A Daughter from China Ponders the Question: "Where Were You Born?"

My daughter's innocence recedes with each passing day. 

It seems only a short while ago she and I were riding about town in the family wagon, talking about the trip we would someday take to China.  At the thought of it, she'd thrown up her arms and burst out:

"Everyone will be there to greet me!"  

She is, most certainly, surrounded with love and affirmation in our protected little pocket of life here in the U.S.  So it wasn't totally surprising she'd developed a rather optimistic view both of life, and herself.  But though I loved the ebullience of her outlook and her expectations, I knew too her view of China had become a bit... inflated.

This is no longer the case, in part, because I have worked to help her develop a more balanced, more complete view, not only of our country, but of her birth country.  Certainly, no place is perfect.  After confronting the hard facts of her abandonment last spring and grieving her losses, she knows this.  But she appears to have weathered the worst of it -- and come out the other side.  The result?  My nine year old has developed a sense of humor tinged with irony.

Driving home together from school last Thursday, she mentioned one of her friends had been born at a local, neighborhood hospital.  The topic had come up at school and friends had launched into a full discussion of who was born at which hospital.  Inevitably, the question was posed to my daughter.  As I drove the last few blocks to our house, she relayed the ensuing exchange in a punchy, sassy tone with an implied sub-text:  Were y'all raised in a barn? Don't you know families struggled in China?

"They asked me which hospital I was born at, Mom.  I said, 'What do you mean which hospital?!  Where was I born?  I don't know!  I probably wasn't born in a hospital.  I was probably born... on the floor!'"

Her timing was so keen, her phrasing so pithy, I burst out laughing. 

I meant to follow-up and check in with her, but we pulled in front of the house and groceries, dinner, the dog, the demands of homework, and the flow of a busy weeknight evening carried us straight through to bedtime.  Of course, as with most unfinished business, it all came back to me the next morning -- at 2am.  The conversation echoed in my brain and I wondered if I'd missed my cue and been hugely insensitive, if this was something eating at her self-esteem.  I made a mental note to check in with her in a quiet moment the next day, when we could sit face to face, when I could see her expression.

"Remember the conversation you shared with me about your friends, about where you were born?" I ask.  "Were you upset about this?  Was it bothering you?" I pause, then wince a little, "Should I not have laughed?"

She looks straight at me and an enormous grin spreads over her face. 

"I was joking Mom." 

She was having fun with them.  She was having fun with me. 

It's patently clear she's in command of her story and how she will frame it.

The Charm & Challenge of China

Two and half years before I adopted my daughter, when my girl was nothing more than the germ of an idea planted, lying in wait, at the back of my mind, I decided to go to China.

I figured if adoption was feasible, if motherhood was pending, I should try and sate my appetite for adventure while I had the chance. I’d always wanted to see the Great Wall and thought, if I was going to adopt from China, it made sense to visit – to see if I felt an affinity for the people and the culture.

REI offered a bike tour through southeast China’s most picturesque country, through Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The literature waxed poetic, painting peaceful, pastoral scenes of picturesque hamlets, villages, farms, crystal clear running rivers, and towering karst limestone mountains, scenes that inspired China’s great painters and poets. I signed on and convinced my friend Carol to join me. We embarked on rigorous training rides, imagining, anticipating the bucolic charms of China.

The reality proved slightly different.

By November ‘98, I found myself biking along a dirt path bisecting a long and narrow dike. It was our group’s first day out riding on open roads -- but all I could think was how relieved I was to leave the smog, the tension of the cities and towns, the odd looks from the locals, the stern lectures from our guide, and the ominously empty 7 Star Crag Park with its haunting lakes and lush gardens. To say the trip had strange, uneasy beginnings, that I had misgivings, was an understatement.

Our small group of six had flown into Hong Kong, briefly explored the smog-infested city, and stayed the night. Early the next morning, we boarded a commuter ferry and rode 4 hours up the Pearl River, deeper into the smog, squinting through thick layers of gray and brown haze. Factories and cranes, -- heavy industry -- hugged the shoreline.

I’m in China, I thought. So why am I thinking …Newark, New Jersey?

