My mother was hardworking, too. She was the perfect right-hand woman when my parents purchased the business. She grew up in Troyes, a beautiful medieval city in the Champagne region southeast of Paris by one hundred kilometers. Her father, Jacques Wach, was a successful accountant. My grandfather and my grandmother, Simone, had two children. My mother was five and a half years older than her brother, Gilles.
Gilles is now a monsignor in the Catholic Church and runs a seminary that he established himself outside of Florence. My mum has a great story about how young my uncle had been when he knew he had a calling from God. The family used to go to church occasionally, although they weren’t particularly devout. They had a country house near Troyes where they went in the summers, and one day after mass, my mother saw Uncle Gilles in the garden near the house. He was five years old at the time. He had taken all my mother’s dolls and arranged them so they were all looking toward him. He was wearing my grandmother’s black skirt like a robe and was performing Mass for the dolls. My mother ran to get my grandmother, who asked him what he was playing.
“Non, Maman, I’m not playing,” he said. “I will be priest one day.”
As he predicted, my uncle was ordained into the Roman Catholic Church. John Paul II performed his ordination in 1979, when my uncle was twenty-three years old. When I was baptized, it was Uncle Gilles who did the honor.
My mother enjoyed a pampered girlhood. She rode and jumped horses, beginning at age twelve. She even had her own horse. When I began riding at age eight, she would often ride with me. Every summer in her youth, my mother’s family went to the South of France, either to the Mediterranean or the Atlantic Coast. Mum was really smart and well educated, and attended university in England. She met my dad at a party in Paris. It was love at first sight. They had many things in common, and they knew right away they had found their partner for life.
My parents were married in 1976 in Troyes. They wanted to start a family, but not right away, not before they had a good financial standing. When they tried to conceive a baby several years later, they were unsuccessful. They immediately turned to adoption, as they decided not to go through infertility treatments, my mum knowing she would be just as happy with an adopted child, and wanting a family more than anything. She and my father decided they wanted a child from Korea, and Korea only. My mother said it was in her heart. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt very, very strongly about it. My father felt the same way. He even started to teach himself Korean in anticipation.
My parents didn’t realize that being this particular about a country was going to be problematic. In France, there is a specific process for adoption. First, social services needs to agree that the applicants are suitable to be parents of an adopted child. When they are approved, a couple must decide if they want to adopt domestically or internationally. My parents chose to go through a specific association, Amis des Enfants du Monde (AEM), Friends of the Children of the World. When my parents said they were only interested in a baby from Korea, the agency was upset, saying a child is a child wherever he or she is from.
My mother was not dissuaded. She told the representative if the application didn’t go to Korea, she and my father would find another adoption agency that would accommodate them, so Korea or nothing. It was very important to her that she feel a connection with her child’s birth country, and for no explainable reason, her connection was with Korea.
My mum had put a lot of thought into her decision. She was making a choice not just for the baby in infancy, but for that child’s entire lifetime. In her opinion, parents adopting internationally hadn’t always prepared themselves for the added hardship involved in raising a child from another country here in France.
In slightly less than two years, my parents got their authorization. Just before Christmas in 1987, my parents got word from AEM that their baby girl had been born, weighing in at 2.2 kilos (about four pounds, thirteen ounces), and measuring forty-four centimeters long (about seventeen inches). The first physical exam report said I was “cute and tiny,” although I wouldn’t be arriving in France for six months. Their first photo of me was sent to them when I was four days old, newly transferred from the private clinic in Busan to the Holt Institute in Seoul, the adoption agency in Korea that worked with AEM in France. A few days later, my parents got a second, more official photo of me, with a matriculation number, and my Korean name, Kim Eun Hwa. In Korean, Eun means “silver,” and Hwa means “flower.”
A few weeks later, the agency sent a picture that showed a sizable strawberry-colored vascular birthmark on my head. These unsightly growths, called hemangiomas, are fairly common on newborns and are usually cosmetic. My mum, wanting to make sure it wasn’t something of great concern, took my photo to my future pediatrician, and he reassured her that it would disappear completely by the time I was nine years old.
Now, it was time to pick a name. There were a lot of little girls named Anaïs in the South of France, where they spent a lot of time, and the name worked for them for very special reasons. For one, “Anaïs” was popular in the South of France, and I was from the southern part of Korea. For another, “Anaïs” was a near homonym to “Hanae” (pronounced Hana-e), the word for “flower” in Japanese. That would complement the fact that my Korean name used “flower.” Yes, “Anaïs” had a lot of meaningful interpretations that made it the perfect choice.
The initial information given to my parents by the agency in Seoul was that I would be arriving sometime in May, six months after my birth. Therefore, my mother felt no need to rush to furnish my nursery and stock my drawers. Suddenly, on the last Monday in February, a woman called and said I would be arriving on a flight that very Saturday. My mother was in a panic, as she hadn’t prepared my nursery yet. All her friends came forward to help her find a crib, clothing, diapers, formula, toys, blankets, and everything else that the new baby would need. My crib, which was shipped to the house, arrived in fifteen complicated pieces, so there was another scramble to find someone to help my father build it. Thanks to their friends, everything was done in five short days.
