http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/19313.htm
STILL SEARCHING
By SAM SMITH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
LOST & FOUND: In 1975, The Post re****ted on "Missy," abandoned at Penn
Station. Today she is Mika Stump (above, with childhood photos) and still
seeks
her mother.
February 29, 2004 -- Where is Missy's mother?
The Post asked that question 28 years ago and now is asking it again
because
Missy, or Mika as she's known today, is still looking.
"I still need to find my parents," she told The Post last week, the day
after
three infants were found abandoned in the city. "What is my name? Where
was I
born? What was it like that day? It's very im****tant to me to know these
things."
Mika was left at Penn Station on Sept. 24, 1975, at the age of 4 or 5 -
nobody's really sure of her age.
She was put in the New York Foundling Hospital, adopted two years later by
a
Rockland County family, and now, at 32, lives outside Aspen, Colo.
In a way, said Mika, New York is her hometown. In a way, she was born at
Penn
Station that day, where she was given the name Abandoned Female #3068. The
hospital staff called her Missy. The state named her Michelle Scott. She
took
her adoptive parents' last name, Watson. She later changed her name to
Mika.
And now she's Mika Stump, her married name.
Even though she was young and it's many years ago, Mika's memories of Penn
Station have been made clear through repetition.
Her mother seemed frantic, she said, walking nervously around the station.
"I looked at this candy store," Mika said. "It was full of chocolate. I
asked
if I could look at the chocolate. She fidgeted for a minute and then said
yes."
That was the last time Mika saw her mother.
Foundling Hospital documents reveal more of Mika's early memories. She
didn't
speak for weeks after she was found and never said her name. Eventually
she
said she had lived near a beach. Lions were there. She lived on a boat for
a
while. Her parents wore turbans. Her mother wore earrings. Her father had
killed a man.
Was that true? Did her father kill a man? Did that have something to do
with
her abandonment?
"Why was she so nervous at Penn Station?" wondered Mika of her mother.
"Why did
she have to run?"
Mika has fond memories of her time at the Foundling Hospital, but her
memories
of adoption are filled with abuse.
At 19, she was homeless in Manhattan. She met her first husband on the
road and
had two kids by the time she settled in Flagstaff, Ariz., in 1997.
She met her second husband there, had two more kids, and moved to
Colorado,
where her husband is the coach at a ski club and she makes jewelry. But
she
always wondered about her parents.
A private investigator recently took up the search, but to no avail. Now
Mika
is hoping her hometown can help. "I've always said I'm going to find
them," she
said.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend
will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
|