I exchanged nervous glances with Carol but said nothing. We landed in the PRC, in the town of Zhaoqing, and met our guide and driver. As we bumped and bounced along in our shock-absorbent-free tour van, our guide, Ji-wei, turned to welcome us. He had a solid muscular build, short cropped hair, a wholesome face, and a broad, handsome smile. Using close-to-impeccable English, he gave us an introduction, a lecture really, on modern China’s history.


China, or Chinese, he explained, was really Western nomenclature. For thousands of years, the people have called their country Zhōngguó, meaning central or middle kingdom, the world that lies between the celestial heavens and the underworld. (Hint, hint, he seemed to be saying, the center of civilization.) Mao Tse Tung the father of modern China, defeated the corrupt, debauched General Chiang Kai-Shek after a long and difficult civil war. (The notion of a Communist Revolution, again, was a western construct.) The Russians were not involved but America had meddled intrusively, backing the evil General. Mao understood and supported the people, lifting China up and out of oppressive imperial rule and medieval privilege. Deng Xiao Ping brought economic reforms and further transformed the country.

Lecture complete, the group stopped for lunch at an eerily empty resort, a place bounded by karst limestone formations and filled with pools, lakes, quiet paths, pavilions, pagodas, and lush green gardens. With little explanation (and a touch of disdain?) our guide noted the man who’d designed and built the elegant 7 Star Crag Park had paid for it with his life -- in the Cultural Revolution.

What to say? The group grew silent. Had I made a mistake? What were we doing here? I avoided Carol’s glances.

We climbed back into the van and headed deeper into the country. The van stopped again and Carol and I, and the others, tested and fitted our bikes. We set out, peddling, climbing a path up onto the dike, looking for a touch of something less …official, less ominous, more authentic.

A school girl rode her bike up beside us. She asked timidly, in broken English, if we were American. We nodded, smiled, and showed her our map. She offered to show us the way and asked if she might ride with us and practice her English. We nodded, Sure. We rode. We chatted. We began to relax.


Over the next 9 days, we biked 50-60 miles a day -- and encountered China, in all its rich, confusing complexity. We found a rapidly changing landscape, a country undergoing massive change, on a massive scale. We found a people, a culture, as charming as it was forbidding.

We biked through the country and saw paddies, fields, and farmland that glowed green and gold in the sun, even as coal factories hovered on the horizon, belching black plumes of unscrubbed smoke. We watched fishermen setting their nets, families working their fields, threshing rice, raking grain, burning the empty stalks. Those who weren’t fishing or working the land, dug ditches, lay roads, logged forests, erected new concrete and brick structures.

Everyone worked. Well, almost everyone. We passed clusters of men in small towns, lingering in pool halls, smoking, loitering in the square, leering as we passed. We noticed more often than not, that women and children worked in the fields. They carried astonishing loads, on heads, shoulders, bikes, and backs, lugging firewood, brush, persimmons, potatoes, hay, and big buckets of water. They smiled as we passed even when their bodies bowed under the loads they bore.

Some of the people were poor. Dirt poor. We passed a few places where hygiene seemed non-existent. The bathrooms were the worst I’d ever seen, putrid, open air fly-fests.

Ji-wei reminded us of China’s difficult history, of floods, famine, and quakes, of the terrible loss of life. The forces of nature prevailed. In the end, human life was fragile -- and cheap. It’s why, he explained, nature looms large in classical Chinese painting. Humans are small, insignificant figures against a larger landscape.

I looked for ways to encourage our typically tight lipped guide to share more of his life and culture. When I learned he had an 8 year old daughter, I asked for the stories he told her. He shared two examples:

The first was the story of a boy who rescued a sick, injured wolf he saw scrambling to escape a horde of hungry villagers. The boy took the wolf home and nursed him back to health. Later, when suspicious villagers confronted the boy, he hid the wolf in the folds of his coat. But the wolf chewed through the boy’s stomach -- and the boy dropped to his death.

Ji-wei stopped.

That’s it? I asked, somewhat shocked. (Where was the happy ending? )

Uh huh, Ji-wei nodded.

