I am 52 and live in Orlando, FL. I am married to Casey, my husband of 27 years, and we have 3 children: Skylar 23, Katie 19, Anna 16. I am a Master’s Degreed CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologist), as is my husband. Two of our three children are at FSU, both my husband and my alma mater, with the eldest about to graduate with his Master’s in Biomedical Engineering. Life is one Helluva ride and it’s far from done. This is my story…
Photo Credit to Mary Klein, Mary on left, and her biological mother on the right. They reunited after many years.
I grew up in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. My Dad was a White American, worked for GTE, and served in the Army Reserves once a month. My Mom was Korean, a homemaker and took care of my older brother and I. It was, what seemed to me, a typical household. I did not “feel” different, aside from the fact I was teased about my Asian features at school. My Mom cooked delicious food, set rules for us to follow, made sure we drank a glass of milk, bathed us and brushed our teeth every night. We took a vitamin and made our beds every morning. She had me memorize times tables 0-12 by the 1st grade and had me do worksheets over the summers, which I liked to do. She brushed my hair and put it in ponytails every morning for school. We always had clean clothes and a lunchbox sent to school every day. I knew she loved us by the way she took care of us.
When I turned eight, my world was turned upside down. My parents were divorcing…I was going with my Mom to Fayetteville, NC, while my brother would stay in Florida with my Dad. This was mid-school year, and my once straight A grades deteriorated to D’s. My Mom, who had never worked while raising us, had to take odd jobs and I was often home alone after school. The school in North Carolina that I was zoned for seemed cold, non-caring and rough.
Over the summer, my mom brought me back to Florida for what was supposed to only be a summer visit with my Dad. At that point it was only six months since the divorce, but my Dad had already remarried to a White American woman, three months after the divorce. It did not take me long, even at nine years old, to figure out what happened there. Behind the scenes, there was a custody battle that lasted beyond the summer, so I started 5th grade in Florida. While my grades improved, much turmoil occurred. I was called to the school office on a few occasions, warning me that my Mom might come and kidnap me. It was also revealed that my Mom and Dad were not mine nor my brother’s biological parents and that my brother and I were not biologically related. My Dad told me within the year of the divorce about us being adopted and told me in such a way that I should have been grateful that he saved my life. He also proclaimed that my now known as my Adoptive Mom, didn’t want to adopt me - that she wanted me to stay in Korea with HER Mom. More devastating blows, yet somehow I was expected to not cry…Dad asking, “Why are you crying? We CHOSE you.” When you are nine, you do not understand the complex feelings you experience. It wasn’t until later I realized that he had revealed all this in a very harmful way.
We lived in a mobile home in a fairly rural area and an hour away from my Dad’s work. My Dad and his new wife smoked two packs of cigarettes per day, each. We were poor. My Dad complained constantly about having no money, blamed my Adoptive Mom for draining his money from the divorce and had to declare bankruptcy. All the while, my Stepmom wrote over $500 in bad checks and never worked. She sat in her chair, read books, watched soap operas and drove around spending money she didn’t earn or have. I frequently was commanded to get up and go get her iced tea from the kitchen….it didn’t matter that maybe I was sitting on the couch doing schoolwork. On the weekends, we would have to pull weeds in our yard of an acre while she sat inside. Dad was racist too, often using the “N” word or complaining about Jewish people causing WWII… Whenever he used the “N” word, it repulsed me. I finally had to say something to him and how it made me feel like he was saying the “N” word to me. His response was, “You’re more white than I am.” What?!?!? My Stepmom frequently jabbed at my Korean Mom saying, “She has a funny way of showing you love.” Her reasoning was because she used corporal punishment for discipline.
