From Nanjing...

Tonight I type from Nanjing. We arrived in our hotel at about 8:30 p.m. And now, the real part of our trip begins. This is Cate’s last night in an orphanage. Her last night without knowing her family and our last night of not knowing our daughter and little sister. Still, we focus on the tangible. Is there enough room in here for her to walk around? Will Alex continue to hold up on this exhausting trip after his life changes drastically tomorrow? Can we get the fan working in here so I can sleep?

My emotions have been at the top of my throat and eyes all day. I have only to let my mind go for a moment to feel the thrill of so many sleepless nights of anticipation and worry coming to an end. We are here in China. We are going to get our little girl. Tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m., a bus will pick us up and take us to the civil affairs office and she will be waiting there for us, just as we have waited so long for her, and I know the rest doesn’t matter. We will have her here with us.

I think about the women who have loved her already. Her mother, her caregivers, now me. I think of what she has known and what she has already lost. I experience this country, see the kindness of the people, the power of its history, the beauty, and I realize she is losing something that no celebration of Chinese New Year in Cooperstown or lantern hanging from the ceiling can ever replace and I wonder if it is okay. Can we weave a thread with the threads of the others and create a tapestry rich enough to shelter her from both what she has known and will never know.
But mostly, I think of the fierce love that has grown looking at two mournful eyes staring out of a grainy picture and I wonder what that love will feel like when I see those eyes before me.

Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. I don’t think my emotion will be contained any longer.