Category: Adoption Page 6 of 9

These first few days are the kind when you can only think 10 minutes into the future.  The rest is all hazy.

I came down with the stomach flu a couple days after Johnny came home.  Gil had pulled a muscle in his back while were at the orphanage and found himself in quite a bit of pain.  Little guy doesn’t want to go to sleep, and when he does, wakes up (and wakes us up) multiple times a night.  Um, kind of like a newborn, I’m guessing.

And yet not like a newborn.  Maybe more like when the undisciplined neighbor child comes to your house and doesn’t know the rules and messes everything up.  Like when he throws his entire bowl of eggs on the floor because he doesn’t want to eat them.  Or dumps a cup of water in the trash.  Or grabs the dog’s ears and sticks his fingers in her eyes.  Except unlike the neighbor kid, you can’t send him home in a couple hours.  It feels like a stranger is in the house.

So then you do discipline him because, well, he really can’t touch the stove, but there’s no long history of trust already built in the relationship.  Which makes that whole love-discipline balance a lot trickier than it already is, even when you’re only talking about one-minute time-outs.

Some of his tears are angry, but a few times, they have been sad.  It starts over something inconsequential, and quickly turns into chest-wracking, whole body sobbing.  Yesterday he said, over and over, I want to look for it!  I want to look for it!  But there was nothing to look for.  His three-year-old mind has no words to express what he has lost, but his heart is grown-up in what it feels.  I hold him and cry with him until he pushes me away.  He wants me, but he knows that somehow I am responsible for his pain.

In the midst of the sleeplessness and the haze and thoughts of, What did I get myself into?, there’s much more that I don’t want to forget.

On that first morning, Josiah told me, Mommy, when I knew that Johnny was coming home the next day, I wanted to jump out of the window and fly all the way home!  

And then, hours after the two met each other, Johnny said to his big brother, Njoo (Come) Josiah!  And Josiah turned to look at me with absolute wonder on his face.  Mommy!  He can say my name!  And he wants me to come!  

Or when he fell asleep on his big sister.

Or when he was terrified to get into the bathtub until I told him, Ogelea (Swim), Johnny!  and he realized that the bathtub was pretty much the same thing as a wading pool.  And then “swim” he did, as evidenced by the water all over the room.  Josiah said, I can’t wait for bathtime tomorrow night!

That sweet mixture of English and Swahili, the English coming out with the Tanzanian accent that I know will soon be lost.  How all birds are called vultures.  Except for crows, which are called penguins.

The most exciting part of the day is when he gets to go in the car.  Anywhere.  For any length of time. Coming in close second is the time of the day when he gets to pick out his underwear.

I listen to them laughing outside.  And I am given the gift of looking past the haze.  The orphan becomes a Son and a Brother.  The Becoming is painful and joyful, full of loss and gain, of dying to self and becoming a new person.  For him.  For us.

Monday, August 17th

Mwanza is 700 miles away in northern Tanzania, on the shores of Lake Victoria.  Gil, Lily, and I flew up in the afternoon.  Lily got to come because we were going to Forever Angels, My Orphanage, as Lily describes it.  She was two when she left.  She had no memory of it, so we aimed to fix that.  

We arrived at Forever Angels at 6:00 pm.  Hannah, one of the longer-term volunteers, was sitting outside with Johnny when we arrived.  She told us later that he had been so excited all day, eagerly telling anyone who would listen that he was getting a mama and baba, and would be going on the airplane.  

But when the longed-for moment came, he shrank inside himself.  He knew how to relate to us when we were just ordinary visitors–because he had seen a lot of those.  But a mama and baba?  No clue.  I crept up to him and sat with him on the couch, where he was clutching the picture of us that he had examined for the past two weeks.  

Since it was dinner time, the plan was to go to a restaurant together with Hannah and Georgie, volunteers that Johnny knew and loved well.  He let me hold him in the taxi, but during dinner, he stuck with Hannah.  His big eyes kept a worry crease, but usually we could get him to laugh.  

Tuesday, August 18th

We hung out in the Baby Home, which is not known for peace or quiet.  The children barrage any friendly face–or even not-so-friendly–the moment you step in the door.  If you’ve got an arm or a lap free–or part of a lap–they want in on it.  As far as they were concerned, even Lily was big enough to be fair game.  

When we went outside, we discovered Johnny was hiding behind a playhouse, which we were told he does often.  He let me hold him, but mostly he kept his distance.  I caught him solemnly watching us from across the garden.

At lunch time, we decided to take Johnny out with just us, to practice for that evening’s departure.  We ate at a deserted hotel down the road, where it was just our family.  We pushed on the swings and we played hide and seek, and Johnny was won over.  For a while, the worry line disappeared and the smile emerged.  I repeated to him what I had been saying all day.  Will you come on the airplane with us?  Will you come to our house?  Finally, instead of stoic eyes, I got tiny nods.  

Then we went to the social welfare office to make everything official.  

In the evening, we took Johnny back into the Baby Home to say goodbye.  The children mobbed him.  Kwa Heri, Johnny!  Good-bye, Johnny!  Hugs, kisses.

I couldn’t hold back the tears.  

Because so many had loved him.

Because the loss in his life is real.

Because there were so many others left behind.

He was so brave.  He took my hand, a total stranger, and walked off from the place he loved.  So much trust in one little three-year-old boy.  

He fought sleep for hours, taking in dozens of new sights and experiences.  He finally succumbed in the plane, and we got to our home in Dar es Salaam at midnight.

Wednesday, August 19–today

He met Grace and Josiah today, and as I write, he is sleeping after his first full day at home.  More about that later.  But for now, I just want to celebrate that there is one less orphan in the world, and that there are four children in my house, and that they are mine.