Thursday, March 28, 2019

Fourteen years ago today...

...we adopted Annabelle! Last night  I found myself remembering where I was on that night 14 years ago. In Hunan China. In a hotel with 10 other families, all of us waiting for morning when a bus would pull up and we would climb in and go to a government building and get our babies. How did I even sleep that night? I remember looking at the crib in the hotel room, empty, as if waiting for a baby to fill it. I remember arranging stuffed animals in it, folding and refolding the baby blanket knit together square by square by loving friends. I remember laying out the baby clothes, the diapers and bottles, the tiny shoes. We are spicy food with bad Great Wall if China wine. How did I even sleep that night?

Most of the people I loved supported the decision to add to our family after Grace died. But a very few worried it wasn’t the right thing to do. Me? I knew in my bones that it was exactly right, and I never once thought otherwise. This morning I realized that Grace had been dead almost exactly three years when we boarded that plane to Beijing, and the pain of losing her was still searing hot and ever present. But suddenly something else was moving in: joy.

At 10:00 the bus arrived and in no time we were being rushed into a room in that government building. Orphanage workers with babies ran down the corridor outside the room and before our guide closed the door I saw Annabelle, scared and confused, race past. If they hadn’t called us to come out I might have run after her. In no time our name was called and Annabelle was in our arms. I knew immediately that I would kill for her if I had to. The love I felt was that instantaneous. She was mine.

Somehow fourteen years have passed. Unbelievably, that baby in the purple footy pajamas is a freshman in high school, fluent in French, voracious reader, math whiz, card shark, loyal friend, fierce defender of what is right, hardworking student, musical theatre lover, loyal sister, teasing companion to my husband, cat owner, purple haired, curious traveler, my sidekick in all things, my daughter. My love and gratitude for her and for the mystery of this glorious mess called life knows no bounds.