In my recent dreams, I call my adoptive mother ma. I call my adoptive father baba.

In my dreams I can talk to my elder brother again. Sometimes, in these dreams, I do not understand him; other times I am fluent and can converse. In the occasional [rare] dream, he is moderately fluent in English. The ones in English are usually over in a matter of seconds.

In my dreams, when people ask me who I am, I tell them I am Mei-Ling.

In my dreams… my heritage is finally real, through my name, through my native tongue, through the use of Mandarin honorifics. I almost always speak Mandarin in my dreams, even to people who do not speak it.

In my dreams I become myself again.

~

The reality is vastly different.

I call my adoptive parents mom and dad just like any other kid I know.

I do not have a real relationship with my elder brother. He can hardly muster a 3-word sentence in English (such as “don’t have money”).

When people ask who I am, I tell them my English name, although my Mandarin one is on the tip of my tongue. It is silenced. I do not speak Mandarin except to myself.

In reality I am my adopted self and others choose to speak on behalf of me.

~

In my dreams I can speak Mandarin all I want, and it will not alienate me

In my dreams I can see mama and baba again, and I can try to converse with gege

In my dreams, my sister returns “home” and watches me from a distance, unsmiling and doing her daily activities

We do not exchange a word

In my dreams the air is hot and humid, and I am wearing a T-shirt with shorts, no socks, and I have just finished going up the staircase to their room

In my dreams I can step back into Heping and be greeted by my mother’s smile, even if I don’t understand her native Taiwanese. In my dreams, my father turns to me and says in Chinese “Come back to Taiwan, see mama and baba.”

It is a simple rehash of the statement he said many times in August

I know they are no more than figments of my subconscious imagination in the sleeping world.

I know that they will never “say” anything more than what I witnessed during my visit. I know that my mind formulates “hearing” sounds of a language I cannot understand, I know their ghostly presence in my subconsciousness will only show me what I saw, and nothing more than what I learned.

But still…

In my dreams, I am free.

~

Bittersweet.

I still grieve.