And.. the moral of the story is..?

If you show your enemy weakness, Ji-wei replied, he will destroy you.

Oh...!

Ji-wei launched right into his second example, a tale of a famous general. His troops had fought a long, hard campaign but ended up outnumbered, cornered with their backs to the sea. Several ships lay at anchor nearby but, as the enemy approached, the general burned every last ship, the men’s sole means of escape. The soldiers were forced to stand and fight.

So... they beat the odds and won? I asked hopefully.

No. Ji-wei replied. They were slaughtered.

I paused, eyebrows elevated. And, the lesson is…?
True patriotism is when you stand and fight to the finish -- even in the face of terrible odds.

It was the last story I asked for.

We continued along open roads, biking from town to town. We passed men peddling to market on rattling, rusted bikes that creaked and groaned with the weight of 200 pound pigs, or huge 100 pound sacks of grain slung over the back of the bike. We passed women hacking raw boulders out of the hillside. They wore straw hats, thin blouses, cotton trousers, and flip flops and worked with young children seated beside them.

It dawned on us what a sight we were -- in our space-age helmets, special shoes, spandex shorts, and padded seat pants. We rode brightly colored bikes with aluminum frames and fat tires, using fancy sprockets and shifters. We carried maps and a camera.

And yet, while a few people hid, or averted their gaze, others stopped and stared at us openly. More more often than not, the stares turned to grins, then smiles. They welcomed us with great curiosity and warmth. Mothers held up their children and waved. School boys rushed to greet us while the girls, more bashful, held back, wide-eyed, soaking in the sight of us.

One small girl with dirty hands, dirty face, dirty clothes, ran to bring me a present: a single, soot-covered taro. I was loathe to take it (was it dinner?) but I couldn’t refuse her.

We passed through local “hamlets” -- towns of 200,000, small cities of 500,000, and mid-sized cities of millions. We dodged pedestrians, pushcarts, pedal carts, pigs, bicyclists, buffalo, cars, cats, trucks, ruts, boulders, ditches, and dogs. The sheer number of people was staggering.

At the end of the trip, I traveled north to see Xian and Beijing. Streets and shops with neon signs promoted modern life’s amenities, from designer clothes to electronic gadgets. Young women wore make-up and tight trendy clothing. Men sported suits and cell phones. Still, signs of poverty and ill-health remained. I don’t recall seeing anyone with a weight problem and the smiles of many, especially the elderly, revealed crowded teeth, crooked teeth, missing teeth, even blackened yellow teeth. Beggars, some deranged, some deformed, wandered at will.

I saw the Terra Cotta warriors, the Great Wall, the Imperial and Summer Palaces and marveled. But I cringed at the sound of long throaty wind-ups, at men flinging their phlegm. I watched in amazement as parents held out their babies to pee through split pants at the edge of a public sidewalk. And I winced at the treatment of rabbits, chicks, cats, and dogs in various public markets.

We arrived back in the States and it felt good to be home. I looked through my pictures and saw China had so many different textures, so many different faces: people like Ji-wei, the official face of China. But also everyday people, the men, women and children we passed in farms, on fields, by the rivers and roads -- the unofficial China, the people trying to eek out a life, all the while smiling and welcoming us with a warmth that was hard to forget.

My favorite photo remains the one I took of the school girl we met that first day on the dike. She looks back over her shoulder and holds up her finger, as if she is pointing the way, beckoning me on toward my future.

Now my daughter and I join other FCC families. We celebrate Chinese New Year, Egg hunts, Moon festivals, and Heritage Camps. My daughter loves learning the language. She loves the martial arts, the dances, the costumes, the chance to perform. I watch her partake with pride. But part of me wonders if she’s learning Chinese culture or, if really she’s learning what is, for the most part, white, adoptive America’s take on Chinese culture. And I wonder someday if, when she travels to China, she will discover a deep rooted connection but also, a dissonance -- confronting that part of herself that is, like her mother, deeply American.

One Small Step After Another

She brought home an assignment from school and it read: My Family’s Journey West.

