My very first video interview with my older sister Eva.
Tag Archives: Family
Memories – by Nelson/Roberto
I’m running as fast as I can. I stop short at the gate fence. In a few quick moves, I jump up, grab the top, swing my legs over and jump down on the other side. I keep running only to be greeted buy the dog. Before he can get near me I duck into the door way to my left. Jumping over some paint cans I turn sharply to the right and hid behind some boxes. I’m out of breath but I try not to make a sound.
I stay here for a minuet. I don’t hear anything. Slowly I creep back into the hall way and look around. Poking my head into the next room Ernesto looks up at me and laughs.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh..she’ll hear me” As soon as I say it I hear screaming coming from the next room.
I turn to run again but the stupid dog followed me into the room and is in my way. Great no where to go. I turn, knowing whats coming next.
“I GOT YOU!!” My little sister screams as she grabs my shirt. I try to loosen her grip and tell her she is stretching the shirt. No good. Shes got me and she is NOT letting go.
Giving I pick her up in my arms and we head back to the house to get something to drink.
I often think back to those days when she was a little kid and we would run around the house chasing each other. It was so much fun. I have so many memories.
There is a gate outside of my father’s house in panama. The entrance had a nice little ledge just big enough for someone to sit. I use to picker up on my shoulder and put her on the ledge when she was being “bad.” She would laugh trying to figure out how to get down.
Then there was the time I broke her bed. I picked up and pretending to be a wrestler dropped her on the bed. It completely fell apart. She was fine but started to cry when she saw her bed in pieces. We were able to fix it right up and minuets later she was grabbing on to my shirt again like nothing every happened.
I’m so glad that I have been able to be a part of her growing up. She is a lot older now and has become a wonderful young lady. I still remember the little girl who ran up to me that first night at the airport. She will always be my little sister.
Meeting my sister and growing up with her has been one of the best parts of this entire experience. I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
I know how much she looks up to me and that is where I get so much of my motivation. Her pictures hangs on my wall and I always look it when I am feeling down.
Many families are spread all over the world and don’t get to see each other as much as they would like. Thats not an option for me. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we’ll always have memories to look back on.
A letter from my father – by Nelson/Roberto
November 1997
Its 6:15 pm and its already dark out. I just got back from school and I’m the first one home. I dash up to my room and drop my bag. I fire up the computer and head back downstairs to get something to drink. As I go to the turn on the outside lights I bend over and pick up the mail. On my way back to the kitchen I start to go through it. Bill, bill, junk mail…but whats this?
Tossing the rest of the mail on the counter I’m starring down at a letter addressed to Roberto Coto form a Luis Coto. Its a letter from my father… When we got the original package from Probusqueda there was only letters from my aunt and grandmother. I take a second to look at it before opening it. Its three pages of neatly written cursive. I frown for a second. It all in Spanish and I can’t read any of it.
I head back up to my room letter in hand. Half an hour later my dad yells from downstairs “I’m home”
“Hi” I reply making my way out into the hall.
“How was your day?” he questions
“I got a letter from my dad.” I say excitedly
My adoptive father would tell me later these words made his heart sink because for 15 years he was the only one I called dad. There is a pause…”What does it say?”
“I’m not sure its all in Spanish”
Over dinner I show my parents the letter. My mom suggests that she could have one of her colleagues translate the letter for us. I tell her that I think some of my friend at school could translate it too.
The next day I stuff the letter in my bag as I head out the door. As I’m ride in on the T I stare at it I try to figure out what it says. All I can make out is “Dear Roberto,” So I just sit there staring out the window. I always sit in the the very first seat on the train. It has a window all to its self and I can get off the train quicker. I’ve made this 15 minuet trip for the past four years but today it seams endless. My leg is shaking in anticipation and everyone getting on the train is taking forever. Finally I arrive at my stop just in time to catch the last van.
I’m running late. Its 8:20am when I arrive and there is no time to find someone to translate. I’ll have to wait until lunch. I’m restless during my classes I pull out the letter every so often to look it over. I briefly show it to my friend Eric. Finally its time for lunch.
“Julia!” I call down the hall
She greats me with a smile, “Hey there”
“I got a letter from my father in Panama” I say pull the letter out of my bad
“Oh wow that’s so cool, what does it say?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t read it and I need to find someone who can translate it.”
