The urge to find his biological family only grew stronger when Kristian met his wife Linda eight years ago, and they started to create a family. Because suddenly he understood what it was that he himself was missing. Photo: Bo Lehm
A longing to understand oneself.
As a human being and as a Dane with a very special history.
A sudden urge
– I remember that the questions started ringing when I first saw Trackless. Here it dawned on me that I have a different story than my peers, Kristian says.
He is one of the 996 children who were adopted from Sri Lanka between 1973 and 2012.
And suddenly – almost out of the blue – Kristian got a need to understand where he came from and what the first three years of his life were like before he was picked up by his West Jutland adoptive parents on 27 October 1990 to a completely different life in Denmark.
The urge only grew when he met his wife Linda eight years ago, and they started to start a family.
So far, Kristian has found out that he may have an older sibling, but he doesn’t know more. And then he knows from his papers that it was a man who dropped him off at the orphanage. But not his father, because according to the papers he was supposed to be dead. Photo: Bo Lehm
Because suddenly he understood what it was that he himself was missing.
– I have often missed being able to recognize my own personality and facial features in others. Suddenly I can do it in my children, and it’s a pretty wild feeling. So that has only strengthened my desire to seek out my biological origins, says Kristian.
A completely new feeling of caring for his biological mother also arose when Kristian became a father.
Questionable documents
Because only there did he truly understand how inhumanly difficult it must have been to leave his child behind.
That thought keeps haunting Kristian at night; what happened since he had to be handed over to an orphanage in the summer of 1990 as a 3-year-old?
The few questionable papers he has with him from the orphanage do not provide many answers.
That’s why he has now started a larger search himself at the dining table in the evening, when the kids are tucked in.
An almost impossible task, which at times tends to become all-consuming for Kristian.
– It looks so easy on television, but it is very difficult in reality when you don’t have a whole team behind you. How do you find a needle in a haystack?
An unknown man
Among other things, Kristian has joined various Facebook groups where other adoptees have been successful in finding their biological families.
There are also locals you can pay to help.
But Kristian knows that there is often a lot of fraud going on.
– It’s really difficult when you don’t speak the language yourself. I’m not that strong at English either, so I know I’ll soon have to get help to move on, he says.
So far he has found out that he may have an older sibling, but he doesn’t know much more.
And then he knows from his papers that it was a man who dropped him off at the orphanage.
But not his father, because according to the papers he was supposed to be dead.
If the papers are true.
There are several things that don’t quite agree.
Among other things, he should have received a tuberculosis vaccine several days before his birth.
Kristian has all kinds of theories about what happened since he was handed over to the orphanage in Sri Lanka as a 3-year-old. He tries to find meaning in the meaningless. That’s how it is when you only have a few papers to deal with. No memories. No photos. No one to tell his story from the first years of life. Photo: Bo Lehm
So is his date of birth wrong? Or is it the vaccine date?
– It is so surreal that you only have a few papers to deal with, which could in principle be fake. And even if I then went to Sri Lanka, it is not certain that I will be able to extradite more, says Kristian.
Bad conscience
Kristian has not yet spoken to his own children about it.
But he knows that day will come. Soon.
For 6-year-old Magnus has now started to realize that he has a different skin color than his mother.
And when the questions come, Kristian hopes to have a good answer.
So far, it’s mostly just theories.
And at times they take up a lot of space in Kristian’s head.
– Maybe my parents came from two different caste systems, which meant that they couldn’t keep me, or maybe my father died, and then my mother moved in with my grandfather, who handed me over to the orphanage?
Once Kristian gets going, he finds it hard to stop.
He tries to find meaning in the meaningless.
– Right now I’m making a big effort, but at some point I also have to come to terms with the fact that I might have to put it all down again without an answer – and then move on, says Kristian. Photo: Bo Lehm
During those periods, his wife Linda can feel that he becomes more irritable and more withdrawn.
But Kristian finds it difficult to share his innermost thoughts.
He himself believes that it is because there is a bit of a guilty conscience towards his adoptive parents.
– I am deeply grateful for the life I have had here in Denmark, and they will always be my parents. They must never be in doubt about that. But I understand if they find it difficult, even though they have always supported me, says Kristian.
Will give his mother peace
Something that has really started Kristian’s search is the focus in recent years on the fact that there is a high probability that false adoptions have taken place, among others from Sri Lanka.
According to a Dutch report from 2021, there are several examples of illegal adoption, i.e. outside the official procedures, which include baby farms, trafficking, theft and document forgeries.
In an investigation, the Danish Appeals Board can neither confirm nor deny whether the Danish cases have followed the official procedures, or whether there have also been illegal adoptions here.
But there are indications that this may also be the case in Denmark.
– I don’t know if that is the case in my case, and regardless, I have no doubt at all that my adoptive parents acted in good faith. But it has set some thoughts in motion for me, because did my mother know off the top of my head that I was adopted away?
It is also one of the reasons why Kristian has now seriously started searching for his biological roots.
– I would like to meet my biological mother and tell her that I have had a good life here in Denmark. And she needs to know that she has grandchildren. Hopefully that can calm her down, he says.
But Kristian knows that time is his worst enemy.
Suddenly it’s too late.
– Right now I’m making a determined effort, but at some point I also have to come to terms with the fact that I have to put it all down again without an answer – and then move on.
2024-12-05 18:45:00
#man #dropped #3yearold #Kristian #orphanage
How might Kristian’s search for his origins impact his relationship with his adoptive parents?
This text tells the story of a man named Kristian, adopted from Sri Lanka as a child, and his search for his origins.
Kristian, now living in Denmark, only has a few documents from his time in Sri Lanka. He yearns to know more about his birth family and the circumstances surrounding his adoption. These few orphaned papers fuel his search for answers and leave his with many unanswered questions about his past.
He’s driven by a need to understand his story, particularly as his adopted son starts to notice their differing skin color, prompting potential questions about Kristian’s origins.
While grateful for his adoptive Danish parents, Kristian feels a sense of guilt about his ongoing search, hoping to uncover the truth about his beginnings without causing them pain.
The excerpt doesn’t mention any specific details about intercountry adoption practices in Sri Lanka. It focuses on Kristian’s personal journey, his desire to understand his past, and the impact this search has on him and his family.