Living with my Dad and Stepmom was literally an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. The Stepmom had a daughter that was older than my brother and I. The Stepsister had an abusive, alcoholic, drug addicted boyfriend who impregnated her at 18 years old. They got married, but she would move in and out of our “home” to escape abusive rampages a dozen times over the course of my tween and teen years. I vowed after my first summer home from college (I had lost my scholarship and had to work the night shift at the grocery store to earn enough money for my second year) that I would never come back. I received a $500 Rotary Club Scholarship, which my Stepmom immediately confiscated “to pay for their travel costs for my orientation to FSU.” Fortunately, I had the Florida Academic Scholarship, which went directly to the university, so she couldn’t lay her paws on it. My brother left for the Navy and was commanded by my Stepmom to send a large chunk of his meager enlistment salary to her. After his 4-year military contract, he was sucked back into the shitshow vortex of “home” and eventually found himself being accused of sexually molesting my Stepsister’s young daughter. Instead of my Stepsister finding a babysitter for her children so she could work, she used my brother to babysit her kids, at home, for free. My brother proclaims his innocence to this day, but was sentenced and served a 10-year prison term and is permanently listed on the FDLE Sex Offender Registry. His innocence was confirmed through a handwritten letter from my stepsister, signed with a different name, saying that it was actually the child’s father who had molested her. He has other significant problems with lying and stealing. I had cut off communications with him, recently reconnected, but have once again severed ties with him.
I went to Florida State University, and as promised, never returned “home.” Christmas and summer breaks were spent at school, working and studying. I lived in The Southern Scholarship Houses, which were homes that housed college students with good academic records, but in financial need. My room and board was $500/semester! I paid for my entire education myself, through scholarships, work, and student loans that have been repaid in full. While attending university, my Adoptive Mom sent packages and letters often and she had me call her collect to talk on the telephone. She always, always, ALWAYS, stressed getting my education and to not end up like her. I drove up to North Carolina one Spring Break to visit her. Her wrist was contorted from the repetitive motion of sewing leather goods. She lived in a bad area of town and a brick was thrown through her front door and smashed the beautiful mother of pearl buffet hutch we had when we were a family. She was now poor too and worked long and hard. We cooked Korean food, went to the movies and saw “A League Of Their Own.” I spoke to her about my feelings of disgust toward my Adoptive Dad and Stepmom. She never spoke poorly of them, and actually admonished me for doing so. To be cheated upon, yet still uphold the tenet of respecting the Father, made me admire her more than I already had. When I left, she handed me an envelope and told me not to open it until I got home. It was $500 cash. Here, all this time, I’d been told how this woman didn’t want me, loved me in a “strange way,” yet all her actions told me quite the opposite. I burst into tears, because I knew how long and how hard she had to work in order to give me that. I got a scholarship from the hospital that put me through nursing school and in a total of four years of college, I passed my boards to become a Registered Nurse. I sent my Mom a happy letter describing my new job, new apartment, new car, new boyfriend, knowing that this would make her so happy….and a month later, my letter was returned. I tried to call, and her number was disconnected. I have tried doing online searches for her…her last known documented location was Flushing, NY. It’s been over 30 years since I had contact or known her whereabouts. I so wish I could find her and care for her…and let her know that I “made it.”
Photo Credit to Mary Klein, her Adoptive mother, Song Kim Bartley.
April 5th, 2024
My Adoptive Mom, Song Kim Bartley. Her family raised me for two years in Korea while my naturalization process for the USA was approved. She and her family in Korea, laid the foundation of who I am today. Observations, attention to details, bits and pieces of stories during my childhood formed an inner narrative that may or may not be completely true….but has driven and continues to drive my actions today. I don’t pretend to have known what I was doing all along, but I do know that I had a couple of goals: 1. Failure was not an option, 2. I was very careful in choosing to have children. And once I committed to this, I was going to change my children’s stories of what their childhood was going to be. Mind you, I had no intentions of spoiling or indulging them their every wish or impossibly attempt to shelter them from every heartache, disappointment, or failure they would eventually encounter. My intention was to maintain a stable, loving, and respectful upbringing that would hopefully prepare them to be mentally tough, productive, empathetic, contributing visitors on this Earth. “Leave things better than you found them.
I have the very unrealistic dream that one day I will finally see my mom again…we sit and have coffee and I get to tell her all the things she’s missed these past 45 years. And as loving mommas do, she’d sit there, look at all the pictures, listen to all my stories of my adventures, the kids, my husband and marriage, and look at me, give me a huge, long hug and tell me how much she loves me and how so proud she is.
