The amazing Mary Malloy, Jack (6.5), and Sam (5).
Mary is a previous project participant. You can view her original photo and story here.
When Mary was a month old, her birth mother left her at a bus station in Seoul, South Korea. She didn't learn this until she was older and says that as a child she assumed her story was like that which you see in movies. Being left on the steps of a church, inside a basket on some cold rainy night, with a handwritten note my mother pinned to her favorite blanket saying that she was “sorry about leaving me, and that she‘ll always love me.” That wasn't her reality and was hell of a thing for a teenage girl to process. It took Mary some time to work through her feelings but she knows now that she was loved. If her birth mother didn’t care for her she could have left her anywhere but she didn’t. She put Mary somewhere she'd be knew found, a public place where people, on their way to work or school, would make sure she'd get somewhere safe. Mary now feels lucky. She knows now that she's been loved her whole life. First by her birth mother, then by the adoption agency that took her in for three months and then her parents who adopted her and brought her to the US.
"I’m a mother now. I’ve got two wild little boys are adore me, a husband that cherishes me and the best parents a girl left at a bus station in Seoul, South Korea could ever hope for."
"To tell your story is to heal. I think being naked or almost and sharing your story helps you heal. The more you tell it the more you heal and you may even give someone else the courage to start to share their story and start to heal."