“Maria might be able help you. She speaks some Spanish.”
“Really? Hmm I’ll have to ask her”
“She’s over there, Hey I got to run I’ll catch up with you later” She turns and walks off.
“yup, thanks I’ll see you later”
As she’s walking away she calls down the hall “Hey when are we gonna playing soccer?”
I smile “Anytime just let me know” I turn and head towards the lounge where Maria is sitting.
“Hey Maria are you busy?”
Maria look up “Not right now. Why whats up?”
“I got this letter from my dad and I have no idea what it says you think you could help me with it?”
“This is your father in Central America?” she ask examining the letter.
“Yup”
“Yea sure let me look at it”
Finally I’ll be able to find out what in the letter. Its loud in the foyer so we make are way in to the stair case and sit down on the steps going down to athletic office.
She sits and looks at it for a sec. She starts to read it to me but explains that its very hard with the writing and that he using some words she doesn’t know. As she tries to read it I realize that I’m not actually listening to what she is saying. I don’t think its the letter that I’m excited about. I can’t wait to see meet these people and see what they are like. For that I will have to wait, it will be another month before I get to meet them.
Part 1: The adoption, a leap of faith and a miracle reunion. – Nelson/Roberto
I was adopted from an orphanage in Honduras in 1983. My adoptive parents had just started the adoption process and were probably about a year away from getting a child. Then one night they got a phone call around 9:00pm saying that there was a child available for them however there was no picture, no background information and they would have until 3:00pm the next day to decided. I don’t think this ever happens in adoption cases.
Thankfully, after a long night with not much sleep, they decided to adopt. They were living in the Boston area and had to rush to get everything ready before leaving for Honduras. It was the beginning of April and they had to be down in Central America by May. As they were getting ready to leave they found out that they would need FBI clearance in order to travel to Honduras. This normally takes 4 or 5 weeks and they only had one. To their surprise someone pulled some strings for them and Senator Kerry’s office was able to get them clearance in 2 days.
They flew down to Honduras where they were provided with a place to stay and a lawyer to help them with all the paper work. Again, this never happens. As the adoption went on the people involved where very hush hush and wouldn’t tell my parents anything. They mentioned something about a gunfight but wouldn’t say why I was up for adoption or why they were trying to get me out of the country so fast. My adoptive father speculated that I was illegitimate sun of the president or something like that. They did learn that our Mystery Politician was overseeing the adoption and this explained where all the political help was coming from.
They finished the adoption and took be back to the US with them. The judge who oversaw my case required that my father mail her updates every 6 months. My father diligently sent letters for almost 2 years. While talking to another parent about there experience he learned that these updates were not part of the normal adoption process and he promptly stopped. This seamed to the make the whole adoption that much weirder.
I grew up knowing that I was adopted (My parents are white and they always told me I was.) But they couldn’t tell me who my parents were or even when I was born. This was very hard for me growing up since it meant it would be next to impossible to find my birth family. My Adopted father had this newspaper article that someone had gotten for us. The article had a picture of a man who had been killed around the time that I went into the orphanage. As I was growing up he would look at the picture and try to see if there was any resemblance between us.
Then one day the impossible happened. My parents got another phone call at night in the summer of 97. A man called from an organization called Probusqueda that looked for lost children in El Salvador. It turned out I had been born there not Honduras and my birth family had been looking for me for 4 years. My parents told me soon after when I got home from summer camp. It was a huge shock for all of us.
The organization sent us pictures and letters from them written to the lost child Roberto(that’s me.) After a blood test to confirm that hey were indeed my family we started to make arrangements to fly down. In truth they really didn’t need to do the blood test. I look exactly like my birth father and a lot like my older brother.
That Christmas we flew down to meet them the for the first time. My adopted parent were nervous that I would want to stay with my birth family but that never really crossed my mind. Since then I have been down about twice a year to visit them and we have become one big family. Its been truly an amazing and I’m so lucky to have had such wonderful adoptive parents who supported me all these years and when I went to meet my birth family.