My daughter’s social studies teacher had been teaching the class about the hardships families endured on the Oregon trail: about rutted roads and rusty wagons, about couger, coyote, snake, bear, wolves, withering desert, disease, frigid mountains, frostbite, and of course hostile natives.



It's now your turn, the teacher wrote. She wanted to know how each of their families came to live in the West. It was time, to tell your family story … and to share a family heirloom or treasure… Bring in your essay and heirloom to share with the class. It will be fun.

Fun? I thought. Fun?! Was the Oregon trail .. fun? Is root canal .. fun?

Okay, so perhaps I was feeling just a wee-bit cranky. And a tad worn out. Worn out from the upset and worry of the past few weeks. Worn out from fighting a phantom birth mother. Worn out from fighting a horrible cold or flu I was still trying to shake.

I adore history. But now I see I love history, in part, because I didn’t have to live through it.

Of course, the teacher couldn’t have known what had been happening at home these past few weeks. So I told my daughter she had lots of choices. She could draw from any number of family stories. But she was decided. She wanted to share her story. She liked the idea of flipping the assignment on its head. She crossed out the words Family’s and West and wrote East so it read: My Journey East.


But that’s as far as she got. The notepad lay on the dining room table with its glorious title and empty page, waiting. Days passed. The weekend came and I asked her to take some time and focus. I suggested again she could write about something else, but she remained firm. I suggested she use her homecoming book (i.e. her life book) as a guide. She liked this idea and asked to sit and review it together. We sat on the couch and revisited each page, each photo, and reveled in happy moments. But when it came time to write, she fell apart and the question poured forth once more: Why did they leave me?

We set the notepad aside. I thought maybe more context would help. I tried to explain that people in China aren’t free in the way we are here. We talked about what freedom meant. We talked about the terrible penalties imposed on those exceeding the one-child quota. I told her a little of the Cultural Revolution. Of Tiananman Square. Of how dangerous it was and is to speak out against the government. We talked. We cuddled. The notepad page remained blank but I let the essay go.

The next morning, the pad sat there waiting for her on the dining room table right where she’d left it. I asked yet again if she wanted to write about something else. No, she wanted to tell her story. So I suggested she write a short, single sentence about how she came to the orphanage and leave it at that. She could focus on the journey, our becoming a family and finally -- the essay unfolded. She wrote a page and a half. All that was left was the heirloom. But she looked tired and I suggested she finish later that day.

She played long, hard, and happily with a buddy. It was good to hear laughter.

That night, as I started on dinner, she sat down again with the essay. Of all the mementoes I’d saved from our trip, she liked best the little yellow cloth sandals she’d worn the day I met her. She studied them now. They were frayed and soiled with delicate yellow leaves on the instep and tiny doll faces smiling sweetly. A pale pink rosebud clung tenaciously by a thread to the left shoe while its mate had long since vanished. The sandals had squeakers embedded in their soles to encourage one small step after another.

I don’t know what to write Mom.

She says this a lot with her homework. Mostly it means: I’m not in the mood to deal with this, Mom. Can’t you tell me what to write? We’ve joked about this. She is highly capable. (This is your homework, honey. You’re supposed to take it home, sit with it, and give it some thought. Your teacher didn’t say -- Here, take this home! Give it to your mom!)

This was no time to joke.

Think about what the shoes mean to you, honey. What do they make you think about?

Nothing. I don’t know. She was tired, resistant.

I searched for ideas and thought, Maybe its time to emphasize the happy part of her story -- as Jonna suggested.

Well… maybe you could think of the shoes as a memento of the day you started a whole new chapter of your life… with me.

She dissolved. Why did you have to say that...?

We were back again in the primordial swamp of her grief.

That’s not happy..?

No! The tears poured out. I wish you’d left me there Mom. I wish you’d never taken me from China. I wish I was back there now.

Back in the orphanage? Really..?

Yes!

I wanted to argue with her, to remind her how lovely our life is, how much we have, how much I love her, how there was no future for her in the orphanage. That she couldn’t have stayed with her foster mom. But I saw she was genuinely distraught and realized I was wrestling with a demon thing, raw inconsolable pain. It defied expectations or any known form of logic. I rubbed her back, squeezed her arm weakly, and told her I was sorry. And suddenly, I was too wounded, too tired, to argue. I removed myself to the bathroom.

