Enigma

Two years ago today I saw my son’s face for the first time. I remember everything about that day. I remember the dragonfly socks—part of a matching pair for us—that I wore in memory of my grandma. I remember working in the “command center” while supporting a new application implementation at work. I remember the call. And the tears. I remember calling my mother and the sound of the gravel gritting under her feet as she sprinted for the car. I remember feeling absolutely enamored and completely confused.

My son is, in some ways, as much as an enigma today as he was the first time I saw him. I was expecting a scrawny, sickly, pale, unhappy child. What I saw was a chubby baby with the most beautiful golden brown skin that I had ever laid my eyes on. In one of his first photos I saw a happy giggling baby, but in subsequent photos I saw something else. A child that looked somewhat desperate, his eyes searching for something he couldn’t verbalize. At the time I looked past all that not seeing what I didn’t yet understand. Three and a half months later I walked into his orphanage, picked him up and both of our lives changed. Instead of crying he held my face with both of his hands, smiled and held my stare as I cried. As the days turned to months I realized that he was looking for a family. The before and after photos on the mantle paint a different picture of his life in an orphanage.

I know my son better than anyone else alive. I know his favorite color (yellow), I know that nothing in life makes him as happy as Opa & Oma, race cars, helicopters and ambulances. I know the expression he makes when he feels unsure about someone that approaches us. I know how ornery he is and what words will make him laugh until he throws his head back and giggles a high pitch little giggle that only little children can do.

Yet I find myself looking at him and aching for all the things I don’t know. For the questions I have and the questions that he will someday have. We often get comments on how similar we are—same evil giggle, same infectious belly laugh. We are both ornery. We have the same horrific cowlicks and the same strange hereditary ear birth defect (until the international doctor told me it was a birth defect I just always thought of it as a family trait—and don’t bother comparing our ears in this picture because you can’t see it). People can say all those things and more, but I know those things belong to the faces of two people I have never met.

My birthday was this week. My friends and family know the worst thing they can tell me is “I know what you are getting for your birthday!”. It makes me crazy, the unknowing. Even if it is a good thing it still makes me crazy. And every once in a while I feel that same crazy when I look at my son. I hate the not knowing.

And because I can’t leave you without something fun, check out this video. I almost blew lemonade out my nose when it came on the TV. This is so Duc.