On March 5, 1988, I made my grand arrival. I was one of four children from Korea who were landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport that day. Two of us were infants, myself and another little girl the same age. The other two were older, a two-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy. We were accompanied by one employee of the Holt Agency, who had been assigned to deliver us.
I was sleeping soundly when I was taken off the plane. My mum said that when she took me in her arms for the first time, she bonded with me immediately. In that second, she knew she was holding her own child, born from her own heart. According to Mum, I suddenly opened my eyes and looked at her, then smiled before closing them again. She said that I was sleeping so deeply during the car ride home, she had to pinch me to see if I was still breathing. As for my dad, he was nothing but really happy!
I love the story my mum tells about when we first arrived at the apartment as a family of three. We had a six-year-old apricot poodle named Twist, who wasn’t sure if he was thrilled to meet me or not. My parents didn’t want him to get too close to me, fearing germs. In fact, Mum and Dad were so nervous that I would contract some weird germ that they put white lab coats over their clothes to give me my first bottle. My mum’s covered her festive red turtleneck and stylish black-and-white slacks, and Dad’s hid his snappy casual blue button-down shirt, black sweater, and jeans. Every moment was captured in photos.
From the stories, I apparently opened my eyes with a little bit of panic. My mum said I had that worried Where am I? look. She tried to give me my bottle but when I didn’t drink, my dad took over. He was quite proud that he had been successful until I started crying, as the formula didn’t agree with me. My parents called a neighbor, who was a pediatrician, and he told them about a special milk that was available. I was about to grow up in France being lactose intolerant. Talk about a difficult road ahead.
; My mum remembers every one of my “firsts.” I took my first steps on my first birthday. On my first Christmas, we had a white tree decorated with white bulbs, Santa ornaments, and a red bow tied to the top. I wore a red dress and a white blouse and received my first doll from Santa, a boy doll in a blue pajama. I named him Baby Gilles in honor of my uncle. Of all my dolls, he was my favorite, and I carried him in a backpack everywhere I went. He is still in my room today.
For the first three years of my life, my parents and I lived in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ranked as one of the wealthiest communities in France. Nicolas Sarkozy, the future president of France, was the mayor of Neuilly at the time of my arrival. He often had breakfast at the little Café du Parc bistro on Rue de Chézy right near my school. My mother would sometimes see him there when she stopped in for coffee after dropping me off in the mornings.
Partly because it was so beautiful, Neuilly was home to a lot of well-known people—actors, writers, athletes, politicians, and diplomats, all living there in relative privacy. The wide boulevards that Neuilly is known for were once part of the grounds of the Château de Neuilly, home to King Louis Phillip I. Neuilly also had the Bois de Boulogne, the second-largest park in Paris; the American Hospital of Paris, renowned as one of the best hospitals in France; and the headquarters of the International Herald Tribune, now the International New York Times. It was a fantastic place to live, because it was so close to the heart of Paris, yet far enough to be a refuge of peace and quiet.
Exactly one day after my third birthday, we moved to Brussels. My father had taken a job as a general manager at a cosmetics company, with a territory covering Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. My mother threw me a small celebration with a cake at school, but the next day, we were in the car, heading to Belgium. Dad had found us an amazing, beautiful duplex in the center of the city, fifteen minutes from his office. It was two hundred square meters, more than two thousand square feet. The open staircase to the upstairs level scared me, but I loved the terrace that overlooked Cinquantenaire Park. I made my first snowman on that terrace.
My mother loved the apartment, although she hated the move. We didn’t know anybody, and the weather was dreadful. Things got better the following Easter, when all the parents of my preschool friends were renting houses on the North Sea. My mother found a rental for us, too, figuring it was our one chance to make some friends. She was right. We all had a great time in Knokke, a seaside resort about seventy miles northwest of Brussels. She liked our new home better after that.
I liked Brussels from the start. My favorite thing to do was to dress up in costumes, my interest in style manifesting itself early. I especially loved my sequined Harlequin getup, and I would walk around town wearing it as I hauled Baby Gilles on my back in his baby backpack.
My school was friendly and warm. When I learned one of my teachers was having a baby, I was so impressed that I needed to share the news with my mother. “Maman, you will never guess what is in the belly of Madame!” I exclaimed when I got home.
“I guess it’s a baby,” my mum answered.
“Was I in your belly, too?” I asked her in curiosity.
Mum’s answer confused me. “Anaïs, you were always in my heart, but there was another woman who gave birth to you. You were made in another woman.”
“What other woman?” I demanded. How on earth would that work?
“This woman couldn’t be your mother, so she gave you to us,” my mother continued.
I didn’t have any more questions. The concept was too strange, and there was nothing else I could ask.
Not long after that I started to realize what my schoolmates meant when they said, “You don’t look anything like your mother.” They were saying, “She can’t be your mother. She is blond with blue eyes, and you are Chinese.” I still didn’t know what to make of it. One afternoon, I came home from school totally distraught. “Was I abandoned? Did you find me in the garbage?” I asked my mother. I had seen a news story about a baby being found in the garbage in the Philippines on TV, and a boy at school, who had probably seen the same story, said that this is what probably happened to me—I was abandoned in the garbage, and my mother found me there.
