"I choose to love you.
I do. Some moms? They get pregnant; have a baby in their tummy by accident. Like your tummy-mom. She wasn't ready to have a baby.
I choose to love you."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do. I chose to call the adoption agency. I chose to fill out all those forms, to make copies, to mail them, to travel to different offices, to make all the phone calls. I chose to buy airplane tickets, get on a plane, to pick you up.
I choose to love you.
But you don't have to love me. That's your choice."
He lifts his head from my lap and his cheeks are flushed, his body radiating the odor of fear. His round cheeks, his unbridged nose are covered with weeping. Not a rivulet or shiny drop, but awash like the streets in a rainstorm.
We sit like that, him surrendering to my love, boneless, heaped over my shoulder, wetness upon my shirt.
I didn't know what the words would do; what the tears would wash. But today, yesterday and the day before, he holds my hand as if he chooses to love me.
2 comments:
Oh, Grace. Such hard stuff, and so beautifully expressed!
Thank you. My husband and I are getting our finances in order and researching to begin adoption. The longer I think about it, the deeper longing I have to bring home and love a daughter from China.
I really appreciate hearing deeper thoughts, challenges, emotions. Helps me glimpse how an adopted child might be different than my biological son.
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