A Story of a True Second Chance An Adoptees Life Journey

[Applause]

have you ever had a second chance

was it just luck did you work hard for

it

whatever the matter is today i’m here to

tell you

a story of a true second chance

13 years ago i moved from kansas city

missouri

to seoul south korea no i wasn’t born in

kansas city i’m a korean american

adoptee

i’m from korea when i was four years old

i was adopted into a great loving family

but i had this impeccable memory so

impeccable that i can remember the vivid

the raw emotions of a child

it’s almost like a polaroid picture of

my five senses

into a memory and let me tell you

i wouldn’t recommend any child to

remember what i remembered

but today i’m so grateful that i do

when i was four years old i remember

being abandoned being abused

being out on the street fighting other

street kids

because that was my life in korea my

life

consisted of being abandoned being hurt

then finally my korean father made the

ultimate decisions

that day and i was abandoned into the

orphanage

in that orphanage i remember cleaning

toilets all day

i remember hardly having any food i was

just malnourished

i was unhappy at the beginning and end

of every day i would just scream for my

mom and dad

where are you

during that time in my life

i hated the world i hated myself

i hated my korean parents i hated

everything

but one day some inspector gadget

looking guy

comes to the orphanage he’s actually my

american family lawyer

he comes to pick me up off i go with him

on the plane i’m just kicking screaming

biting because i get an ear infection

i get off the plane i’m landed in the

u.s of a

and from there my lawyer hands me to my

american mom and dad

i’m just so scared fighting for survival

kicking screaming

but then i look down and i see somebody

who looks like me

it’s actually my older brother who’s a

korean american adoptee as well

so i have a moment of silence he puts

out his hand and some candy

but then survival mode kicks in i kick

him in his face and he goes take him

back take him back to korea

pretty funny moment later in that car

we go in the car and i sit in my mom’s

lap

as i’m sitting in my mom’s lap i’m still

kicking and screaming but

she shows me a photo album i’m just

transfixed

right now the first picture i see is a

house

the second picture i see is

my american mom and dad smiling

with my older brother then lastly

is a bed do you know what i did

i slept do you know why i slept that day

i didn’t kick and scream anymore because

i knew exactly what i wanted i knew

exactly what was given to me

a second chance family

but remember new family equals

new responsibilities so what did i do

from here on out

i learned how to embrace the hate

i lived it i learned it but eventually i

respected it

i took everybody’s negative emotions and

all the negativity

and to propel myself to be happy

i took all the negativity to propel

myself to reach

my goals

growing up i took all the racial slurs

the racism

the bigotry being called face

being spit on as fuel to my fire

to be joyful because i

understood those people who did it to me

i understood that hate

embrace the hate in order to understand

true joy

so what did i do from here love yourself

because if you love yourself good things

will come

you do it the opposite it doesn’t happen

that way

simple math you blame other people you

point the finger

and negative emotions will bring you

down not raise you up

and my american dad taught me two very

important phrases it’s very common in

the midwest

son life isn’t fair so get over it

son nothing good comes easy

so true that taught me accountability

right away and i knew about that because

i’m accountable for my own life

my own feelings because when i was in

that orphanage i knew about what life

wasn’t fair

i knew that already embraced it

but as i grew up focusing on myself to

be happy

to be a constructive force of nature i

forgot about my identity

i forgot about those polaroid picture

moments i only focused myself on to be

happy

my nickname in high school was called

chino

i lacked my korean identity and it was

my fault

accountability remember

it’s ironic my nickname was chino my

american name is eric mcdaniel

and my korean name is idair how

confusing is that for somebody

losing their identity but

i did it

then i only focused on two things

i focused on my first love i fell in

love with baseball

at the time just like any kid in america

they focus and they fell and fall in

love with their sports

then i focus on academics because i’m

not going to be that poor little kid

in the orphanage those two things

propelled me

to be somewhat successful

i received a scholarship playing

baseball

and academic scholarship as well nearly

paid for all my school

i even became the first i believe and

the only

korean-american korean-american adoptee

to pitch left and right-handed

at that time as a prospect you’re not

the only one pet vendetti

but still lost my identity didn’t know

and i didn’t care

then life has a funny way

of throwing you curveballs it threw me a

huge one

my american dad got diagnosed with

terminal cancer

and i was devastated depressed that the

person i looked up to my entire life

was so hurt

so i made a ultimate decision that year

and to defer

lots of my scholarships the schools that

i wanted to go to

and i moved back home to kansas city

just to be with them

and at that time as a 21 year old

