I never expected that my memories of my Indonesian mother would become a lifeline. 'Mama Jane' told me I was not allowed to talk about her and had to forget my past. She said it was the only way to get a good life. I had to be a 'good girl' to prevent being sent back to the orphanage. I listened because I did not know better.
As a frightened toddler, I must have gotten used to being prepared for anything. This anything turned out to be a whole new life in the Netherlands with brand new parents. For some, a dream, but back then I just wanted to survive and get back to my Indonesian mother, who I thought would someday come to pick me up like she always did.
Unfortunately, I was not able to make the surrounding adults understand my difficult situation and I had to do what I was told. They appeared to speak a whole different language, which I was not able to understand.
The last time I saw my Indonesian mother was at a train station platform in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she asked me to obey her and go with this Chinese woman. I'd always thought this was meant to be temporary but never saw her again.
When I think of her, I remember locations and certain situations, but sadly I am not able to remember her face.
The memories I do have became my most valuable treasure, which I still frantically trying to hold on to. They are an important part of my identity and there is no one else I can ask what happened before my adoption.
I had to store them somewhere safe in my head since I was not allowed to talk about them. Somehow they would become my lifeline for survival. For years I thought that my mother was waiting for me and that I just needed to find her, but the older I got, the more afraid I became to lose those memories.
I was fortunate that my adoptive parents realized that a toddler would never be able to forget their Indonesian mother. In the first year of my adoption, my mother tried to make me talk about my past but had a hard time convincing me to do so. I did not allow myself to show any emotions, since the words of ' Mama Jane' had a huge impact on me. And the threat of being sent back was not very appealing to me. This was reinforced by Nyamini, who I considered to be my best friend at the orphanage. She had told me she experienced being sent back and advised me also to obey.
My adoptive mother had a lot of patience, gained my trust and finally got access to my invisible box of memories. Even with our language barrier, she was able to listen and I would tell her what I remembered.
I often asked them to recite my memories and re-tell the story of my adoption over and over again. They must have told it so many times that I often wondered if it drove them mad. I am grateful they did, because now with every memory I still can recall a visual image.
As an adult, it is hard to understand the advice of the orphanage not to talk about the past. Every adopted child experiences the trauma of relinquishment and being emotionally blackmailed not to talk about it is inhumane. It is impossible to strip a child from its memories and often made me wonder why they ask children to do this. The only conclusion I can think of is the orphanage had something to hide.....