08 May 2006
Many Mothers Day
Four was placed into my arms when he was five months old. It was Valentine's Day.
That's one of those incredible coincidences adoption listservs talk about. Kids who were born on your anniversary. Kids whose papers arrived at your agency on the anniversary of a beloved's death. Kids who were found or placed in orphanages the exact same day it suddenly struck you like a bolt out of the blue that you were "meant" to adopt a child.
These things happen. I am not going to argue about it, so quit rolling your eyes right now. I can see you. Stop it this minute.
I'd arrived at the hotel, hot, laden with luggage, bereft of what little Spanish I had by the tension and exhaustion of flying (I am not a happy flyer). The desk clerk did not speak English, but we managed. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of an incredibly bright-eyed baby with a shock of hair standing straight up all over his head, squirming left and right, taking it all in with a big grin on his face. A sudden attack of shyness or something like it hit me. I kept my head down and followed the clerk to my room. I didn't want to look, I dunno, larcenous, grabby, like a big drooling norteamericana kidnapper. He might have been my baby. But I figured I'd find out soon enough.
About a nanosecond after I finally dropped the six ton bag onto the floor of my basement room (turns out I'd been assigned a "maid's room" in the overbooked hotel--no windows, no carpet, and about enough room for 2 rickety single beds), my son arrived. He was the baby in the lobby--breathtakingly beautiful, eyes like black diamonds, hair like a black cornfield. He was in the arms of a short, matronly, sweet-faced woman. Clutched in his tiny fist was the index finger of a handsome boy who looked about 12 and who also looked very upset. The agency's coordinator was with them. The foster father was not; he was too engulfed in grief to leave the house.
My son had been theirs (or, "theirs") since the second day of his life. His birth mother had no hope of supporting him, her fourth child. Her other three children were living with an aunt in a one room apartment while their mother migrated from job to job, working hard and living hard like so many people in Guatemala.
I was able to converse, in a manner of speaking, with the foster mom (her son's face stayed knotted up in the pan-international "I'm not going to cry" grimace, precluding conversation). My son had been the baby in their family all his life. It sounded like all their lives revolved around him. He was cherished, adored, well-fed. They weren't looking to adopt a baby; they were foster parents. But they were grieving; they loved him.
It's an understatement to say that my feelings were chaotic. Joy, guilt, anxiety, empathy, and an intense desire above all to assure them that I would love this little boy with every fiber of my being.
I don't think I did a good job of expressing this to that grieving, hopeful, courageous mother and son. She told me he liked milk. He loved his bath. He didn't like being scared. He needed to be dressed warmly.
I wish I could tell her that he still likes milk--but only with chocolate in it. That he hates his bath now and tries to fool me by dunking the very ends of his still extremely abundant hair in the water and claiming he's bathed. That he wears long pants and a hoodie when the rest of us are clutching iced drinks and complaining about the weather. That he still doesn't like being scared which is probably why he loves drawing incredibly detailed fiercely toothed and clawed dinosaurs and robots and dressing up like intergalactic heroes who brandish pirate swords and make what are supposed to be laser noises.
It'll be Mother's Day soon. There's no Hallmark card for this. I love and adore the child you gave to me, you astonishingly brave woman--him and all the stunning children you and all the birth mothers and foster mothers gave, with grief and hope, to me and to the world that is a sunnier, louder, and infinitely better place because of your grace, courage, and faith.
Happy Many Mothers Day.
That's one of those incredible coincidences adoption listservs talk about. Kids who were born on your anniversary. Kids whose papers arrived at your agency on the anniversary of a beloved's death. Kids who were found or placed in orphanages the exact same day it suddenly struck you like a bolt out of the blue that you were "meant" to adopt a child.
These things happen. I am not going to argue about it, so quit rolling your eyes right now. I can see you. Stop it this minute.
I'd arrived at the hotel, hot, laden with luggage, bereft of what little Spanish I had by the tension and exhaustion of flying (I am not a happy flyer). The desk clerk did not speak English, but we managed. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of an incredibly bright-eyed baby with a shock of hair standing straight up all over his head, squirming left and right, taking it all in with a big grin on his face. A sudden attack of shyness or something like it hit me. I kept my head down and followed the clerk to my room. I didn't want to look, I dunno, larcenous, grabby, like a big drooling norteamericana kidnapper. He might have been my baby. But I figured I'd find out soon enough.
About a nanosecond after I finally dropped the six ton bag onto the floor of my basement room (turns out I'd been assigned a "maid's room" in the overbooked hotel--no windows, no carpet, and about enough room for 2 rickety single beds), my son arrived. He was the baby in the lobby--breathtakingly beautiful, eyes like black diamonds, hair like a black cornfield. He was in the arms of a short, matronly, sweet-faced woman. Clutched in his tiny fist was the index finger of a handsome boy who looked about 12 and who also looked very upset. The agency's coordinator was with them. The foster father was not; he was too engulfed in grief to leave the house.
My son had been theirs (or, "theirs") since the second day of his life. His birth mother had no hope of supporting him, her fourth child. Her other three children were living with an aunt in a one room apartment while their mother migrated from job to job, working hard and living hard like so many people in Guatemala.
I was able to converse, in a manner of speaking, with the foster mom (her son's face stayed knotted up in the pan-international "I'm not going to cry" grimace, precluding conversation). My son had been the baby in their family all his life. It sounded like all their lives revolved around him. He was cherished, adored, well-fed. They weren't looking to adopt a baby; they were foster parents. But they were grieving; they loved him.
It's an understatement to say that my feelings were chaotic. Joy, guilt, anxiety, empathy, and an intense desire above all to assure them that I would love this little boy with every fiber of my being.
I don't think I did a good job of expressing this to that grieving, hopeful, courageous mother and son. She told me he liked milk. He loved his bath. He didn't like being scared. He needed to be dressed warmly.
I wish I could tell her that he still likes milk--but only with chocolate in it. That he hates his bath now and tries to fool me by dunking the very ends of his still extremely abundant hair in the water and claiming he's bathed. That he wears long pants and a hoodie when the rest of us are clutching iced drinks and complaining about the weather. That he still doesn't like being scared which is probably why he loves drawing incredibly detailed fiercely toothed and clawed dinosaurs and robots and dressing up like intergalactic heroes who brandish pirate swords and make what are supposed to be laser noises.
It'll be Mother's Day soon. There's no Hallmark card for this. I love and adore the child you gave to me, you astonishingly brave woman--him and all the stunning children you and all the birth mothers and foster mothers gave, with grief and hope, to me and to the world that is a sunnier, louder, and infinitely better place because of your grace, courage, and faith.
Happy Many Mothers Day.