Being Adopted – By Nelson/Roberto
I think adoption is one of the most wonderful and at the same time one of the most difficult things I have experienced in my life. The joy of adoption can best be described by the quote that begins this blog.
Losing ones family obliges us to find ones family. Not always the family that is our blood but the family that can become our blood.
However, no matter how great my adoptive parents have been, growing up as an adopted child was not always easy. The most difficult emotion I have ever had to deal with was the uncertainty that came from being adopted. I imagine that most if not all adopted persons go through a similar experience sometime during their life.
Perhaps in my case these feelings might have been harder to deal with. For my parents did not even know birthday never mind how I came to be adopted. Today I could not imagine my life without my adopted family but back then having them was not enough.
There is just something about your birth-mother/birth-father that you can never forget or completely let go of. You want to know what they look like, if you look like them and what kind of people are they. But most importantly you want to know: Why was I given up?
To this question there is no easy answer. It is something that I struggled with and watched my friends struggle with. Some were more vocal than others but you just knew even the quiet ones were thinking about it too. You wonder how can the people who gave you life simply give you away? Well I’m sure it’s never that easy and I’m sure they never forget either.
I used to sit at night staring out of my window wishing I could just see my my mother. I thought if I could just see her, she would make everything better. These feelings never went away, no matter how hard I tried to fight or ignore them. But that all changed when I met my birth family.
Being reunited with them was incredible to say the least. I went from not knowing my birthday to having three new siblings and a huge family that had been looking for me all along. It seamed to answer all my questions about who I was and if I looked like my parents (I’m practically a carbon copy of my father.)
However I feel like I am very lucky in this respect. I have herd a few stories of people who went looking for their birth parents only to find they had nothing in common and could not relate to each other. I wish I could say “Don’t worry one day you will find your birth parent too and everything will be alright” but I know that’s not always the case. Not every adoption story has such a happy ending.
In the end I wonder how much finding your birth parents really matters. Yes finding them did answer a lot of my questions and it did take away the awful feeling of uncertainty but I don’t think that’s what mattered most. I think what mattered the most was the family that we have became.
I hardly think of it as my adopted family and my birth family anymore. When people say “oh you found your real parents” I say no I found my birth parents. I don’t even like to make the distinction between them. I just like to think I have two sets of parents and one BIG family.
Family is more than just being related because sometimes even our own blood doesn’t treat us as they should. Family is about caring for people and loving them unconditionally. Family is what we found in them and what they found in us.
Not always the family that is is our blood but the family that can become our blood…
The men of my life and the baby girl of my heart – by Eva
There are three men that share my heart, and one beautiful baby girl that has a half.
One of the men is so quiet, nice and caring boy. I remember I loved him and took care of him like a treasure. I still keep in my mind the days we used to walk hanging hands, how small and nice he was. I saw him grow up, becoming an incredible boy. His heart is one of the biggest in the earth, and he’s got a shine that never fades away. Even though his life was hard, he is now a wonderful man, and I gotta say I still love him as the first day I met him, and I am so proud of what he has accomplished though all these years. He’s been so smart at business. He gives his best in every single project. He hasn’t made to many friends, but everyone who knows him loves him as well.
The other men I never saw him grow up, but the day I met him it was a gift from God. Part of my life was returned to me and I feel now I am complete. After missing him for so long he came to me as a wonderful boy. It was incredible to get along as if we spent the whole life together. No one else understands me so well, no one else knows me as he does. He is so smart, so good. If you look into his eyes you can see how much love he has to give, and when he can, he does not hesitate. So friendly, so nice, he is quite a gentlemen. Everybody loves him since he is not selfish and wants to help any time he can. A Wonderful friend, he is loyal, and always cares about others. He’s been always special because God give him a heart that never learned to hate.
The third man is the youngest. He was so small when I met him, so quite and shy, but he couldn’t help it and now he is one of the three men that drives me crazy and owns my heart. He was the perfect company for Roberto for so many years. There are so close and always support to each other. God gave Roberto someone to share childhood, because God knew it is not good to grow up alone. He is crazy about turtles, and no one can tell why is this, but after meeting one of them in person now I understand his fascination about this wonderful animal. Nowadays he is a handsome boy, a lot more talkative now and his quote for me is: “Be adventurous!”
