Adoption. A Thank You Letter to My Birthmum for Giving Me Up.

He triggered my curiosity while he sat there crying at the other side of the table. "You're mother loves you very much, she's poor and she is about 75 years old." While he looks down on to the cards, spread around the table, I feel his emotional state of mind, enter my heart.

Then he tells me, looking deep into my eyes: "She's looking for you and she will find you. You will not look for her but she will find you." I start to cry too, instantly knowing this is a turning point in life. This is the moment I've been waiting for..... secretly.

While we brush away our tears, take a zip of our juice, we sit there for a while in silence, getting stared at by everyone around us, since we are sitting outside on a public terrace in Valencia, Spain. To me it seems the outside world at that particular moment doens't exist.

I remember seeing that man walking around Valencia for the past three years. He carries a desk of tarot cards and asks people sitting outside, if they are interested in a reading. I'm superstitious by nature. I believe in destiny instead of coincidence. I have great curiosity for spirituality and I believe in the energies we humans can transmit through a room. In a good way or in a bad way.

I'll call the stranger walking around my hometown, Bellmonde. He wears tiny glasses, comfortable leather slippers, short trousers and a beige shirt. A small bag hangs around his waist in which he carries his tarot cards.

Typical thoughts of prejudice run through my mind when I see him. "He must be earning a lot of money by making things up." "How many people fall for his lies?" "Tarot cards and predicting the future...Yeah right!"

Yet, I couldn't help myself when he almost approached my table. I was enjoying my olives and my agua de Valencia when he showed his cards and asked me if I was interested. I heard myself asking about the price, meanwhile telling him I was a little reluctant about the whole idea of Tarot cards and their signification.

To convince me, he asked me one very simple question: "Do you believe in spirituality?" Of course I do! I always have. Who does't, I wonder. Aren't we all pondering about the same questions? Aren't we all having the same doubts when it comes to life and death? Don't we all want to know about that spiritual world surrounding us, without being able to see what's really there?

Apart from the emotional moment between Bellmonde and me, I was surprised in many ways about the exactness of his observations about many other situations in my life. This is a stranger. We never met. I didn't give him any background information and yet he touched my soul.

I've been having more and more thoughts about my birth mother, even before I sat down with Bellmonde. My life has changed drastically since my city trip to Valencia, Spain in August 2008. I walked around that amazing city for five days, feeling instantly connected to its beauty and its energy.

A premonition I felt deep down inside, knowing this would be the place for me to start all over again. That particular feeling took a hold of me and made me act. Nine months later (a pregnancy later) I moved to Valencia and build my life from scratch.

As you can see on the map in this Hub, my trip around the world has been quite a long one. More intriguing to me is to see the follow up from A to E. Born in Colombia, Bogotà having lived my life in various places and having travelled to Brazil for five weeks in the summer of 2012.

That was quite an adventure where I felt closer to my birth mother than ever. If it wasn't for meeting my Brazilian boyfriend in Valencia before, Brazil would not be first on my list to travel to.

However life is not about coincidences as I said before, so thanks to meeting him, I travelled to South-America after having left Colombia as a baby. Even though our relationship didn't last, I took a glimpse of Brazilian life style, I learned to speak Portugese and I felt close to 'home' even though I can't explain really why.

Valencia became my first real home, where I finally felt recognized because of my roots. Where all the other Latina women walking around town, suddenly looked a lot like me.

Where everyone I met, started to speak Spanish to me, even though I didn't understand a word, since I am adopted by my Dutch parents and have learned Dutch from the beginning. This means, I needed to learn my original language Spanish, now capable of speaking it fluently.

As for my travel experience in Brazil, I instantly felt connected to its culture and the Brazilian way of life. Strangely enough I'm not sure if I would feel the same way, when travelling to Colombia but that trip isn't even planned because the time isn't right.

Yet, my dream is to be able to embrace my birth mum one day and until that day arrives and if that day arrives, I share with you this letter to memorize the most important woman in my entire existence. The one and only person that was so human and loving to give my away, to ensure her daughter a better future.

She did the right thing.

Dear angel,

Thank you for having had the power and love to give up your own flesh and blood. I don't know about the circumstances you were in, but I can only imagine it must have been hard. You kept me save for giving me up, offering me the possibility to live my life in total luxury.

The luxury of living this life, surrounded by my loving adoptive parents, who raised me as if I was their own. Always assured of their unconditional love, their undivided attention and their ongoing fate in me.

I became a strong and happy woman, having had my share of pain and sorrow, feeling deep down inside, you were always thinking of me, the baby girl you left behind. I don't blame you for having left me behind. I don't feel abandoned by your arms or by your love.

You are my guardian angel. You gave me the gift of life. As your biological daughter, I am eternally grateful to you, for having given me this life with endless possibilities, beautiful travels all over the world, to finally land in the life I so adore right now.

May our roads cross in this life, so I can hug you and caress you, for I am proud to have come so far. Once an innocent baby girl, born somewhere in Bogotá, Colombia. A country I don't know, a city I can't remember, a woman I may never find.

I know you loved me mum....One day we'll meet!

Love Love Love!