"Why do you want to meet your biological father? This man abandoned you, your mother, and your sister, leaving you homeless." This question has been asked of me countless times. Yet, despite everything, he was the one who sparked the beginning of my remarkable story. Behind his actions, which many would judge harshly, lies a valuable lesson: resilience, understanding, and the threads of an extraordinary tale.
Romania in the 1980s was shrouded in darkness under the Ceaușescu dictatorship, which was on the brink of collapse. The country was impoverished, food was scarce, and the regime had erased any sense of solidarity. My sister and I were born into this suffocating context. Our mother, still a student, faced an uncertain future alone, while our father had already had several relationships and children from another union. When he learned that my mother was pregnant again, this time with my sister, he chose to flee his responsibilities, abandoning us when I was only eight months old and my mother three months pregnant. So, we found ourselves on the streets, homeless, using the train station as our shelter.
In a time when many desperately sought to flee Romania, our biological father also wanted to escape, but he needed money to do so. His plan? To put us up for adoption in exchange for money, without my mother’s consent. As cruel as this act may seem, it was actually the trigger for our destiny. Because it was through this attempt that our adoptive parents heard about us. And from that moment on, a series of improbable events unfolded, leading to an exceptional story where my adoptive mother became our true heroine.
Nine months of intense struggle awaited our adoptive parents to get us out of there. With our adoptive father in a wheelchair, only our mother braved the borders and the uncertainties of a lawless country to begin the adoption process, a fight that seemed endless, filled with obstacles and disillusionments.
The final barrier after nine months of hardship? Our biological father. Since he hadn’t legally acknowledged my sister as his daughter at her birth, our adoptive parents didn’t need his signature for her adoption. For mine, however, his signature was required. And he demanded money. Without it, he wouldn’t sign, keeping me there in Romania. Exhausted after the long ordeal in Romania, our adoptive mother, completely at the end of her strength, refused to separate us and was determined to bring us both back to France, despite the advice of many who suggested she leave with just my sister. She literally had to chase him through Bucharest, with the help of a family that played a major role in the success of our adoption. But destiny was already written: we were meant to leave Romania together. My adoptive parents obtained his signature, though I still don’t know why he ultimately agreed to sign my adoption rights. That was the moment when the chains holding me there were finally broken.
This story of my biological father, recounted by my adoptive parents, my biological mother, and the family that helped our adoptive mother in Romania, may seem cruel from the outside, depicting a heartless man who just wanted to save his own skin. One could reproach him for not taking responsibility or knowing how to love. But I chose not to judge. Before condemning, I wanted to understand. To understand his story, I had to dive into the story of Romania as it was at the time of my birth. It's true that I often thought of my biological mother, but much less so about him. I had been told he hadn’t done good things toward us, but no hatred for him ever arose in me; I was simply curious to know who he was.
The Romania of my birth was under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s authoritarian regime, with daily life marked by fear and deprivation. Obsessed with economic self-sufficiency, Ceaușescu imposed severe austerity policies to repay the national debt, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. The Securitate, the secret police, was omnipresent: conversations were monitored, denunciations were common, and freedom of expression simply didn’t exist.
Food stores were practically empty; obtaining basic food became a relentless struggle. Heating, electricity, and even hot water were severely restricted, with sudden cuts reminding citizens that their lives were in the regime's hands. In this Romania, people tried to survive under the weight of a regime that crushed hope. Smiles were rare, gazes often empty, yet behind each facade lay a mix of suffering and resilience.
He himself had known abandonment from birth by his father, then endured the disdain of a stepfather broken by alcohol, who treated him as insignificant. Love and recognition, those basic needs for every being, were probably things he never fully experienced. How can one expect from him what he never learned, what he never received? And when life unfolds in a chaotic environment, where each person struggles to survive, where solidarity is a distant illusion erased by the rigors of a regime that destroyed human bonds, can love easily find a place there?
Survival, the drive that transforms us, cuts us off from our true essence. Survival distances us from our inner being, leading us to adopt behaviors that aren't truly ours, making us selfish, leading to sometimes dehumanizing actions, where our heart disconnects from our Being. Pain builds armor and walls, and behind them, sometimes, hides a being who has learned to suffer but not to love.
In discovering his story, I felt a surge of forgiveness within me, a forgiveness that didn’t stem from an effort of will, but from a compassion that arose from the depths of my being. Forgiving was freeing myself; it was refusing to be chained to beliefs so often taught to us, those that dictate we hate those who hurt us. Remaining in the role of the victim may seem tempting, as pain sometimes offers an identity, giving a name to sorrow. Victimhood traps us in a prison whose walls are built by those we judge to have wronged us.
No, forgiveness is not an act of weakness. It’s not forgetting or excusing the harm suffered, nor is it minimizing it. It’s an act of inner strength, a decision to free oneself from the chains of resentment. It’s, in a sense, reclaiming one’s existence, taking the reins of one’s own destiny, and refusing to be defined by the past, choosing instead to build a future where our Being reconnects with its essence.
Meeting him was like looking into a mirror, an invitation to explore previously unknown depths within myself. I wanted to see beyond his story, beyond the scars and labels, to meet his true being. I discovered in him qualities such as creativity in art and music, a passion for history, qualities my sister inherited. I wanted to glimpse what lay behind the wall that life had built around him, a wall that perhaps stifled the human qualities that lay dormant in him.
Expecting nothing specific from this meeting, which went very well, I felt it my duty to try to ease the shame that may have gnawed at him over the years, to accept him as he is. Through this meeting, I not only learned about him, but also about myself. I hope I sowed a seed of peace in him, for despite his mistakes, he, too, deserves forgiveness and the healing of his wounds.
He was the spark that ignited this beautiful story. It’s as if he lit a fire that simply burned away the dead branches, revealing a path, the path my soul was destined to experience.
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