i couldn’t handle it i let it get to me

i fell into severe depression and i quit

baseball

and i just finished school for the first

time

in my life i felt

like that little boy in the orphanage

having nothing nowhere to go

lost but then

in university i met my first korean

friend

and my first korean friend taught me

korean phonetics

korean culture korean food and actually

korean dramas the first one i watched

was stairway to heaven

and you know what i did i even tried to

dress

like the main supporting actor

but when i met him

those polaroid picture memories came

back up

i remembered almost everything that i

could

when i was little again i had all these

curiosities

so then i asked my american mom and dad

please do you have any paperwork

and they gave them to me and i found out

that i have a half brother and sister as

well too and they were abandoned

so i knew what i had to do as a young

adult this was my second chance

my opportunity to find out who i was

so i packed up my bags

quit my job sold my car and off i go to

the motherland

to find my korean father my korean

mother and my half brother and sister

when i landed i met with my korean

adoption agency and they told me to one

write a letter a very good positive

personal letter to them

and also pictures of myself growing up

to show that i’m strong and i’m healthy

so i did it then they sent the telegrams

out yes

in 2009 they sent telegrams still

to them and guess what happened a couple

months later

i found them

now i have the opportunity to find who i

am

and also rekindle a relationship with my

korean

family during that time i found out that

i’m not born in april i was born in

february i don’t know about the year but

i found out that i have aunts and uncles

that were living in orange county

and la the whole entire time before i

was

and i found out that my half brother

my half sister were abandoned

and adopted to france and i was the last

one abandoned

so now i knew what i had to do i had a

new task

that new goal was to provide a second

chance for my

brother and sister remember what i said

earlier

new family equals new responsibilities

during that time i found out that my mom

supposedly was stabbed by my dad

and that’s why she left always searching

for me and now she’s just a recovering

alcoholic

supposedly my dad was a gangster back

then

who lied cheated did anything good to

get what he wanted

but i knew this was my second chance and

i knew that

i now is the time to embrace that hate

to show my korean father and to in korea

that

i need to be more korean to show i’m

never gonna be like him

and my next goal is to find

my half brother and sister to let them

know

that somebody from their family their

blood is gonna find them

so what did i do i had to show my mother

and father forgiveness of course

i have to be patient i knew that my

mother or father had

my half brothers and sisters pictures

and my father did

and during those 12 years he refused to

give them to me

but guess what i found him i found those

pictures

but during that time in korea during

those 12 years i learned a lot about

myself and i did a lot of things

i became an event planner in korea one

of the reasons why so i can be the hub

if they ever come back

and believe me i networked like crazy

anybody can tell you that

i also had the opportunity to

have a korean restaurant partner into a

korean restaurant with

my older brother from america who’s also

korean adoptee

that was such a fun time

then ultimately love has a funny way of

working itself back around

i finally got the opportunity to play

independent baseball in korea as a

player an instructor

and during that time moreover i linked

up with so many adoption groups

and online forums just so

i can have the ability because i have

the pictures now to find them

to blast it out there and see what

happens

so after 12 years i waited to get those

pictures from my father

and one facebook post just this past

december merry christmas happened

if you can read i found them

so now we have the opportunity to

be a family it’s our second chance

now it’s their my half brother and

sister’s second chance

to find out who they are to be more

korean

but there’s another second chance here

as well

my father

he now has a second chance to be a

better father

to be a better person is he going to do

it

the question still remains

but because i went through that that

adversity

i was patient and i persevered

i can now help my brother and sister

find out who their birth mother are

and i did that too i had ability to

search for them

and find their mother

and facilitate that meeting

i did it me and the people around me

now it’s their opportunity to be more

korean and to come back

and to re-cultivate the memories

that i had it’s our opportunity it’s our

second chance

to be a family

second chances come in numerous

different ways

and usually these second chances come

when something bad happens

right so if a second chance ever comes

your way

maybe it’s a form of getting that

business opportunity

but you’re too scared to do it or you

have a fight with your mom

and dad or your siblings and your pride

takes over

something bad happens or maybe

it’s just simple you like somebody and

you want that second chance

whatever it is just know second chances

come very rare

and when they do work hard for it

because when a second chance comes

knocking on your door

what are you going to do

thank you