Chapter One: That Awkward Moment Where I Exist

I was born a poor Cambodian boat child.
It was 1973, the Chinese Year of the Ox, and the nightly news was filled with stories that spoke to the shifting cultural and political landscape. The country wanted to know if their President was a crook, Soylent Green totally ruined euthanasia, and the United States officially ended bombing Cambodia after 12 years of combat in Southeast Asia. Waves of refugees flooded into the U.S., landing on our shores in rickety boats teeming with women and children. It was during one of those evening broadcasts that I first saw these "boat people" and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. I was only four, and even though I didn't really understand what was happening, I knew there was something very unfair about it. My brother Lance, 15 months older, didn't seem to have much of a take on the situation, but somehow I knew something bad had happened to those kids. My mother and I sat together in front of the t.v. listening to the newscast, and I couldn't help asking,
"Why are all those people coming here? Where are they from?" My mother patiently answered my questions. Usually it was my dad whose eyes were glued to the news, especially since he'd fought in Vietnam and Korea and so had a wealth of information on the subject, but he'd been in the bathroom, leaving my mom on her own.
"There's too many kids and not enough mommies," I said, "Where are all the parents?" "Well, their parents may have died, or got lost, we just don't know, "my mom said, "so they'll have to find homes here and find families to adopt them."
I pondered that for a while, rolling it around in my four year old mind until finally I said, “I sure am glad I don't have to be adopted like those kids."
Silence.
And then, “Jack, could you come in here please?” I guess it was the perfect time for the big reveal, because as soon as my dad came into the room, my mom took a deep breath, looked at my brother and I, and stunned us with the news that we were, in fact, adopted. Just like those kids.
Mic.

Drop.

There's lots of ways people react to news like this. Some people are shocked and confused (yes), some think it's kind of cool and unique (also yes) and others just don't ever forgive the person who outed them. My brother fell into that last category, and I'm pretty sure he still holds a grudge. Because really, completely reversing your life story without any warning or consent really is kind of a dick move. 

I think I kind of blacked out after that but I do remember some shocking revelations. As it turned out, my brother and I actually came from two separate biological families. Soooo many questions around that one; did we count as real brother and sister? Could I just choose to remove myself from our familiar sphere any time he pissed me off? I was seriously starting to see an upside to this.

This also meant that I had free range to create my own revisionist history, complete with an origin story that reflected how truly Cambodian I was. Because, you know, I was adopted. Just like those kids. Never mind that my light brown hair and green eyes weren’t exactly exotic… those details were none of my business and had no place informing my understanding of how I came to be. In my four year old mind, I was born in the jungle, put on a boat, and sent into the arms of my adoptive parents. Full stop.

But then it got EVEN BETTER. I found out that I had actually lived in an orphanage!!! That just sounded glamorous, like Little Orphan Annie without the annoying musical theater or creepy billionaire sponsor.

My brother, however, was still not amused. It seemed to me that something fundamental in him changed that day. He had been a happy, easy going kid with no evidence of damage from the occasional febrile seizures experienced as a baby; but after receiving the news of his adoption a sort of internal deflation started, and kept going well into his teen years. He just seemed a little sadder, more disappointed, and possibly a little betrayed. He was, after all, only about 5 or 6 at the time.

I’m sure there was fallout from this revelation, there must have been. Although most of the fallout happened on the front end, before my parents were even married. My dad went into the Merchant Marines at 15, skipping high school with permission from his parents who really could have cared less. He’d been shipped around, from household to household by the time he was nine, finally being sent alone on a bus to live with his father in Kansas. Unfortunately, his mother, who lived in Missouri neglected to tell his father he was coming, and so upon arrival, my nine year old father walked aimlessly around the bus station until a police officer was able to sort out the situation.

My mother was born in San Francisco to a loving but alcoholic father and a (possibly) bi-polar Christian Scientist mother. To be clear, Christian Science is NOT to be confused with Scientology—this is probably the most commonly asked question I get whenever I broach the subject. It’s not far off, but it’s not the same. Mom grew up learning words like “corporeal”, mortal mind, and being told that "Matter, sin, and sickness are not real, but only illusions," Which translated into no doctors, dentists, or optometrists. As both my grandmother and her sister, my Great Aunt were deeply invested in Christian Science, they had a natural bias towards all things different. Like Catholics, or astrophysicists. So imagine, when my beautiful 19 year old mother hooked up with my 29 year old separated-but-not-divorced-with-three-kids father. All hell broke loose.

Which brings me back to the pre-fallout. Despite my grandmother’s best attempts at warding my father off, (“I hope you fall down an open manhole!” “I hope you go to Alaska and lose your snow shoes!” “I think you should take a long walk off a short pier”) my parents got married anyway. Which makes me kind of proud to know that their whole romance started off as a rebellion, because it made them more human. And oh, they were human alright! Both of them had a fondness for alcohol that if not staunched before us kids came along, would have landed both of them in jail or rehab. I bet we would have had a great time partying together.

And so when my parents brought me home to meet my grandparents for the first time, it was my grandfather who looked at me and said, “There’s our Kelley,” which was a reference to his mother's maiden name, and how I ended up with my name (1). And while there was no doubt that my grandma loved me, she developed a quirky little habit when I was around. We were a close family, with the good luck of having cousins, aunts and uncles nearby. My cousin Lori and I grew up almost like sisters, and spent a ton of time at grandma's house. My grandma had a way of introducing us to literally everyone she met; grocery clerk, bank teller, construction worker, homeless guy down by the lake... And every single time this is how it went: "This is my granddaughter Lori. And this is Kelley..... she's special. She's ADOPTED." Now, when I told my mother about this she was seriously pissed, and I was just kind of confused, because really, all I heard was "she's SPECIAL". HA! Suck it Lori! You're just a granddaughter but I'm special!!! That's the kind of happy obtuse world I inhabited. And it totally ruled.