Part 2
Mother’s Day 2024
I haven’t had contact with her in over 30 years. It’s an ache that won’t ever go away and is exacerbated when I reflect on the abundant blessings in my life. It’s because of her short time in parenting me, that I have been able to overcome the really bad parts of my upbringing and cultivate these blessings into what I consider, a truly incredible life. And it hurts to think that she has missed so much.
Photo Credit to Mary Klein, Mary with her biological mother.
My sweet husband, Casey Klein, decided to try to find her at the end of last year, getting his law enforcement brother and his girlfriend, Amy Flickinger, to do a deep dive. While he doesn’t completely understand, nor does he see the full depth of my pain from this, he knows how much this would mean to me. I stumbled upon his attempts and appreciated his efforts, but told him what would eventually come true… a dead end.
This led me to join various Facebook groups of Korean American Adoptees. I started reading the many different journeys these adoptees have had. And it was shocking how, like me, many were not the fairytale, rainbows, butterflies, and roses that you would expect. Many were much much worse.
After hearing some of my story and of what Casey was trying to do, I was prompted by my friend, Victoria Solon, to do a DNA test. It never crossed my mind to even attempt to find my biological family. I was told by my Adoptive Father at nine years old that I was adopted. Up to that point, I had believed he and my Adoptive Mom were my only parents. He said it would be impossible to find them, as my adoption papers from Korea had fake biological parents listed and, at the time, documentation was not good. I scoffed at the idea of submitting DNA, telling Victoria that Ancestry, 23andMe, and all those other DNA tests, appeared to have more information for the Americas and European countries. So many Korean Adoptees in the groups talked about submitting DNA to a dead end. I did an Ancestry test anyway. As expected, no hits. I was not upset at all. Again, I had no expectations and my longing to find my Adoptive Korean Mom stood paramount in my mind.
A Facebook post tagging 325Kamra - Reuniting families through DNA - offering free DNA tests to Korean adoptees worldwide, caught my attention. This is a non-profit organization that is focused on reuniting Korean families who have been separated by international adoption. After reading of blatant kidnappings, parents being told their babies were stillborn but actually stolen to be put up for adoption, falsified adoption papers, made-up tales of why parents relinquished their children, and numerous other stories, I began to wonder if MY story was made up or if I was taken unknowingly or unwillingly…. my documents are falsified. So, I decided to submit one of these tests, with no expectation and zero anticipation. Another “throw something out there” because my friend suggested I do it.
Tuesday afternoon, I received a message from Bella L. Siegel-Dalton, to call her ASAP. It wasn’t a sibling or half sibling match….it was a parent. My Omma submitted her DNA in 2020…but she was 85 then and the chances of her being alive were not good. Their first attempt at calling her was a disconnected line. It would be another 30+ hours before I would know. Again, really expecting her to have already passed away, expecting another dead end but on a different tangent.
Photo Credit to Mary Klein, Mary with her biological mother and biological brother.
Well, she is alive and wanted very much to talk to and see me. Korea does not celebrate Mother’s or Father’s Day, but the day I believe she found out was Parents’ Day, May 8 (Korea is 13 hours ahead of EST). She’d been waiting four years since submitting her DNA and she learned of the match on what is the equivalent of Mother’s Day. I also have a brother, 13 years older than me. He didn’t know I existed until 2020. He was the one who prompted my Omma to get DNA tested. My brother is also caring for my Omma, while living at his home.
I have people congratulating me and telling me how happy they are for me. Many say, “You must be so happy!” It’s a lot of different emotions, but it’s oddly not the elation someone has when they find a long lost relative. I guess it’s because I was resigned to the fact that I discovered and lost her all at once when I was nine years old. And after years and years of roads leading to dead ends trying to find my Korean ADOPTED Mom, my mind was conditioned to just “know” that I would always have holes that will never be filled. However, when I start thinking of Omma and what she has endured these last 52 years from the perspective of being a Mother, I completely lose it.
So, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, while I’m the daughter in the USA and she’s the Omma in Korea, whose country doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day, I will celebrate my Omma for being so very strong and resilient. I will also honor my Adoptive Mom, of whom I still know nothing. I cannot wait to talk to Omma tonight. I hope she feels like the decision she made was a good one, thanks in part to my Korean Adoptive Mom.
