M's gone for six weeks, and I'm lying down next to L last night, talking about nothing in particular. I love these moments: so quiet, so simple.
"Will I look like you when I grow up?" he asks. I look at him and think.
"You'll have my smile, I think," I say.
"No," he says, "I have Makhan's smile."
"Well, maybe you'll have my hair," I say.
"I definitely have Aparna's hair," he says.
I'm thinking. Humor? Sparkle? What to say--what legacy, what genetic replacement, what stand-in, what as-if.
"I'll have your love," he says, and I nod and rub his back because I can't speak.
***
A woman stops into my office today and she's been told that I have an adopted child. She wants to share that she has a younger brother who was adopted 35 years ago as an infant from South Vietnam. I admit I get tired of the whole novelty bit: L's adoptedness is invisible to me in all but the most private moments, and I'm generally not prepared to share those. He is only my son--not my adopted child.
But it turns out she's only interested in L insofar as he gives her the opportunity to talk about her brother, who is 38 and has yet to have a healthy adult relationship with a woman; and her father, who learned at age 37 that he was adopted--that he'd been in foster care with a warm, loving family until he was nearly 2, and had then been ripped from the family and placed with a cold, emotionally closed couple in Detroit who had a lot of cash to pay. Same old story.
I think that explains why he was so shut off from all of us as kidS," she said, and she started to cry--this person I'd known for all of ten minutes. "If he'd been more intact, I think my brother would've been able to be more intact," she said.
She admitted she'd always planned to adopt, but it just didn't work out: she had a child the natural way. "I thought of my brother every day of my son's life, until he was seven months old: I thought of my brother every time I hugged my baby--every time I picked him up and kissed him--I thought of my brother, who lay in an orphanage crib until he was seven months old and never got any of that love.
But it turns out she's only interested in L insofar as he gives her the opportunity to talk about her brother, who is 38 and has yet to have a healthy adult relationship with a woman; and her father, who learned at age 37 that he was adopted--that he'd been in foster care with a warm, loving family until he was nearly 2, and had then been ripped from the family and placed with a cold, emotionally closed couple in Detroit who had a lot of cash to pay. Same old story.
I think that explains why he was so shut off from all of us as kidS," she said, and she started to cry--this person I'd known for all of ten minutes. "If he'd been more intact, I think my brother would've been able to be more intact," she said.
She admitted she'd always planned to adopt, but it just didn't work out: she had a child the natural way. "I thought of my brother every day of my son's life, until he was seven months old: I thought of my brother every time I hugged my baby--every time I picked him up and kissed him--I thought of my brother, who lay in an orphanage crib until he was seven months old and never got any of that love.
***
When I was waiting to go and bring him home, a woman who was also waiting for a child told me that she and her husband had requested L before I did, but they couldn't get their paperwork and cash in order in time to be granted the placement. Another week and he'd have ended up with two parents instead of one--and he'd have a daddy now. She told me this and I felt such anger at her and at the moment: this child, held up like a head of lettuce, taken home by the one who was ready first. I didn't want to know: I didn't want to be the one who'd displaced him from his vector toward a two-parent home. But I was.
I persist in a kind of belief in fate: pieces that come together with a purpose, even if you never know what--never even in a whole lifetime. Arbitrariness is the alternative, and that's too cold a cosmology for me, especially played out in the life story of a small child.
When I was waiting to go and bring him home, a woman who was also waiting for a child told me that she and her husband had requested L before I did, but they couldn't get their paperwork and cash in order in time to be granted the placement. Another week and he'd have ended up with two parents instead of one--and he'd have a daddy now. She told me this and I felt such anger at her and at the moment: this child, held up like a head of lettuce, taken home by the one who was ready first. I didn't want to know: I didn't want to be the one who'd displaced him from his vector toward a two-parent home. But I was.
I persist in a kind of belief in fate: pieces that come together with a purpose, even if you never know what--never even in a whole lifetime. Arbitrariness is the alternative, and that's too cold a cosmology for me, especially played out in the life story of a small child.
6 comments:
from where i sit, things worked out just exactly as they were meant to.
having two parents in no way insures a perfect childhood. love does.
great to read you again!
x0x0x0x
what annie said...
That child is just the best and you are a wonderful mother. In many families have one parent (who is full of love) is better then having two who cannot manage that.
Yes, mine has even asked about getting a dad.
I have missed you....
With tears streaming down my cheeks, I can't imagine him with anyone else...you have so much love wrapped up in all that common sense!
alan
that last paragraph is a work of art, my dear. splendid post. and love makes a home, not 2 parents!
and i quote, "'I'LL HAVE YOUR LOVE,' he says..."
:)
Adorable picture, and what sweet wise words come from Liam. I'll get your love.
Beats genetics anytime.
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