Several years ago, a famous actress called Jarunee Suksawat has finally uncovered the truth about her parentage. She was raised by her mother without her father and had no idea about who he was; the only clue she had was a picture of him and his name. So the journey to find him began.
Unfortunately, Maryam Barootchian wasn't as lucky as she was separated from her family since young after Saddam Hussein dropped a bomb on Halabja in 1988 and then was adopted into an Iranian family without knowing anything about her parentage. According to BBC's article 'Halabja: A 'lost daughter' finds her way home', she began her search on her family after her adopted father had died and the sense of not belonging grew stronger, and like many others unfortunate child, her search wasn't easy, but after years of struggling, her wish was finally came true when she finally found a perfect DNA match and realized her name was actually Hawnaz Eskander.
When I first heard about Jarunee's achievement, I was truly happy for her even though I do not know her personally. As both a daughter and a mother, I think I can understand the agony that Jarunee, Hawnaz, and her family had gone through. I couldn't imagine what would I have done if my daughters were to be separated from me. I would have searched my entire life for them.
Even though Hawnaz and Jarunee found her parents, there are still many lost children out there who are on search for their family and vice versa. My prayer is on them. I believe every one deserves to find this basic comfort of humanity that only family can provide.
Reference
Gol J.,Westcott K. (13, November 2015). Halabja: A 'lost daughter' finds her way home. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34723550
Monday 16 November 2015
5 comments:
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Not quite the same as separation through war or other disaster, I was thinking about the feelings that cause adopted children seek to find their birth parents, usually their birth mother. I don't know how common this is, but every now and then I read stories of an adopted child going to great lengths to find the woman who gave birth to them, sometimes causing great pain to their legal adoptive parents, who have for many years given them a loving family in which to grow up.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I marvelled at that wonder of modern science, DNA, which not only explains how evolution works on our planet, but can now be used to identify with great certainty who is a parent of whom and is related to whom. In the past, the mother might have been certain, being very hard to fake, but there were always varying degrees of doubt as to who a father was. Today, a simple paternity test can confidently answer the question of whether or not a particular man is the biological father of another person.
In my opinion, when a family decide to adopt children, that means they decide to devote themselves to those children. They have to keep in mind, however, that foster parents can only try their best to raise them, yet the children still have biological parents, even if they may not be present in their children's lives. Therefore, when the children become old enough to take care of themselves, parents should let them decide whether they want to find their biological parents or not. Foster parents should not take the decision personally.
DeleteAnd the next question that came to mind was whether a natural (biological) family is always better for a child than an adoptive family.
ReplyDeleteAnd in these days of same-sex marriages and adoptions, whether children need parents of mixed sexes.
DeleteThis is a new development of the word "family". Previously when you say family, you think of parents of mixed sexes. But now the world is changing and that's not always the case.
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