Sumi Kasiyo (48) was almost six when she was adopted. For years she was angry with her biological mother, who had given up her and her sister. Yet she sought her out in 2014. “I hoped she had missed me. But she asked if she could have my jewelry and the clothes I was wearing.”
Adopted
“I used to always watch Spoorloos. I especially liked the stories of adoptees who were reunited with their biological family after so many years. Because I was adopted from Indonesia myself, I felt very sorry for them. At the same time, it was also confronting, because I knew that a reunion with my own biological mother would never take place. I didn't need to see her anymore. Why would I? When I was five, she had handed over me and my sister, Suyatmi, three years her senior, promising to pick us up later.
I waited for her for weeks. Even when my sister and I were in the Netherlands, I missed my mother terribly. But no matter how much I cried, she didn't come for us. I felt pushed aside. It led to many fits of anger and a severe identity crisis. Why didn't my mother want me? And who was I really: Sumiatin, the name my parents gave me when I was born? Or Petra, the name I went by since my adoption?
As young as I was, I was determined to forget about my birth mother. But after my sister tracked down our mother in Indonesia in 2005, it started to gnaw at me: I wanted to go back to my homeland and see my mother. Maybe I finally got the answers I've longed for. Well, things went a little differently…”