by Céline Lăcrămioara, born in Romania and adopted to Belgium
(Photograph by Céline Lăcrămioara, photographer at Une émotion, un cliché)
Weeks have been flying by since August… That fateful August, which, unfortunately, will forever remain another scar etched into my story. A wound, deep and invisible, tattooed onto my soul, engraved into my skin like a design I would have never chosen.
For now, I can’t bring myself to speak about it out loud. So, I’ve entrusted my emotions to writing. Writing, that escape, has taken hold of my heart to help me release what I couldn’t otherwise express. But once the words were laid on paper, I closed the door. I disconnected from it, like unplugging a machine that’s too loud, until a few days ago…
And yet… Three seconds of reconnection to her were enough to feel that intense and searing pain again, like a lightning bolt cutting through a sky I thought was calm.
My daily life keeps me from thinking about her. I do everything to stop her shadow from consuming me, to keep her from haunting me day and night, like a silent specter. Now, whenever a negative thought arises, I push it away, smother it before it takes root. This is a new fight, a new milestone. Fighting off those dark waves, those invisible tides that used to suffocate me, that stopped me from truly living.
My shell… I’ve put it back where it was before I knew her: as a stranger. Ironically, it’s a familiar feeling. I never thought it would be possible to return to this state after she had crossed the fragile walls of my heart.
My adoptive mother warned me long ago: “I’m afraid she’ll play on your emotions.” I must have been 15 or 20 years old. I took those words badly, as if they were some veiled condemnation. I thought she didn’t want me to find her. But now I understand—it was a form of protection. A mother who sensed future wounds but couldn’t prevent the impact.
When I found her—my biological mother—she immediately found the weak spot. She played on this hypersensitivity that defines me, this flaw in me that has never stopped vibrating, even since childhood. From the very first contact, she knew exactly where to strike.
Before her, my birthday was a celebration, a day I looked forward to with the same excitement as any other child. But since 2016, that day has become a burden, a trial to endure. Why? Because it has been overtaken by fear. Fear that she wouldn’t think of me. Fear of her silence. Fear of being invisible to her, as if I didn’t exist.
Every year, I held my breath until a message came through. A simple signal, proof that I still mattered, even just a little. I waited for two messages: hers and my adoptive mother’s. Nothing else mattered. In the beginning, she called. Those calls were like balm for my inner child. She had thought of me, of the child she had abandoned. That was enough—or at least, I thought it was. But soon, it wasn’t enough anymore. I dreamed of celebrating a birthday with her, just once, to fill that immense void. And I got it, that long-awaited birthday. But the following year, everything fell apart.
An argument broke out. That day, she made it clear that I was not welcome, birthday or not. She ignored me, rejected me, and threw words at me as sharp as blades. In her eyes, I deserved nothing, not even a gift. That night, another wound was added to the one from when I was three years old, like a knife twisting in a never-healed scar. A verbal storm erupted between her and me, the adult—as though the child I once was had to die a second time.
A birthday isn’t just a day to blow out candles. For us, adoptees, it’s so much deeper than that. That date raises a painful question: do we even have the right to exist? It brings us back to where it all started, to the moment our biological mother made the choice to abandon us.
Since then, I’ve wondered: why celebrate a date that has lost its meaning, a date marked by abandonment? Perhaps we should celebrate something else: our arrival in our adoptive country, this new life we were given.
In a few weeks, that infamous date will come around again. I already know it will pass as if I never existed for her. People who are not adopted cannot understand this emptiness, this pain. What wouldn’t I give for them to feel, even for a moment, what we carry inside us?
When I found my biological mother, I thought I would heal an old wound. But instead, she only added more scars, even as the first one may never fully heal.
Resources
Romania from the Lens of a Returning Adoptee
Reunion and Beyond (webinar)