Chance

I don’t believe in the fortunes found in Chinese cookies, but you will still find them all over my house. Inspiration, at times, in a slip of paper. This one is wedged in the medicine cabinet in my master bathroom. I see it every morning when I wash my face and brush my teeth and it is the last thing I see before I go to bed. Sometimes in my rush I gloss over it. And over time it has a way of slipping into the background the way wallpaper does. But I notice when it is missing.

This reminds me to live in this moment. That every moment I have a choice. Turn left or right. Maybe even go back. Stillness is as much a choice as motion.

it is a reminder that my life is not yet set. I am still living and my circumstances don’t cage the desires of my heart and the choices it makes.

It is a reminder that amazing and beautiful things come from choices—and chances—sometimes I see exactly what I want and other times I see exactly what I need to see.

It is a reminder that every once in a while I need to have faith, take a step, however small, and take a chance.

My Favorite Boys

My two favorite boys. I love to see the way they interact with each other. The way they look at each other. The devilish grins they exchange. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked over and caught my dad teaching D something he shouldn’t know. I love the expression on my dad’s face when I catch him. I’m glad that I have had the opportunity to see my dad like this.

One of my favorite photos of my dad and grandfather was taken when my dad was about 10 years-old. The boys are looking at each other from the corner of their eyes. I found out later that Grandpa was actually tickling or scratching at the back of the head hence the sideways expression. I’ve caught Duc doing the same sideways look a number of times over the last month. And one of these days I will capture that image as my grandma caught it with her “boys”.

‘I will always come back for you’

Over the last two years I have found myself re-writing my son’s birth and relinquishment story.  There was a part of me, I am ashamed to admit, that hoped that I was one of the families that had doctored papers.  I wanted to believe that my son’s mother walked into the orphanage, kissed his forehead and signed the appropriate paperwork relinquishing her parental duties.  I wanted to believe that she was strong enough and loved him enough to make sure that he was never alone—that he went from her arms to the arms of the orphanage staff.  I wanted to believe that he felt safe and never felt alone.  That he never felt abandoned.

  

The more time that passes the more I realize that his paperwork was most likely very accurate.  The truth is, at some point he felt alone and he felt abandoned.  He felt scared and he wailed a panicked cry.  Perhaps it was that cry that drew the orphanage staff to his location.  I can only hope that his mother waited outside the gates in the dark until someone saw him and carried him inside.  If so, I can only imagine how she handled the anguished cry of her newborn.   Perhaps it wasn’t her that brought him to the orphanage.  Maybe it was a relative or a friend.  Either way, my son carries the scars from that time. 

 

Even after seeing how he gets upset when I leave him, I still can’t find it myself to feel anger towards his mother.  She made the best decision she could for her and her family at the time.  It frustrates me that I will likely never learn her identity because of the choices she made, but I also realize that if she had done things differently I would have never known him. 

This week a gentleman shared that he and his wife were planning on adopting once her body was no longer able to handle repeated pregnancies and c-sections.  They were interested in international adoption.  I told him what I knew.  That adopted children are NOT the same as bio children and they react to the same situations differently.  People view my son as a poster child for adoption since he is so well adjusted, friendly, loving, and happy.  But no child gets through their childhood unscathed—adopted or not.  And for my son the panicked cry every time I leave him, even if only for a few minutes, is not a ‘stage’ as most parents try to reassure me.  This is him.  Dealing with feeling abandoned.  It is me feeling frustrated and scared that I can’t make it better.