The baby girl that is left keeps the half of my heart. Maybe she does not know what I feel about her, but the day I saw her for the first time I was really happy. I met a cute baby and immediately she opened her arms to me. She couldn’t walk and I remember her first step. She was my baby, I remember changing her pampers and giving her a bath. I remember her mom dressing her like a princess, and a princess she was. She was a really happy child, always hugging and expressing her feelings, her heart is huge and she has a lot of love to share. She is a young lady and the nicest girl I’ve ever met. She is my love, my treasure. She means a lot to me. I wish I could give her more love and time but unfortunately it couldn’t be. Even though I know she loves me and admires me, but what she doesn’t know is that I admire her the most.
And in these few words there they are. Those are my siblings. Each of them are different, but are so a like at the same time. Not every day I can say that but by having them my life is complete. No matter the distance they truly own my heart…
The meaning of family – by Eva
It was late at night. It seemed that every Christmas flight was delayed on this day. It was the longest waiting I’ve ever had. We didn’t talk too much, we were just there waiting. Time passed and we just looked at each other trying to guess what was going on through each other’s mind.
Suddenly a bunch of people come to the exit door and there he comes … Oh my God! That’s him, that’s Roberto! We don’t need any DNA test in our hands to know its him, he is an exact copy of my father standing there! We didn’t know what to do but go over him and hug him. All of us wanted to hug him and touch him, maybe to see if it was truly happening… I remember my grandma’s face, she wanted to cry but she was trying so hard not to.
After all the hugs and kisses, I looked back and they were there. It was his family. It is his father, his mother and little brother. There were like the definition of family. They were there right behind him supporting him but so stumped. I don’t know what would they were thinking at that moment. I can’t imagine the overwhelming feeling they could have been experiencing then but they were so brave. They just were standing there and letting him to reunite with his family and I mean, they are his family… I believe they may be thinking: “we are going to lose him!”
What a difficult decision to make: keep him with them by not saying a word about his family, or let him to get together with his family with the risk to lose him. Myself I don’t know what I would do being in their place.
Today I wonder: How is that you can become family to people you’ve never met? How is that you can also love these people since the very beginning? How is that you get to know them just to look into their eyes? Would it be because all of this was meant to be? What a perfect plan since everything fits since the beginning even if it didn’t look like. God knew how to make it work. He knew the perfect family for him so he would never be alone. God gave him three amazing people that really loved him, cared about him and raised him as the wonderful guy he is. We love them just knowing they took care of him as their own, but then we got to know how wonderful people they are!
I’ve met them 9 years ago, and I heard Tom says once: “… we met 9 years ago, and it seems like we have met you for the whole life…” and now I think those words are so true… Those words meant a lot to me, because he was kind of saying what he feels about us. Margaret said at the Church back in New Hampshire she was glad to have their daughter (me) and her daughter (Dani) at home for Christmas. Derek also said something like: She is our sister, she is visiting! Today I am glad I had them as well. I’ve never felt so supported and never felt someone who is not my own blood takes care of me so much like they all do. They give me support, they give me confidence, they give me advise and they give me love. All of this on top of the material things. Love is what I truly appreciate and keep in my heart.
I guess I’ll always keep saying to them THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU… They must be tired of hearing it but there are no other words to express what I feel about them and about the love they have to my brother who needed them so much, and for us that just appeared one day looking for our boy. Today I gotta say how beautiful people you are!
I’ve never imagined the possibility to “post” ones feelings anywhere, and now that is what I am doing. This post is so personal and it shows my perception and the meaning of the word FAMILY to me, “not always the family that is our blood but the family that can BECOME your blood”
My Perfect World – by Nelson/Roberto
A poem by me May 3rd, 1998
My perfect world
I would live with both families
There would be sunny weather everyday
It would be warm
We would live in a place like Costa Rica
There would be no violence
No unnatural death
No bad temptations
It would be the best life ever!
