For 25 years, Stephanie Valentin wondered whether her mother was still alive. She had almost accepted that the two would never meet again. While writing a novel about an adopted girl searching for her roots, Stephanie began using the story as a way to say goodbye. Then something she never expected happened.
Her mother was alive, and after decades of separation, they were finally going to meet. Stephanie Valentin was one of five children born to Meiling and Todd Valentin, an Air Force officer whose family moved between Taiwan, Texas, and South Dakota. Stephanie was born in Texas, but some of her earliest memories were tied to Taiwan and to her mother. When Stephanie was five years old, her parents divorced.
Her father received custody of the children and brought them back to the United States, while Meiling remained in Taiwan. For Meiling, the separation was devastating. She did not speak English, had little work experience, no money, and no knowledge of how to navigate the system to regain contact with her children. She later said she looked for people to help her but found no way around the barriers of language and money.
For Stephanie, growing up in America meant learning a very different version of what had happened. She says she was told her mother was dangerous. But those claims did not entirely match her own memories of Taiwan. She later said, “I don’t remember feeling neglected in Taiwan.
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The separation also meant losing much of the culture that connected her to her mother. Back in America, Stephanie and her siblings were expected to focus on their studies, speak English, and adapt to their new surroundings. Taiwanese traditions gradually disappeared from their daily lives. Looking back, Stephanie felt she had lost two things at once: her mother and the culture tied to her.
As she grew older, the questions about Meiling became harder to ignore. When her relationship with her father became strained during her teenage years, some of the anger she had buried began to resurface. She eventually spent most of her high school years living with other relatives before returning home for her senior year. Through it all, one question remained: what had really happened to her mother?
Stephanie had no answer. She did not even know whether Meiling was still alive, but she never stopped wondering. Writing eventually gave her a way to cope with those feelings. Instead of trying to force an answer she did not have, she began putting pieces of her story into her writing.
Years later, she contributed a short story to “When We Become Us,” an anthology featuring adopted voices. For Stephanie, finding other people who understood the complex emotions surrounding adoption was an important turning point. She suddenly realized that the confusion and grief she had carried for years were shared by many others. That experience encouraged her to put more of her own perspective into her first novel.
And that novel would eventually lead her back to the woman she had spent most of her life searching for. The book she wrote as a farewell, Stephanie’s first novel “The Language of Love,” follows Katia, a Taiwanese American adopted teenager who wants to reconnect with her original culture. She begins learning Mandarin as part of that journey. Although Katia was a fictional character, the emotional questions behind her were very familiar to Stephanie.
She understood what it felt like to grow up knowing there was a missing part of the story and not knowing where to look for it. While working on the book, Stephanie practiced Mandarin and thought more deeply about her own relationship with Taiwan. At the same time, she became more realistic about her chances of finding Meiling. Twenty-five years had passed.
There had been no contact. Stephanie began to wonder whether her mother had died. Writing the novel became a way to accept that possibility. She described the process as therapeutic because she was using the story in certain ways to say goodbye and finally close the door on a search that had pursued her for most of her life.
An unexpected stroke of luck brought new information about Meiling, and suddenly, the mother Stephanie had almost lost hope of ever seeing was alive. The news changed everything. After 25 years of wondering about her mother, Stephanie finally had a reason to return to Taiwan. She had only been five years old when they separated, so she was not sure she would recognize Meiling.
But when she arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and saw her mother among the crowd, she knew her instantly. They embraced. Stephanie later recalled that moment with tears. After years of wondering whether they would ever meet again, she finally had the chance to hug her mother.
Meiling was overwhelmed with emotion too. The little girl she remembered was now a grown woman, but Stephanie still resembled her remarkably. For years, Meiling had dreamed of the daughter she had lost. Now she was standing right in front of her.
A second chance. Stephanie and Meiling only had two weeks together, but they decided to make the most of it. They went hiking, explored street markets, spent a night at an aquarium, and celebrated Meiling’s birthday. After so many years without her children, the birthday meant a great deal to Meiling.
Stephanie remembers her saying it was the best birthday she had had in 20 years. One of the most moving moments came when Stephanie’s two mothers met during the second week of the trip. Cindy, Stephanie’s adoptive mother, joined them for a hot pot meal. Stephanie was nervous about this meeting.
She knew there was a complicated history between the two women, and she did not know what would happen when they finally sat face to face. Instead of arguing, there was a quiet acknowledgment of what each woman meant in Stephanie’s life. Meiling had given birth to her, while Cindy had helped raise her. Neither could change what had happened, but they both recognized the role the other had played.
For Stephanie, seeing them together was deeply healing. She no longer had to imagine these two parts of her life as separate worlds. Her biological mother and the woman who raised her were finally sitting at the same table. The trip also changed the way Stephanie saw Taiwan.
Returning there was not just about finding Meiling. It gave her a chance to reconnect with the country she had lost touch with in childhood. She had already been studying Mandarin while working on “The Language of Love,” but after returning to Taiwan, she wanted to go further. She applied to Chung Yuan University and was accepted to study Mandarin.
Even the money she earned from her novel seemed to complete the circle. The book that had grown out of her questions about identity and belonging would now help fund her education in Taiwan. But Stephanie had bigger plans than just learning the language. She wanted to help Meiling reconnect with her other children.
Stephanie was the one who spoke more openly about adoptee experiences, and she eventually wrote a memoir about what happened to her family. Most importantly, she did not want the memoir to tell only her side of the story. She wanted Meiling to have a voice in it too. After finding her mother again, Stephanie realized their story could not be reduced to a simple explanation.
There had been a divorce, cultural differences, a language barrier, a disparity in resources, and years of separation. Mother and daughter had to live with those consequences. Now, instead of trying to determine who was right or wrong, Stephanie wanted to understand what had happened to both of them. That was what made the meeting so meaningful.
It was not about pretending the lost years did not matter. It was about finally having the chance to get to know each other again.