I was talked out. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe there’s a point where talking is no longer helpful.

We got through dinner -- I don't know how -- and spent a quiet evening. I read. She bathed. I tucked her in bed, kissed her good night, and told her I loved her.

She left for school the next morning. Alone at last, I lost it. But then, I wiped my tears, and sat down at my desk to work. I had the whole day before me. Quiet. Peaceful. Healing. I went for a long walk. Soaked in the warmth of the sun.

My brother called and offered to pick her up from after-school sewing. They’d been planning this special night for a while. Wednesday was my birthday and my daughter was dying to surprise me, to bake me a cake. Did I care about the cake? Did I need a cake? No, not really. Did I love the thought? Absolutely. And, a free day that stretched into the evening? It was rare, very rare. It hit me I needed to take more breaks. I decided, if friends asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I’d come clean: Take my child for an afternoon. Or an evening. I needed a little more breathing room. We both needed it. It was healthy.

Her uncle picked her up. They went and bought ingredients. Then he watched while she baked the cake on her own. Me? I took myself out for a simple, blissfully quiet dinner. By the time I arrived home, the two were sitting on the living room couch, waiting. My daughter was smiling broadly, bursting with excitement, with joy.

Happy Birthday Mom!

The cake was gorgeous and we served up three huge portions.

Two days later, again with the aid of her uncle, my daughter surprised me with breakfast in bed, a bagel, coffee, and fresh squeezed juice.

Happy Birthday Mom!

So now, it’s official. I’ve left an entire decade behind and started in on a new one. I turned 50 this week. Good friends with kind hearts (and poor vision?) say, No! Can’t be possible? You can’t be 50. No Way!

In my head, I think: Way. Oh, way, way, way, way, way, way….

Of Loss and Joy and Desiring

She takes distinct delight in reviewing my criminal record. Fortunately, the record is clear.

She sits up high and proud in my big swivel desk chair in my office. I am seated below her, on a footstool by my files (okay, a bank of files,) and have pulled out our adoption paperwork. It’s been three days since the night she asked me about secrets. When she shared her fear I might not be who I say I am. That maybe I locked her birthmother away. I’d offered, when we had the time, to show her these papers.

Now, it’s Sunday morning and we have no plans. We can take what time we need. My goal is to be open with her, to show her I’ve nothing to hide, that I am who I say I am, that my intentions were and have always come from the heart. How else can she trust me?

She gets a kick imagining me as supplicant. Now I am the one reviewed and graded by the authorities, social workers, government bodies. She reads my application essay and references aloud. She raises her eyebrows discerningly at my medical report and giggles over my financial statement. But it’s the criminal check she really enjoys.

I share excerpts from random notes and letters, then discover the fax I wrote from the hotel to family on the day she became my daughter. I read it aloud.

... She has the sweetest little moonface!

Moonface?! she sputters, indignant.

Well.. sorry. I thought it was sweet at the time.

I go through file after file of our US paperwork, then remember a separate place I stored all our Chinese documents. She is fascinated by her passport.

Can I keep this?

Of course. I say. I kept it for you.
Later, she will store it in a special keepsake box in her closet and show me what she has done.

I find our Chinese certificates. There is one for the actual adoption, one that identifies me as the person I say I am. And one that certifies who she is. We read each in turn, silently together, including the last:

This is to certify that ___________, female, was born on January 17th, 2000 and was found to be abandoned at the No. 13 of Huangzhoudadao, Huanggang City, Hubei Province on January 25th, 2000. So far, her innate parents and other relatives could not be found.
I look up. She is crestfallen. It’s as if the light has left her face. She spins the chair round and starts playing frantic tug of war with Max and one of his fluffy toys. But there’s no joy in her play. Only nervous, upset energy.
That had to hurt, I say. Pause. You know… Its okay to be sad.

Nothing.

Are you sad?

A nod, yes. Tears.

Are you mad?
Why didn’t they come back for me?!

