If you were the trafficker...

Dear Mother,

Several years have passed since my search was followed by national television in Indonesia. For a brief time, it seemed that everyone knew my story. I hoped the attention would lead me to you.

It did not.

No decisive clue emerged. Instead, the publicity exposed how complicated and fragile the truth around my adoption really is. Each answer seemed to create three new questions.

After my return from Indonesia, a thought entered my mind that I had tried to avoid for most of my life. What if the woman in my memories is not my biological mother? What if she were involved in the chain of events that led to my disappearance?

Even writing this feels like betrayal. My body resists the possibility. I remember tenderness, care, and protection. How can love and exploitation exist in the same story?

But memory is not evidence.

I was a child. I depended on the adult who fed me, walked with me, and kept me close. Trust was not a choice; it was survival. I have always believed I was taken from Jakarta, the city where I lived on the streets. Yet later, I was recognised at the orphanage Pancha Dharma in Pasuruan. A midwife remembered me. Another adoptee remembers me with a girl named Nini, whom I recall as my sister, though I cannot place her in which location. I always thought from the Lampung, but could this have been Pasaruan?.

Why do I remember one place so vividly and not the other? Did trauma erase certain chapters? I was told I had been a favourite of the director. Why is she absent from my mind? If I passed through Pasuruan, how did I form such a deep attachment to you? Was it love? Was it dependency? Was it the psychological bond children develop with the person who keeps them alive?

At the time, many adoptive parents preferred infants. I was already older. Is that why we travelled so far together, all the way to Lampung in Sumatra? I remember a house there. Pineapple fields. Moments of happiness that felt ordinary, almost peaceful. Were we building a life? Or were we moving between opportunities?

When our house burned down, we went to Jakarta and ended up on the streets. Still, you cared for me. You made sure I ate. You were gentle. Was that motherhood? Or maintenance of value? Was there, in the end, a transaction? Did someone at Kasih Bunda describe you as a broker? What happened to Nini? Did money change hands, and if it did, what did it mean to you?

These questions can sound extreme, even cinematic. Yet for many adoptees, uncertainty defines reality. Our histories are often reconstructed from fragments, contradictions, and documents that may or may not be true. Despite everything, I still believe the woman I remember is my mother. Because the love I remember feels real. Carrying a child across islands, through poverty and instability, demands commitment. Why make that journey unless the bond mattered?

And still, I must allow space for the possibility that my understanding is incomplete. If one day I learn that you did, in fact, sell me, I would still want to hear your voice. I would still want to know the forces, fears, pressures, or desperation that shaped your choices.

No revelation could silence the child in me who continues to search. I am not only looking for a person. I am looking for the truth.