“No, Anaïs, you were never abandoned,” my mother assured me. “The woman who gave birth to you, she immediately gave you to us. You were never abandoned. Look, we have a picture of you at four days, right after you were born.”
I didn’t ask any more questions, but this abandonment thing didn’t go away just because my mother shared a picture. This boy had really riled up feelings in me, and I didn’t know what to do or think. I loved my mother more than anybody, but who was this other mother she was talking about? And why wasn’t I with her?
For the first time, I felt really lonely inside. I tried to appear like I was taking the information in stride, but I had a pain that was hard to describe. It still stays with me to this day. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone wrong at the very start of my life. My birth mother couldn’t keep me, so I must have been a problem for her. My parents really wanted me, but had they been able to conceive a child of their own, they wouldn’t have needed to adopt me. The feelings were difficult and complicated, and nothing I wanted to share. I loved my parents, but voicing my loneliness was impossible. Instead, I worked on burying it.
• • •
Most of the time, I didn’t worry about what my birth mother meant, as I was completely happy with my real mother. I did have a temper, and I could be in a bad mood if I had a night of strange dreams. I also had strong anxiety and sad moments for no reason. Sometimes I sensed that I had been ripped off from something, but the feeling was so bizarre, there was no way I could have put it into words. There is a picture of me I posted on Instagram, a young me playing with my two dolls, Baby Gilles and another one. It is hard to find a childhood picture of me without Baby Gilles. It went well beyond that he was my favorite. I never left him behind. I had to carry him everywhere, and if by chance I forgot him, I was panicked that he might disappear forever. He was my constant wherever I went, and we needed each other. Nobody was going to rip me away from Baby Gilles.
My family stayed in Brussels for three and a half years. When my father was promoted, we had to return to Neuilly, which made me very unhappy. Although he left for Paris in February 1994, my mum and I stayed in Brussels until the school year ended in April. I was learning to read, and Mum felt I needed all my lessons, so I would be at my grade level when I got back to Saint Dominique. There, I was one of the best readers in my class, which, of course, made my parents proud.
Returning to school in France was like being the new kid. I didn’t really have any friends, and my classmates were all bonded and not really looking for anybody else. I missed my schoolmates in Brussels and the system we had of entering the classroom in twos holding hands, kind of like in the Madeleine books. At Saint Dominque, it was every kid for himself. The good news was that I was not the shortest child in my grade, as I had been in Brussels. There were two girls who were both two centimeters (almost an inch) shorter than I was, and we became instant friends.
Starting at a young age, my mum had me enrolled in a lot of extracurricular activities, which I loved. I tried piano, ballet, and horseback riding, and I wanted to do everything to the best of my ability, sharing the same kind of drive with my dad in that respect. If I wasn’t motivated, I lost interest fast. In piano, I needed the challenge of a competitive recital. My father bought me an upright early on in my playing, and with lots of practice, I advanced nicely. But once I reached a level where there were no more recitals, I was done. The same thing happened in ballet. The dance school was right next to my school, and I loved going. I was at ballet class practically every day, steadily advancing my level. But one day my ballet instructor appointed another girl to a competition I wanted to be in, and I quit.
Horseback riding was good as long as
I was improving and striving for a goal. My mum and I took advantage of the horses for hire in the huge park with a state-of-the-art equestrian center near our apartment, so if I wasn’t at a lesson, we were trail riding or practicing in the ring. I rode from the ages of eight to fifteen, but when I fell off a horse and broke my arm, I had to take a leave. When I was healed, I was only willing to ride again if I could be on the competitive team, and as that required too many hours away from my studies, I gave up horses, too. If it wasn’t competitive, I wasn’t interested.
When I was seven and a half, my parents took me to Korea for two weeks during the Easter holiday. The objective of the trip wasn’t to reconnect with anybody—it was for pure pleasure, visiting the country, eating the food, speaking the language, seeing the people, and touring the sites. The flight was endless, more than twenty hours in transit, but I made friends with a small Korean boy seated in front of me. One of the stewardesses gave me the Korean Air logo pin with the tiny wings, which my mother keeps stored in a treasure box of mementos in the apartment. My parents were excited to show me the country of my birth. They had never been there, either, and my dad was really looking forward to practicing his Korean.
In Seoul, we stayed at the Hotel Grand Ambassador. The hotel had a huge buffet with food from different countries. Some of my memories are from the journal I kept in a tiny little spiral notebook, which I called “Voyage en Corée.” I wrote in it faithfully throughout the trip, even though the entries were very short. I was also the illustrator, drawing everything that struck me as worthy, from the plane’s window to the kind of cars people were driving. My entries briefly touched on my viewings of a palace, a prison, a temple, Korean dances, and some beautiful moons. It was a Korean travel guide on a shoestring. I even practiced my script handwriting.
Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited Page 5
