‘You look so hard, forever, and then it’s there,’ adoptee says
A year after a Calgary woman flew to Romania to meet her birth mother and family, she’s still keeping in touch.
“You look so hard, forever, and then it’s there,” said Juliana Tollifson.
Tollifson was one of the 10,000 Romanian babies adopted by international families in the early 90s, after the collapse of communism in the country. Many of these babies found parents in Canada. Tollifson was adopted to a family in Moose Jaw, Sask.
Now in her mid-twenties, Tollifson started wondering about her birth family as a teenager. A few years ago, she began an intensive search to find them. Last year, she finally had the chance to meet her biological mother and brother in the country of her birth.
It was, by Tollifson’s account, like finding a piece of her that was missing. She left her mother, unsure when they would meet again, but they’ve been able to remain close while on different continents.
“You can only do as much as you can,” Tollifson said.
Her birth mother’s English is limited, and in her rural Romanian community outside the city of Timisoara, she doesn’t have a computer or internet. But Tollifson makes due. She messages her Romanian brother on Facebook every couple days, keeping tabs on him and her mother.
“She’s happy and she’s in love,” Tollifson said, referring to the last update from her brother.
Tollifson has planned to meet them again in Europe the summer of 2017, and her adoptive father, Rod Laporte, is considering joining.
Laporte briefly met Tollifson’s birth mother when she handed him his new baby in 1991 in a rundown apartment. Now he wants to meet her on different terms.
“It would quench a thirst somehow,” he said. “She looked a lot like Juliana. And that’s got me curious. I want to see her personality. I want to see if she walks, laughs like Juliana. I want to see what part of Juliana’s in her.”
Laporte says he has a lot of questions, and he’s sure the other family has a lot of questions for him. But mostly he said he wants to meet her birth mother and thank her.
“It’s important to maintain a connection with the birth family,” he said.
Reunion changed the way Tollifson thinks
Tollifson says the last meeting with her birth family has made her a more positive person.
“It was a happy moment for me, so why can’t other people follow their dreams and be super happy?”
She’s recently met another Romanian adoptee looking for her birth mother and Tollfison has tried her best to help her in the search.
Laporte said Tollifson may have returned from her last trip more appreciative after seeing the differences between her life in Calgary, to rural life in Romania.
Tollifson knows many reunions don’t work out as well as hers, but she said she approached hers with no expectations. She’s now looking forward to her next visit.
When she left Romania, her birth family told her, “We’ll be waiting for you.”
Source: cbc.ca