The last love letter he wrote to me was a thank you card. In every possible action, our love and gratitude were inextricable, despite the societal sicknesses that divided us by race, gender, and landscape. Ross, who I described as my anti-racist white boyfriend, did his best to love me, a grateful adoptee, for the three years in which I purchased three one-way tickets to Korea.
Each time, he drove me to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport, carried my baggage, and kissed me farewell on my journey into adoptee activism.
One year ago, we finally tired of the ritual, and parted ways in love and acceptance of our separate, emerging paths. On the other side of that departure, I arrived at KoRoot–a small, but mighty guest house and NGO in Seoul, South Korea looking to reclaim my cultural heritage, or what was left of that.
Once again, I passed through the creaking front gate into the garden, continued forward up the concrete steps, and reached the guest house entrance where I paused to remove my shoes.
Little did I know, I was beginning my daily return to KoRoot, a labor of love and gratitude to serve the 200,000 overseas Korean adoptees to which I belong, on behalf of the organization that has welcomed me in both times of greatness and vulnerability.