I hesitate.

I don’t know honey. I’d guess the government penalties were too severe. They were afraid. Or they couldn’t care for an infant. What if they couldn’t feed you, or clothe you, or bathe you? What if... this was a way to keep you safe?

She is silent.

I don’t know.

She lets me hold her for a bit, but then pulls away and wanders up to her room. The rest of the day is subdued. She does homework. We watch a movie. “I’m just not myself today” she offers. She seems older suddenly. I reach out reflexively, to touch her shoulder, to stroke her hair, to rub the nape of her neck.

She goes to the piano and sits. For her, this is usually play and her fingers literally fly up and down over the keys. She’s learning Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, a favorite. I love the piece too, but today, she plays it so slowly I think,

Even the piano sounds sad.

I realize how foolish it is for adoptive parents to think we can make all the pain go away by showing our children they’re not alone, that there are thousands of girls like them, that this has been happening in China for decades, and continues even today. Everyone loses a parent. Does it make it less painful when it happens to you? When our girls discover this loss for themselves… that loss is loaded down with something more crushing: abandonment. It’s the most profound rejection there is… that of a parent, when you are new to the world, when, body and soul, you’re as naked as you’ll ever be.

I look at my daughter’s face, the sag of her shoulders, and wonder when, if, how, she will recover. I find it hard to eat.

I am not religious but I do have great faith in the power of love, in the power and resilience of the human soul. My life as a parent has taught me that much. So why do I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, watching, waiting. That night, I fall into bed exhausted, unable to sleep.

She wakes the next morning, well rested. There’s a hint of the old bounce as she heads out the door to catch her ride to school. I need the day to breathe, to run errands, to catch up on the mountain of work at my desk. But I take time to search the web for books and resources that might help us on this journey. And I place a call to a counselor.

She returns home that night the exuberant child I remember. She dances and babbles on about the day, sharing fun word puzzles and math problems, hoping to stump me. It’s a relief to see her lighthearted again. But I am slow this time to trust it.

I stand fixing dinner and she marches into the kitchen with her old, well-loved, well thumbed Homecoming book. It's both photo album and story. Our story, drafted by yours truly, of how we became a family.

Come on Mom! she announces. Let’s read this aloud. Together.
I shove dishes, half chopped vegetables, a bottle of oil, a tray of butter, a container of cheese and a large cutting board off to one side -- and sit down beside her. We take turns reading the text (Sassy lass! She corrects my grammar!) and we pour over the photos. She is full of happy questions, curious questions, probing questions, some old and some new. We laugh and crack jokes. As we get to those first shots from the morning we met, she laughs at her mom’s face, red with emotion, then points to the healthy, pink-cheeked cherub held and fussed over by two adoring Ayis:

Look at that little moonface, Mom!

We bust up -- and never get to the end of the book. It doesn’t matter. We know the story by heart. We end up sporting giant red oven mitts, fencing, sparring, and slapping at each other, dancing, dodging, and bopping about the kitchen till suddenly my girl dissolves in a fit of giggles onto the floor.

Warriors

The rain has been relentless. It's gray and cold and late in the day and we’re driving home from Chinese class. My daughter reminds me I promised to buy her a book from her favorite series, The Warriors. I joke about being a softie, then pull into the parking lot by the grocery store. The bookstore lies across the way. As I turn the key in the ignition, the car grows quiet except for the slow, steady tap of the rain. My daughter confides:

Mom, I worry you’re not really who you say you are.

This is the second time she’s offered this. The first time we talked was three nights ago, in my bed. She asked if I had any secrets, if I was hiding things from her. If maybe I’d locked her birth mother away in a cabinet.

I'd paused. Stroked her arm. Asked questions. I tried to explain – gently -- that I never met her birth mother. That I didn’t come along till later. She arrived at the orphanage a 7 day old baby and was placed in her foster mother’s care. I arrived a year and a half later. We went into her room and I pulled Kids Like Me in China by Ying Ying Frye from her book shelf and asked if she’d seen it. If she wanted to see it. She wanted to. So I scootched in behind my daughter on her bed and held her as she turned the pages, reading, studying every picture. The photos of the children are sweet, but they’re sobering. The room fell unnaturally quiet. My heart throbbed in my throat. We talked a little more but she was subdued and I knew I shouldn’t push. So I tucked her into bed, kissed her, hugged her, and told her I loved her.

