My name is Sita, 31 years old and adopted from Sri Lanka . My adoption parents went to Sri Lanka in 1985 with a foundation called Flash. In the Netherlands I have a sister and a brother (not biological).
When I was growing up I felt sometimes very lonely. I can’t explain this feeling. I felt if something was missing despite the fact that is was growing up with a sister and a brother in my family. I didn’t have a lot of interest in Sri Lanka but I wondered and fantasised about my biological family. Was it possible that I had a sister or maybe a brother in Sri Lanka? At the age of 16 years old I wrote a letter to a TV show called Missing. It is a TV show in the Netherlands which help people find their biological family. I saw the TV show many times and wondered if they maybe could found my mother. I thought I give it a try with in my head the possibility that she wasn’t alive anymore or the TV show couldn’t found anything. When my parents adopted me they made two pictures of my biological mom so I had an impression of how she looked like. When my parents adopted me the adoption agency told them that I was my mother’s first child. When I was 19 the TV show missing contacted me that they found my biological mom. It was the same year off the Tsunami 2004. My mom and I and the TV show went in November to Sri Lanka to visit my biological mother. For me it was very strange to see my mother. I saw right away that I looked a lot like her, only she was a lot smaller than I am. My biological mother told me her story and why she gave me up for adoption. When she was younger she worked for a politician in the capital city. The man was very violent to his wife and children. He drunk a lot of alcohol and used his power in a very bad way. He abused my mother when he was drunk. My biological father was the one who arranged the adoption. His name of course is nowhere found in my adoption papers or anywhere else. He forced my mother to give me up for adoption. When we were in Sri Lanka the opportunity was given to me to meet my biological father. It was a very hard decision. But I decided that I wanted to see him and mostly see if I looked like him. The meeting was very strange. The translator of the TV show was with us so she could translate everything. This part was not at the TV show. It was all very secretly. The meeting was mostly strange because I was supposed to not let my biological father know that I knew who he was. He know who I was and I know who he was but nobody was supposed to talk about it. I was in his house wondering how afraid my mother was of him. He didn’t seem very nice and I could feel the bad vibe around him. Their where some pictures of a boy and a girl in the living room. He told me that the girl and boy are his children. So these people are my half-brother and half-sister. The girl was a lawyer and studied in the United Kingdom. After three days our trip in Sri Lanka was over. We had to say goodbye to my biological mother. I felt very sad leaving her. My mother who had lived a terrible live with so much violence, had to give up the only child she ever had. I think she was very lonely. Back in the Netherlands I couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting with my biological father. Mostly because it was clear to me that he had two children. From the stories of my mom I only could imagine that these children had a terrible childhood. I wanted to find them. They told me in Sri Lanka that my half-sister was working and living in London. So I start my search adventure on the internet. I googled and googled my biological fathers last name and hope to find my half-sister. I called to London to a register of lawyers and asked them if they could help me. Unfortunately they couldn’t help me. Years and years went by but with no results. I asked the contact person from the TV show in Sri Lanka to help me out. Maybe she could ask my father she seemed to know him better. After four years I suddenly got a letter from Sri Lanka that my mother had passed away. She lived with other people where she was also working. The people promised me to send me all her belongings but never kept their promise. A few years later I came in contact with an old friend who asked me about my mother in Sri Lanka, so I told him the story but also told him how strange I thought it was. I had doubts about the story that she was not longer alive. Than he told me that he had a friend who was doing an internship in Sri Lanka had the moment and he was willing to ask her if she could check it out. In December 2012 this amazing girl called me, she went to the house of my mother. She was still alive, so my premonition wasn’t wrong. In the summer of 2013 me and my fiancée went to Sri Lanka to visit my mother and travel a little bit. When we went to my mother’s house nobody seemed to know anything about the letters that I got about my mother’s death. We thought it was very strange and didn’t trust the people where she was living. We asked my mother if she felt better living somewhere else, but she wanted to stay there. We stayed for three weeks in Sri Lanka. In that time we spend a few days with my mom. My mom is a very private person and you can feel that she carries a lot grief. It was very hard to make contact with her. That summer she gave me the names of my half - sister and half- brother. I think she remembered them very clearly and took care of them when they were young. Back from our trip in Sri Lanka I came in contact with an girl who was also adopted from Sri Lanka. She was also adopted from the same agency and told me a lot of background information. She told me that the person who found my mother in the first place(with the TV show) worked for the agency Flash in the past. When I was younger I didn’t know much about the adoption procedure. But now everything became more and more clear. Of course she found my mother. She was one of the persons who was involved in my adoption. She also told me back then in 2004 that she found my mother through my father. I thought that was strange because in my adoption papers there was nothing mentioned about a father at all. Miss Perera knows a lot more than I assumed in the first time. I stayed in contact with Miss Perera after my visit in 2004 but only after 2013 I found out who she was. In May 2016 someone contacted me from the past. An acquaintance who was also adopted from Sri Lanka. He wanted to start an association with Sri Lankan adoptees and started an App group with these people so we could all chat and get to know each other. At first I was sceptical because but eventually decided to join the appgroup. In the appgroup I made contact with a girl called Sharon. We seemed to share the same humour and interests. We started to chatting privately and found out we had a lot of similarities, made a lot of same choices. Sharon told me about her search in Sri Lanka to find her mother. She was searching for years and found out all her papers where false. Our contact felt so normal but in the same time very special. I began to wonder if my biological father could maybe put more children up for adoption. I shared my suspicions with Sharon. In the begin she was more sceptical than me because she had been so many times disappointed in her search for her biological mother. At 18 July 2016 we met for the first time at the airport. Because the airport is very big we decided to meet in front of the Body Shop. I remembered walking towards Sharon, she was sitting on this bench in front of the Body Shop. I saw her and something really strange happened, I felt something really strange if I knew her. But I also felt a very sad feeling which I couldn’t explain. We decided to go upstairs and have some lunch. This was so strange! What was happening? Why was she acting the same way that I was? My Fiancée was also very curious and when he was finished with his work he decided to come to the airport to meet this Sharon person himself. It was a short meeting for my fiancée because we couldn’t stay very long anymore. We both travelled with the train and stayed in contact the whole train trip and evening. I was happy to found out that she also found our meeting very special and that she also saw the similarities. After our meeting I decided to contact miss Perera. She should know more. I decided to more or less force her to tell me the truth about my adoption. On 15 September we finally got the truth from Sri Lanka. After 31 years I finally know I have a biological sister. Sharon and I share the same mother and same father. Because we wanted to know it for sure we did a DNA test. But we already did know the answer. 31 years separated by adoption, not knowing that I had a biological sister… I think our heart always knew that something was missing… I am so happy to found Sharon after years searching. Who could know that I have a biological sister only living 80 km away?
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