waiting for the schoolbus, 1st day of school '08
Today my little 9/11 girl turned 7! Halle's choice was spaghetti for supper and we had cake and ice cream for dessert. We opened the things lovely people sent in the mail. Sunday we'll have family in for the Chinese-themed shindig Hal requested. We'll decorate with Chinese lanterns I found for $2 a box at Mardens, wear Chinese stuff, have Chinese take-out, and shower Hal with lots of American gifts most certainly made in China.
I've written plenty about 9/11 and while the day will probably never go by without many moments of silence and sadness for those who lost their lives that day in 2001, for me the day has much sweet along with the bitter. I remember the very day. I was enjoying being a full-time mom to my pre-school age son at the time and we spent a lot of time not watching tv. We were on our way out to go for a hike at a local nature preserve when my (now ex-) husband called. "Turn on the tv," he said, "a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I turned the tv on but only watched for a bit because the footage was so disturbing and my son, only four at the time, instantly clued in that something momentous and awful was happening. Of course, all the way to the hiking trail the radio was telling of the same awfulness and finally I chose to shut it off completely rather than scare my kid. "If today's going to be the world's last day," I remember thinking, "I'll spend it here in the sunshine with my kid and my dog."
We walked and walked out to the pond crowded with cattails, had a picnic and chatted about nothing much under a sky that was blue and eerily uncluttered. You wouldn't think that the complete absence of planes in the sky would be that noticeable, but it was. I can remember stopping to pick blueberries, I remember the exposed roots that tripped us if we weren't careful walking on the trail, I remember the patches of sunlight filtering through the trees. I remember thinking that any second there would be a FLASH and everything would turn X-ray-like and we'd dissolve into nothingness and ash, like those films we saw in grade school that showed us the mushroom clouds and what would happen if there was a nuclear war. If two giant passenger planes could crash into the twin towers, complete Armagedden didn't seem all that far-fetched.
Red Velvet Cake! I'd have made a homemade one
if I wasn't in a back brace and reeking of BenGay.
It's likely that I would not have otherwise taken such detailed notes in my memory for these small gifts if it weren't for the fact that I thought they were my last. And remembering these things is a big gift in another way; this is the day when, on the other side of the earth, my daughter was being born in the city of Haikou on the island of Hainan, China. At the time, of course, I had no idea I even had a daughter. It would be two more years before I decided my family was not yet complete, and another year before my daughter would join us. My daughter spent her first three years in an orphanage, waiting for the day her new family would come to get her and, of course, she had no idea that that family was us. But in late November of 2004, we all finally found our way to each other.
"When you're seven your two front teeth fall out. And hopefully, they'll grow back in!" "WHAh?!" said Halle. "Just kidding." I said, "I'm sure they will." "And if they don't," Jake said helpfully, "We'll make you some fake ones with Sculpey!"
Not many adoptive parents get to remember exactly what they were doing on the day of their adopted child's birth. You might remember the day you mailed your completed paperwork, or the day you received your I-71H in the mail.(1). But so seldom are there records of your child's actual birth, and when you are adopting internationally, there is always a thought in the back of your mind that each day that passes could, conceivably, be the day your future child is being born. Somewhere. To someone. So each of those "waiting" days passes in a blur, with no landmarks to snag in your memory of the day your child is being born. On that day of so much sadness, so many making their unexpected exit and leaving such sadness in their wake, all the way around the world, this little soul decided it was a fine day to enter. And why not? Stubborn life, unprovoked and with little to no input from us at all, the world keeps turning and babies keep being born. The cattails still crowd the edges of the pond and sunshine still plays with the leaves on its way through the trees on its way down to kiss the earth. Whether we're paying attention or not.
Making a wish.
Probably Barbie-related.
It is a huge price to pay for so many, the tears and sadness of all those souls leaving. And that unfathomable price was what made me pay attention that day. But my daughter has brought me this gift; the knowingness that every day is like every other one if only in this one aspect: every single day someone special is making their glorious entrance. Good enough reason as any to pay attention.
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(1) This is the coveted "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" you get from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when your paperchase is complete and you've been granted permission to travel to get your child. In adoption terms, that's tantamount to being totally knocked up.
