maybe it was the tb!?!?

i just finished reading 'once they hear my name', a compilation of interview/memoirs of korean american adoptees.  The very last adoptee in the book was adopted when she was six or seven years old and is very grateful (how i loathe that word...) to have been adopted as she had tuberculosis and presumed her birth family couldn't afford to pay the medical bills (she has memories of living in a humble hut overlooking rice fields).  in the orphanage, with the financial support of her adopted family, she was treated for the tb and was nursed back to health before being sent to live with them.  

this got me thinking...i'm sure it's not the healthiest thing to do, but i'm sure i'm not the only adoptee who wonders why she was abandoned.  there are no notes in my file about the circumstances of my relinquishment into the orphanage system in korea.  the only bit of information alludes to a police station.  i was adopted at the age of 5 years with my (supposed) biological sister (she was 2 years old).  it's hard to imagine why our parents would give us up after years of parenting.  i couldn't imagine giving up my four year old dog let alone a child.  i've often imagined they must have been in a horrible accident and died.  or maybe our father left our mother and she could no longer care for us.  or maybe we're not really sisters, but half sisters (we're not alike at all) and when our father discovered he did not father the youngest child, he left.  i don't know.  there are endless possibilities as to what could have happened. chances are good, i will never know.

but reading this adoptee's profile/story got me thinking about just one more possibility. my sister had tb.  it's noted on her intake papers from the orphanage.  i remember her having to take medicine for a long time when we went to live with our adopted family.  maybe our family was so poor they couldn't pay for her medical treatment?  and maybe they thought it would be best to keep us together??  or maybe they tried to pay her bills, ran out of money and couldn't afford to keep either one of us...

why oh why were we abandoned!??!?!  

maybe it was the tb...