Finding Tevy

In my book “The Love of My Mothers’ “, I follow the life of a woman named Tevy. From the early days of her life in Kampot Cambodia, to her starting a family with her husband Sok near Phnom Penh. We see her live through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and see glimpses of her rebuilt life after freedom. 

Tevy is my fixtional mother, made up of bits and pieces of my imagination, from my current vision of what life could have been, some historically based conditions and lastly scenes from my childhood as I would lay in bed, sometimes crying myself to sleep, imagining what she would have been like.  Tevy is the mother I created for myself, based largely on my wife.  

I wasn’t trying to make Tevy perfect, but I also had no reason to not make her ideal.  The hardest part of creating her was giving her a reason to lose me with out placing the blame on her.  For those gymnastics you’ll have to read the book.

I know that Tevy isn’t real and what she experienced isn’t either. I still like having her as a mother. 

As much as I have created Tevy to fit the narrative of my book, this journey, is about destroying her and replacing her with an actual person.

I’ve taken my first step. I met my cousin, second cousin, an actual relative I didn’t make (I’m talking about Elsa, Vincent and Liam).  At this point I do not know how I feel about it. I’m still processing and kind of holding it all in. I cannot afford to be too lost in my mind there is still a lot of work and Thon Sambath (my cousin) seems to be all on board with it. 

Our first few minutes 

Me meeting Sambath and showing him a picture of me as a baby

In the home of Sambath

Me and the family 

He was so kind and interested in what we were doing.  Imagine giving a DNA sample in June, in hopes of finding a sister and end up in October face to face with a person who says he is related to you in some way, who has flown thousands of miles, driven hundreds of miles just to meet you and ask you questions about parts of your family you really don’t think about, much less know. 

My cousin providing DNA

In Cambodia second cousins really are too important in peoples' lives. I don’t think it is too common for that level of family to be too important in many extended families .  For example, I am really close to my second cousins on my dad’s mother’s side of the family.  But really can’t say much about any of the other three groups of extended family.

Last summer at my first cousin once removed Donna’s house with my second cousins Danika and Dominique. 

As people have spread out, either through choice or by force, those connections are weakened and lost.

 Sambath couldn’t tell me a lot, but he did provide some suggestions of where we might find something.

He sent us to his older sister. With the thought that she might know something. 

She didn’t have much more to add but this meeting provided me with one of the most indelible moments I’ve ever had. Sambath’s sister’s and husband (I do not remember their names) sat with us and talked much like Sambath had done. 

Earlier in the day I had started showing everyone pictures of me as a baby. When the husband looked at my baby pictures his mind went somewhere. 

I’ve never seen someone mentally transport to the distant past so clearly in all my life.  He was deep into his memories.  Maybe trying to find that baby in his mind, maybe trying to find other faces that looked like the baby. 

He intensely looked as the screen for fifteen minutes or so, at times muttering to himself and seemingly tearing up.  I wish I knew what was going on. 

(Thank you Jeannette for the beautiful pictures)

I think it is safe to say that the most important data we got was that I am from the areas around Kampong Cham and that is most likely where I will find answers.

Kampong Cham is a pretty big city and fairly urban with most of the amenities one might expect.  

Unlike other cites like Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, you don’t have to travel far out of the city to get into less urban settings.  This is where my people are and it’s good because people in the outer areas do not move around as much. 

Open rice fields

Cattle in the road   As many times as I’ve seen this it is still exciting to me

Home in the country side 

I don’t think I’m going to get much more done on this trip as far as finding anyone, my next in the spring will be all about Finding Tevy