I hated she had to face that.

For the next three days it felt as though my stomach had flipped and couldn’t quite right itself. It rattled me to think my daughter could think me evil or possibly hurtful. That she might lose her sense of trust. That she might be afraid. Of me.

This is a child who’s watched me gingerly capture lady bugs and bees in glass jars in our house so we could free them from her window.

My first reaction was to second guess myself. She is so very sensitive. I try incredibly hard to be patient, to communicate, to be logical, loving, and fair. But I’m a parent. I get frustrated, and I get testy. Her radar is so acute. She takes it all to heart. It doesn’t leave a lot of room to be human.

Was I really that awful? That scary?

A part of me wanted to ask her more questions, to reason with her, yes, even argue with her. I wanted to defend myself. Then, a small voice in my head whispered: This is not about you.

I stepped back and tried to ponder if there might be another reason for her to think this. Perhaps she’s not thinking evil or scary. She knows I love her. We have our own little mutual adoration society. Maybe… maybe she saw me as …desperate? A single mom so wanting a child she might steal from another…?

I struggled but knew I had to hold off, to be patient and offer quiet hints of support. And wait. I had to make it safe for her to talk and let her choose her moment.

The rain drums harder on the roof of the car now. I twist round and look back at my daughter on the seat. I feel, I hope, if I am still, very still, perhaps she will tell me more.

You worry I’m not who I say I am?

Yes. I worry Mom.

Tell me more, honey.

I worry you’re just being nice to me but that… maybe you might hurt me…

My heart feels almost too big for my chest. My child thinks I want to hurt her. It’s beyond imagining. I wonder if the world as I’ve known it may be slowly breaking apart.

Oh honey… do you really think I could ever hurt you?

Well… not you maybe… but that maybe you might hire someone…

But… why…? How could I ever hurt you? I love you, honey.

Its hard to breathe. I need to breathe. And be still. And listen. Closely.

Well… I wonder if maybe you locked my birth mother in a cabinet somewhere…

But… that would truly be a horrible thing to do, wouldn’t it?

She nods sadly, agreeing. Her eyes fill. A lone tear drops onto her cheek.

Do you really think I could do that to another mother? I ask this gently. That would be just awful. Wouldn’t it?

She nods and agrees again. More tears drop down, dotting her cheek. She leans forward to rest her elbows on the compartment between the two front seats.

Do I really scare you?

She nods a weak no. A few more tears escape. She lowers her face in her arms as if she is weary. I feel sick. Heartbroken. I ask, almost beg, her to come and sit with me in the front. I want to gather her in my arms. She nods her head weakly again, no.

I ask if it's okay then if I might come back and sit beside her. She nods her assent. But when I do, she leans forward, away from me, hiding her face and her tears in her arms. She seems so conflicted.

I place my palm on her back and rub, gently. Very gently.

We are quiet. Together.

Then… a thought …

Do you think.. that maybe.. you worry about this because it’s just too hard to believe you could have been born to one mother, half a world away, but now, you’re here with me?

A bigger nod, yes. She is only half facing me but I see a fresh well of tears surge up. They fill her eyes and course down her cheeks.

I pause.

Do you think… maybe…. it might be easier to believe I could be evil than to imagine your birth mother could have ever actually… let you go?

She lifts her head and finally turns to look at me directly. Her face puckers and breaks with emotion and I reach to draw her gently toward me, into my lap. She lets me. Drawing her knees in close, she sobs openly, releasing the sadness.

Oh honey. It hurts doesn’t it? I’m so sorry.

I stroke her arm and we cry together.

Minutes pass. Then she sits up and wipes her face clean and takes a deep breath.

Okay Mom. Another sigh. Let’s go get that book now.

I try to pull it together even though my insides are jelly.

Okay. How do I look?

She manages a small smile and shakes her head.

