This might be a piece of history some of you don't know about me. I know a couple of you do. So I'm hoping maybe y'all might have some suggestions in how I move forward.
My mother and father divorced when I was about 4. We lived in Japan and my father was granted custody. Not because my mother was unfit, but because it was a mutual decision of my parents. They figured a half Japanese child would fair better in the US than a half American child in Japan. (It was 1975.) So my dad was granted custody and we moved back to the States.
I remember a couple years later she came to the US to visit me. My father and I took the long drive from Rock Island, Illinois down to St. Louis, Missouri to pick her up. It was a long trip, which I slept through, but dad drove. I don't remember much about her arrival other than Dad let me wear my pajamas in the airport and he let me chew some bubble gum. (He never let me have gum when I was little. Funny how you remember the strangest little details as a child.) Anyway, I do remember thinking she was very nice and spent a week with my father and I. She brought lots of toys from Japan and we spent a lot of time together. Dad took a lot of pictures of us together, some of which I still have. The older I get the more I resemble her. It's uncanny sometimes. I remember taking the long drive to the airport to see her off. I remember her crying as she left. Her tears scared me and I clung to my father because I didn't understand why she was upset.
I never saw her again, although we corresponded just a few times when I was in my early teens. By then my father had remarried and started a new family. One where I never really fit into. I always felt like I was forgotten and left on the back burner. I don't remember much about the letters with my natural mother, other she didn't read English and I didn't read Japanese so our correspondence was laborious. We both had friends that would have to translate the letters for us. It would take weeks to get a letter and then have it translated. I don't have the letters anymore, but I do remember just a few phrases from them:
"I cried tears of joy when I saw your handwriting."
"I have remarried a nice Japanese man." (I don't know his name, but I do know she had two, maybe three additional children with him. In one letter she enclosed pictures of the four of them. I still have them.)
"I am glad to know your father remarried. I hope your new mother is good to you."
"Isn't there another Protestant church you could attend?" (Dad told me to tell her I was now a JW and would be sending her a bible.) LOL.
But now because that relationship with my father and step-mother is so strained (non-existent?) I want to find my birth mother. IF she is still living, I don't question she loves me. I know she thought it best that my father take care of me. I know every August 7th she remembers my birthday. I know she wonders what I'm up to and whether I have my own family. But part of me is scared that her husband and children don't know about me. Part of me is scared that she is dead and I will never know her again. But I'm trying not to let those fears keep me from at least TRYING to find her.
So...
...my question to you is where can I start? Here is what I know:
Her first and last maiden name
Birthday - just July 1948
She was 9th of 9 children
Her parents were Shinto and Buddhist
She was married once before my father
She remarried once again after my father and has at least two children.
As you can see, it's really not much to work off of. It would be easier if she lived in the US, but I doubt she does. Last I knew, she lived in Okinawa. So other than that, I don't know her remarried name or where she lives. I don't know if she went to school or is working. I just don't know where to begin, but I know I must.
Can anyone help me with at least a resource of where I can go? Please?
Andi