A Thousand Words, Seven Thousand Miles

Just how small is the world after all?

When we were waiting to travel to bring Michael home, I joined a yahoo group for his orphanage. It was a wonderful resource, where I learned more about life in his orphanage from families who had already adopted children from there. One family who traveled before we did took photos of Michael and emailed them to us while we waited. In one of them a nanny held our unsmiling boy.

Those photos made our day, our week, our month.

When we traveled to Michael in August, it was--at last!--our turn to check on two little ones, and we did.

One of the children we met then, one of Michael's friends, met her family on Monday. When Maia's mother emailed a few weeks ago to tell me they had their Travel Approval, I asked her to make room in her suitcase for one itsy-bitsy item: a photo book of Michael's first few months in our home in the U.S. I picked out pictures of Michael alone, a few of him with his big brother, and some of us as a family of four. They aren't the best pictures, but they show a happy boy surrounded by his happy family.

Maia's mother was more than happy to take it for us. I figured she would just hand it off to one of the orphanage staff members, and that would be that.

Then, this morning I opened my email to find two photos.

 

You can imagine our joy as John and I pored over these photos. How wonderful to know that our boy is so loved--in his former home and in his forever home. One day I hope these pictures will make him smile too.


Of course, I can't look at these pictures without a twinge of sadness for the children there who don't have forever families. Many of these children, sadly, will never have families because of their special needs. They are, however, able to live in the orphanage for as long as they need to, even when they are older. We asked that question on our visit.

When I first saw the photos, however, all I could think was that Maia's mother has given us a treasure. Just look at the pride in the nannies' eyes as they look through our book--almost entirely photos, and very few words. They don't just remember Michael. They love him. And so do we.