You’re a mess, Mom. A mess.

We pull on our hoods and climb out of the car. She takes tight hold of my hand and we dodge through the rain together.

How I Came to My Decision

Every time I thought about the idea of adopting a child from China, a dozen different fears leapt forward and crowded in close around me like a horde of hungry pigeons at the park. You know, the kind that attack the pedestrians with the peanuts. They hover. They sense what’s coming and they’re poised and ready to strike.

I had so many questions, so many concerns. They stalked me.

How would I do it alone? What would I do if she got sick? Could I afford a child? Would other families accept us? What if my family wouldn’t accept her? What if we didn’t like each other? What if I couldn’t handle it?

It was overwhelming to think about it and I didn’t know how to think about it. So I pushed the decision away. At the back of my mind, there was still that glimmer of hope the right man would arrive (complete with armor and dashing steed) making the question irrelevant.

My life continued and followed a reliable rhythm. I tended to my dog. We went on long walks each day and he gave me great joy. I consulted. I wrote. I took dance classes, and I dated. But the relationships didn’t gel for me and one day I stopped to study my face in the mirror. My 40th birthday was not all that far off and I wondered if my life, in the end, would be nothing more than the sum of a string of broken relationships. Then, it struck me. What if avoiding the decision to adopt, became in effect, by default, a decision not to adopt? A non-decision kind of decision. I didn’t want to wake up when I was 45 or 50 -- in a panic -- with regrets. The question presented itself:

Did I really want to go through life without the chance to love and raise a child?

I wish I could say I grabbed my sword and shield and swashbuckled my way (complete with bandana and eye-patch) aboard a ship bound for China. The truth is: I sat down at my desk, grabbed a pen, a blank sheet of paper, and sketched out a list.

A list? you might ask.

Yes. I know it sounds terribly clinical and logical and I hate to disappoint. But it started with that list. Not that everything else flowed clearly and smoothly from that point forward. Hardly. But I’m jumping ahead...

I scribbled down all the questions and concerns that for months had circled relentlessly along well worn paths in my brain. It was cathartic to get it down on paper, to release it, and look at it. Suddenly, the demons didn’t look quite so daunting. I sat back and looked at the first question -- and realized there were ways to address it.

Before I knew it, I’d created a second column on the page (Be still, my little linear heart!) I worked through the questions, one by one. I scratched out some numbers, rough figures, and a few calculations. Then I paused and stared. For each question there was a practical solution or answer. It hit me:

I could do this.

My mouth went dry and my hands felt cold. This was do-able. I had flexible work hours and was financially secure. There were innumerable local and community resources for me to draw upon. Most importantly, I had a strong support network and loving family I could, most likely, bring round. It hit me again:

I could do this.

Then something odd happened. A well of sadness surged up within of me. I broke down and wept.

For all my logical, practical thinking, there was something I hadn’t yet reconciled. Taking this step meant giving the nod, giving in, letting go: facing the death of a dream. We grow up with this dream and we take it for granted. It’s the dream of sharing the journey.

I’m not ready.

I tucked the paper away.

Max and I walked two, even three miles a day, by a nearby lake, through a beautiful arboretum. We walked rain or shine, though it mostly rained. It was early spring and we walked under gray clouds and gray skies through gray drizzle along gray gravelly paths down by the water’s edge.

My feelings didn’t shift overnight. Our walks continued and I let myself feel sad. New shoots of grass sprouted by the shoreline and the cattails and pussy willows opened. Fresh shades of green overtook the gray and the birds grew noisy. One day the sun poked through the thick canopy of clouds and I stopped to watch a swallow dart, swerve, and flirt with his reflection in the water. A light white feather, a puff of cotton, floated by on a current of air. The swallow swooped and grabbed the cottony puff tight in his bill. He flew with it -- then released it. It hung suspended, right where he left it. The swallow turned, darted, swooped, dove, and caught it again. I laughed. When I turned to resume my walk, I noticed a man in the distance walking with a child strapped onto his back. I flashed on an image of myself, walking with my daughter packed snug and close to my body.

I felt no sadness. Only a twinge of excitement.