However without this imperfect world
I wouldn’t be writing this poem about
My perfect world
They Never Forgot – by Nelson/Roberto
2001 was a really hard year for me. I had finished my first year and half in college and hadn’t done very well. Every course I took I was on the verge of failing even though I tried very hard in some of my classes it just wasn’t enough. I decided to transfer schools because I just couldn’t keep up. I felt like I was failing out. I had pledged in a fraternity and while it probably didn’t help academically it was my saving grace socially. I had lost touch with everything I liked to do. I was missing Carolina, my love interest all the time, and I just wanted to go see her again. Our relationship was a little…dysfunctional to say the least and it was really getting to me. Not only did she live in another country but she had a boyfriend. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. Needless to say it was not an easy time for me.
I went down to panama as usual for Christmas. I was really down and my family could tell. They tried to cheer me up as best they could but nothing really worked.
One night I was sitting outside looking at the star and my stepmother Miriam came to talk with me. We talked about some of the stuff we I was going through. Between her broken English and my broken Spanish I’m surprised we talked about as much as we did. She sat there dictionary in hand and comforted me as best she could.
I’m not exactly sure what we were talking about but I remember her telling me how much my family cared for me. She said Eva, Toto and Estefany grew up knowing about their brother who had been lost. Luis had learned through some friends that I had been adopted to America. He had no idea where in America but he was saving money to come look for me. Those words cut right through me and I broke down…they never forgot about me. Even though I was lost for 15 years they never forgot. I was completely overwhelmed by that.
I’m not sure why it meant so much to me and why it still does. Maybe it has to do with being adopted. One question that I think every adopted child asks him or her self at some point is why was I given up? Even if the situation was for the best you can’t help but feel like you were forgotten. So hearing those words was like an answer of my payers or something. I have no way of describing it.
Even now as I sit here reading my sister post about how my grandmother never stopped looking for me I’m overwhelmed by a feeling I can only describe as joy. However that does not even come close to the feelings that I have. To never be forgotten. There are no words. I have to be one of the luckiest people in the world. So many people are neglected and forgotten about. Not only did I have a wonderful family here in America but I also had a family in Central America that never stopped thinking about me, never stopped looking, and never stopped caring.
No matter how lost I was to them or even to myself they never EVER forgot about me…
A women one of a kind / by Eva
One of the things that really bothered me the most since I lost my mother is the fact that Mom and Dad had kids even though they knew they were at risk and their lives were in danger. I used to wonder: Why if I know my life is in danger would I have children? OK, let’s say that one child is the legacy of the marriage, but two? and then three? I thought that it was irresponsible of them. Especially since they were actually fighting in the field and part of something really difficult in the middle of the war. And again I wondered WHY?
For so long I blamed my parents for our separation. I blamed them for loosing my little brother who I never met. For years and years of seeing my Grandma quietly suffering and for not being there…I guess that is part of the feeling you develop in these situations. I like to think about it as the way I had to comfort myself and to make sense of all the things I didn’t ask for. Non of this made any sense for me during all my childhood. It took years and years for me to understand…
My last birthday, Margaret asked Roberto and I for an interview to talk about my mother. Margaret knows how difficult is for us, specially for me, to talk about all of these things. To remember and open up but I knew she really needed to do that and I agreed. During the interview I tried so hard not to cry. It is always painful to put out my Mom from my heart but there was something Margaret said that made me understand a lot of things that suddenly made sense for me that day: My Mom would never do a thing like this if she wouldn’t has been 100% sure it was the right thing to do! Of course, Margaret was right! And then, everything became so clear to me. In an instant, my daughter Dani came to my mind and I knew why she was doing it and that it was for me, for my brothers, for my family!
Then, I understood that was my Mom’s way to do something for other people and that makes me think about how brave she was since she actually DID something. She didn’t wait to see the change, she WAS the change, the force to make it real. She fought for something she really believed in and I wonder how many of us can do that without hesitation? How many of us can fight for other people just to make a difference? My Mom was a really brave woman. She had determination and in her plans she knew that us (her children, her blood) would have a different opportunity, a chance to be better and improve ourselves, even if that didn’t make any sense at that moment. Perhaps she had a vision of the future that not all the people had back then.
I use to think about me as her living memory since I look a lot like her. I like to think that I am her representation today and let me tell you, that is a huge responsibility because sometimes I am not sure if I am as brave as she was. As strong as she was. As caring and loving as she was but there is something I am sure about. I am so proud to be the daughter of my mother, a women one of a kind…