Sitting in the car, looking at the picture of my birth mother, time literally stood still.
Time Stood Still
Was this real? Was this AI?
No.
This was a picture of my birth mother—the woman who had given birth to me more than forty years ago. The woman in that photograph was the person who gave me life.
It was an emotional experience. In many ways, it answered questions I had carried with me for decades. Yet as one chapter of my life seemed to close, another immediately began to open.
What Do I Do Now?
Questions and emotions started flooding my mind.
What do I do now?
Where do I go from here?
I didn’t even know how to contact her moving forward. I couldn’t rely on sending letters through Wide Horizons and Holt forever. This person in the picture was my mother, but what was my next step?
Just like life, there is no complete guide for what to do in a situation like this.
What I did know was that I needed to calm down and absorb everything I was feeling. So I put the email away and decided to drive home.
The Longest Drive
That felt like the longest drive of my life.
All I wanted to do was pick up my phone and continue looking at the picture of my birth mother. As I drove, the questions returned again and again.
Fortunately, my wife was with me and helped keep me calm and grounded, answering as many questions as she could.
My Rock and My Foundation
Before I continue, I should tell you a little about my wife.
I met her when I was thirteen years old. From the first day I saw her in a store in Michigan, I somehow knew she would be my life partner. Since then, we have made it through high school, college, buying our first home, marriage, and raising our children together.
She has always been my rock and my foundation.
As we drove home, I started bombarding her with all of the questions racing through my mind. The one that kept returning was simple:
What do I do next?
Honestly, I desperately wanted to reach out to my birth mother and communicate with her.
I just didn’t know how.
KakaoTalk
This all happened on a Friday, and that evening I attended my house church gathering. As I mentioned in previous reflections, I belong to a Korean church. Like every Friday, we gathered together as a house church, and I shared the news with everyone.
They were excited, thrilled, and incredibly supportive.
But I also shared my concerns. I told them I didn’t know where to go from here.
Fortunately, my house church pastor and several of the house church aunties introduced me to a communication app called KakaoTalk. They explained that it was the primary messaging platform used throughout Korea. Even Korean families living in the United States used it to communicate with loved ones in Korea, and best of all, it was free.
They told me all I needed was my birth mother’s phone number.
Then it hit me.
Holt had already forwarded me my birth mother’s phone number.
There It Was
I immediately downloaded KakaoTalk and registered my account. For the first time, communicating directly with my birth mother seemed possible.
I entered her phone number.
And then—there it was.
A profile appeared.
I stared at the screen for a moment.
This wasn’t a letter.
This wasn’t an intermediary.
This wasn’t a caseworker.
This was my mother’s actual profile.
I pressed the message button and began typing my very first message.
“Hello, this is Andrew Hackett (Kil Jong Yoon).
I am your eldest son…”