Life: Part I

You can't talk about death without talking about life. Poppy was 81 when he died a few weeks ago. I turned 40 this year. I am at the halfway mark. Of course, I may not live to be 81 but based on his age I am half way there. I look at the past 40 years and I think about how many ups and downs and turns my life has taken. I have read several books over the last few weeks both of them dealing with life journeys and death. I think about how my life has changed based on those two things. I am not the same person I was at 20 that is for sure. At twenty my whole life evolved around a boy and college. That was it. I wanted to marry the boy and I wanted to graduate from college. I did both of those things. I then wanted to have a child. That was a snag on our life journey. I experienced death before we were blessed with life. I had a miscarriage and nothing in this world can prepare you for that. Nothing. I was devastated. I did not even enjoy the first twelve weeks of my second pregnancy because I was terrified that death was looming. Little did I know at the time it was still looming. So after the death of our son, I was just never the same. Then 9/11 happened and I definitely was changed forever. I did not see the world the same. I was fearful of many things after that and paranoid at times. I really probably needed to see a therapist, but GOD has a way of getting you out of your funk. He moves you to a new place and you can make it good or you can make it bad. I went in a new direction for the good and this time it was a point of no return. At the age of 3 our oldest decided she wanted a sibling and so after months of begging we decided to start the adoption process. It was hard and at times heartbreaking for us. In retrospect it was really pretty painless compared to other people's journeys, but at the time I thought it was rough. We found our girl on an agency website right around New Year's Eve. I just fell in love and my husband was hopelessly in love with his Asian princess. Little did he know what was in store for him. The next five months went by fast and I was sick at my stomach the day that we left to go to China. I had no idea what we were in store for but my stomach was in knots. I lost part of my soul in a hospital room five years before and somehow I was feeling restored or at least it seemed that way. As our journey took us to the city of Xi'an I got more and more anxious, but it was less sick and more joyful. I don't know what our girl was thinking when she came in that room, but all I could do was cry. Mark was crying too and this time it was tears of joy. WE HAD LIFE BEFORE US AND IT WAS AWESOME. Our two girls checking each other out and playing with toys. The emotions were overwhelming. I was just in awe of that moment. I could not move much. I just absorbed it all in. I just looked at her and realized she was real and she was ours and it was really happening and I needed to absorb this moment. Neither of us went near her we just watched her and looked at her. We had both read stories and books and information. We wanted to give her space. We wanted her to feel comfortable with us. I just wanted someone to pinch me and tell me she was really ours and we would really be taking her home in 13 days. I just thanked GOD for her and just watched her every move. She probably thought we were crazy at the time. I was crazy in love with her. She represented life for us. I went out of my comfort zone on an airplane that I was afraid to be on because of 9/11. I just wanted to sit and look at her. That was all I needed. The money, the time, the effort, the everything came down to this. Just watching her play. That was good for me at that moment. It was everything to me. She was real and she was close enough to me that I could smell her. I did not need anything else. International Adoption is a crazy thing and if it does not change you nothing will. It is a GOD thing and it is real... as real as it gets. There is nothing more real than that. At the moment you lay eyes on your child you know that all of those pictures have real heartbeats behind them. There are 2200 children today on the waiting child list. These are not pictures these are little heartbeats of children waiting for someone to bring them home. They are not just somewhere on a shared list computer file. They are living, breathing, children that need a home of their own. My heart aches as I think back to the day we went to the orphanage. My girl was rotten. I am not going to lie to you. She had been spoiled based on orphanage standards and we got to see some of that while we were in China. She had some fits and she showed us what she was made of on more than one occasions. Each day our guide would ask us how everything was going. I found it odd. Later that week I found out that a week before we arrived a family had left their little one in China. They chose not to adopt their child. I don't know the circumstances, but all I can say is heartless. How does one human being do that to another? How do you do it? How? Please tell me. I could not for the entire week wrap my head around that and it still bothers me five and half years later. I just don't understand it. This child was a toddler. I don't get it. Still don't and only GOD will be able to explain it to me. So with all of the joy I had in my heart I smiled every moment. From the time we got up until the time we went to bed. Every day we dealt with temper tantrums and tiredness and whinnies from both children, but my smile rarely left my face. I had a smile for thrown food and poop diapers. My whinnie husband and his tiredness I did it all. Screams when we were touring I still smiled. My heart was not prepared for the orphanage. It just was not prepared for the magnitude of it all. I was not expecting what I saw and it is engrained in my memory forever. It will never, ever