Breathing

Haiti.

The photos of the devastation are triggering my PTSD, both as someone who's still mourning the loss of a yet-to-be-child and as someone who worked way too close to Ground Zero. Crumbled buildings and hurt children -- not the best combination for me.

And there's something about being the mother of a brown child ... I look at the distraught faces in the news reports, and they aren't the face of Other People anymore. Their features are too close to the features of the child I love. They're family in the sense that we're all members of the human family and this tragedy is horrific enough to make us ache for their loss, no matter who they are or where they are. But now they're also family in a different sense. They look more like my child than I ever will. I'm so freaking aware of my white privilege and it's moments like this when I realize how much I've been sheltered behind it all these years. I'm glad to feel the pain, but ohmygod what if that were my child? What if that were his birth family? How are all those beautiful fragile people ever going to find their loved ones? How could you survive as a child seeing the bodies in the street, or not knowing where your mommy was?

The pictures of the wounded children echo in my dreams. I want to get on an airplane, scoop them all up and bring them home with me right now. I'm looking at Haitian orphanage websites and wondering how long adoptions will take, now that the country is in ruins. Imagine being an adoptive family who was waiting for the okay to travel ... you've got pictures of your kids, you've got all your paperwork in order, you've been dreaming of this for years, and then ... even if the kids are fine and their orphanage is in a safe place, how will you ever get to them? How long will it be before you can bring them home?

My god, the devastation.

*****

Squeaker is currently enraptured by Where the Wild Things Are. Earlier tonight, the Mister started quoting ... "they rolled their terrible eyes and gnashed their terrible teeth ..."

Squeaker stopped what he was doing, and then pointed up the stairs emphatically, demanding to be taken to bed so he could hear the rest of the story.He doesn't talk yet, but boy howdy is he getting good at making his wishes known.

*****

Squeaker runs up and down the hall, pushing his new big-enough-to-ride dump truck, squealing with glee. I open my arms and he runs into them, the smile on his face enormous.

"Give Mama a kiss?"

He knows now that when someone goes out the door, we blow them kisses. Today, he followed Nanny J down the hall as she left, using both hands at once to blow kisses, ten, twelve, fifteen of them.

He turns quickly, shoves his drooling mouth against my cheek, and smacks his lips together dutifully.

Then he gets up and scampers away. 

*****

We must make good use of this life for the time that we have left,

This brief flash of light, like the sun appearing through the clouds.

 - Kalu Rinpoche

Comments

[Aegina]

Thank you for a beautiful post.

[Babychaser]

My prenatal yoga teacher has a friend who is in Haiti right now, on her trip to pick up her adopted child. The boy is okay, but the paperwork is infinitely stalled, and she doesn't want to leave the country without her son....

I don't think most of the yoga class got the impact of that that way I did. Being only one step away from diving into the waters of international adoption myself, it brought back memories of my worst nightmares. So unbelievably sad.

I'm glad squeaker is doing so well. And I'm glad you have that link to the "other" world. It's one of the gifts you get with your brown child.