leave me. I think my husband prays each day that he could erase it, but it will always be with me and it hangs on my heart like a noose at times. The girls were taken from us at the car. Evidently word got out that the spoiled princess was on her way to the castle and the spoilers wanted to see her. They met us at the taxi and took her and her big sister with them. ROTTEN. They never put her down the whole time we were there. I got her back when it was time to go. They needed closure even though she was too young to need it. I got that. Other moms probably would not have, but being a high school teacher and dealing with teenagers, I totally got it. These teenage girls had raised her. They fed her and diapered her and held her. They loved her and she loved them. They needed to see her one last time to say goodbye. So, she and her big sister went with the teenage girls and Mark and I had paper work to finish. We were sent to an office where the only man on campus gave us a receipt for our contribution to the care of orphans. We gave him the money and he put it in their safe. I know my baby's money went to feed other orphans and not to the government. I saw it go in the safe myself. Pretty cool actually. We were given a bracelet with her name on it and many thanks. We returned the thanks and gave the director a small gift. He again thanked us and we were taken to the atrium where our girls were by now. This was like a huge entrance into the orphanage. It was open and it was four stories up to the ceiling. The winding staircase was right next to us. I had this little index card file with me. In it I had twenty parent names and email address and underneath each one I had a Chinese orphan's name. I went all over the building seeking out these children and taking their picture. I think the most heartbreaking was the first room I went to. I had my guide with me and told the women in the room which child I was looking for. As I sat on the floor in front of the baby gate I saw twenty little faces looking at me. They were all dressed the same and none of them had on diapers. They had little slits in their outfits and they just went to the bathroom on the floor and the ladies would clean up the mess. It was odd to say the least, but it was the culture and I got used to it. What I could not get used to was the shear number of babies in this room. It was a room of one year olds. They were all just beautiful babies and they all wanted to know what I was up to. I just sat and touched there little hands as they reached for me. It took just a minute for the ladies to point out who I was supposed to photograph. I took her photo and then they picked her up and I took a few more. I touched her little fingers and told her her mommy was coming soon. I went back to the floor and touched the hands of a few more cuties and then I had to go because this was only one of the twenty I was supposed to photograph. The baby rooms went all the way down the hall and I knew that somewhere in that hallway my baby spent her first few months here. I never found out which room, but I knew it was on that hall. I continued my quest to find the girls and boys I was photographing. I had studied the older age group for weeks. Every time a parent emailed me a picture I would study it and really focus in on the child and their features because I wanted to make sure I photographed the right children. I saw a group of four and five year olds that had gathered in the atrium for the events that would soon take place. They were all sitting in metal folding chairs and waiting patiently. I asked my guide to let the ladies know I was taking pictures for families in America. She helped me out. I first saw two faces I recognized and started photographing them. I spoke to a little man I recognized and took his picture. I could not stand it I had to touch his little face. I made him cry. He was real. He was not a picture I had in my file. He was a sweet-faced innocent little boy who was scared of strangers. He was beautiful and I wanted to hug him and let him know that his mommy was coming very soon, but I let the caregiver near by comfort him knowing that his cries would be comforted by his mommy in a few short months. I did this all day long. We were there about 3.5 hours and I took as many photos as I could. As I stood within the sea of children to watch the Children's Day celebrations I had an observer. I looked down and a severely handicapped girl sat in awe of me. She was fascinated by my video camera and by my camera. She was looking for attention and I had to take her picture. She was about 12 and she was what we called in school MOID. Moderate to severely handicapped. She had little function of her legs and she had a little drool issue. I assumed she had severe cerebral palsy but I never confirmed that with anyone. She was sweet and I wondered if she had parents preparing here to bring her home. I found out later that day that she was on the unadoptable list. She would never have adoption as an option. She would leave here and go to a nursing home to die. That was the reality of her future. Welcome to the real world outside of Georgia. Wake up to what the world has to offer a handicapped orphan. I still think about her and wonder if she is still in this world of if she made it to Heaven.
My oldest sat on the front row with a girl about her age. She was talking up a storm with this child and I just could not comprehend that her Mandarin had improved that much from earlier in the day. We found out later that Pippa knew English. My oldest was talking in English to an English speaking Pippa. We spent the next four years praying that Pippa would get a family. My oldest always hoping it would be us that brought her home. Last spring she finally went home to five brothers and four sisters. She had a huge family now. GOD answered that prayer in a big way.
As I talk about all of this I am reminded that on that particular day there were 550 children living at the orphanage. Each one waiting and hoping their family would come. How do you think they did that? How could the beautiful, healthy Pippa deal each day with the reality that another family had taken home their little one while she had to wait. She knew where she stood in the grand scheme of orphanage life. She was 10 years old when she came home. I met her when she was five. This is reality. I fell in love with a little man who was four years old on one of the many blogs I follow. He was a cleft baby too and he had the sweetest little face. The adoption agency that had his file had a video of him riding a bike. He was so cute. I begged Mark to bring him home. Money is always the issue but this momma's heart never gets that. I just wanted to bring him home. He was six months older than our Asian princess and he needed a momma and I really wanted to beg people to help us bring him home. I got a real no. I placed his little photo on the fridge and we prayed for him forever. I know it was months and months. I go through phases where I keep up with the adoption world and then I go through times where I just ignore it. I just can't bare to look at those little faces on the pictures because when have had the opportunity to touch one of those pictures up close and personal you realize that the pictures on the website are real children that live and breath and need a mommy and daddy. They don't want to be a picture on a website they really want to be somebody's child that gets tucked in at night and they want to be held when they are sick. They are real and they need a real home where people love them. So, little man sat on my fridge for months and finally his picture fell off the fridge and he disappeared. I prayed for sometime after that he would get a family and then he seemed to fade off of the agency website. I tried to find him a couple of times but he was gone. Last year he reappeared on another agency list. He was part of an older child camp some agencies do. He was still on the waiting child list and he had had three surgeries in China. Okay my baby has been through some cleft surgeries and they are painful. The thoughts of this boy enduring all of that pain alone made me feel awful. I just felt awful and there was some shame attached to it, too. I really did not have the nerve to look back at his file. I would check it every now and then to see if he had been matched with a family, but I no longer looked at the page that showed his face. I advocated for him on several blogs and I told people about his video and which agency had it. I did everything I could think of to get him a family and to this day I don't know if he ever got his family that he so deserved. I still feel awful. See if I had control of everything in my household I would have a house full of Chinese boys. They are the last to be chosen. Everyone wants to go to China and adopt a girl and people forget that the orphanages are full of living breathing boys. Little boys and big boys all needing a family to call their own. I read a recent interview with some orphan teens and it was truly heart wrenching to hear their stories. They know the day they turn thirteen that they will drop off of the adoption list. That is the end of the line for them. It is the saddest day of their lives. My nephew turned 13 this year and that is really all I thought about the whole month of his birthday. I just thought about how many 13 year old Chinese orphans spent the month knowing they had run out of time for a real family. It is just sad. I look at these little sweet faces knowing the clock is ticking and before they know it their time will be up too. So this is life for me. I am stuck. I can't seem to get past this. I want to bring more home while my husband says he is done. I want boys in this house of girls. GOD took my son and ten years later I respect the decision, but I still would like to raise a couple of sons. I think Mark would too, he just has cost issues. It is a good thing that he thinks about that because right now we would have six Asian kids and we would be living under a bridge somewhere with our kids in tow. I go with my heart and he thinks dollars and cents. Which is good, but I am getting older and the list is getting longer. Babies are now little boys and soon they will be teenage boys. I have literally watched children grow up on the waiting child list and I find it to be a hard pill to swallow. I wish I could have done more. I wish had some way of making this happen for us. Some way to bring these boys home. I have my eye on this little guy and some ladies on one of the blogs were talking about him today. He is a heart baby, but he is the cutest thing. He had surgery when he was a year old but he is not doing well right now. He is five and he is way past the time he should have had another surgery. Here he would have had four surgeries by now and he would be done until he was older. Unfortunately, an orphan can only hope that some charitable organization will find him and get him the surgery he needs. That happened for him at one and he went back to his home orphanage after he recovered. Today he is having issues and he needs a heart repair but he still waits. He is still cute as a button, but he is a tired boy because his heart is tired. I pray that his family will find him soon and bring him home. His little heart can't wait forever. He is one of thousands in the same situation. They need homes yesterday, but they still wait. My husband does not see what I see and what I know. Joey finds himself still waiting for someone to see him and want him for their very own. There is another little man that waits with no real medical problems but he continues to wait. He will be four on his next birthday, yet he waits. Why do they wait? Why? Because we have a hard time giving up our luxurious lives to help someone in need. We personally don't live extravagantly, but we like to do what we like to do and we like to eat out and we like to buy our girls nice things and we don't compromise much on that. I am not sure that we could afford another adoption or two but at this point I would be willing to find out. I just ache for these kids and even if I am putting my adoption blogs on ignore any Asian child I see reminds me that there are 2200 children on the Chinese waiting child list and 2 out of 3 are boys. So ignore the blog, but the heart still knows the stats. I can't erase it because it hangs like a noose around this living, breathing, heart. It is there and it is very hard to ignore. At some point the heart will be heard and GOD will place it in our face at a time we least expect it. I am not sure how either of us will respond but I pray we make our LORD proud. My life is forever changed by the journey I have taken so far. I have been down a path of life and death of death and life and death and life. It curves in and out like a snake slithering through the grass. At times I have felt the life knocked out of me and at times I felt GOD breath the life into me. I go day to day praying that it will end with me feeling some sense of accomplishment on the life side before death catches up with me again. I continue to believe and have faith that GOD has plans for me. He says so in Jeremiah. I am happy with my life, but I know there is more that I have to do for the glory of GOD. Our children are our legacy they are what we leave behind. We have to teach them the right thing to do in all circumstances. We have to be examples of faith and love and hope. We must show them what it is to live our lives for GOD. We must be faithful to GOD's word and we must live by His word. It is what keeps on the right path until He takes us home. So, I pray for His guidance daily and I pray He shows me the right path to take in all circumstances. I pray for the boys of China and I pray for my own heart and the noose that lives around it.