Adoptive Families of America Adoption Magazine
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Tears of Trust
By Marybeth Lambe
I cannot fix my daughter's disability. Much as I want to take her pain away, I can only share her sorrow.
Sometimes I just blow it. MeiMei is tugging at my shirt, whispering urgently, but all I notice is the loud pounding coming from the boys' room. Are they trying to dig through the floor? I pat MeiMei absently on her head. “I'll be right back, honey,” I say, barely registering her crestfallen expression. “But, but . . .” She trails off sadly. But . . . I am already gone, racing down the hall to investigate the ominous sounds. As I fling open the door, my three boys give me wide grins. Shen Bo flashes his smile as he catapults through the air. Up, off the bed, his trajectory carrying him perilously close to the window, he lands in a neat somersault, rolling hard into the wall. The window glass shudders and the pictures dance sideways on their nails. John and Yuanjun must interpret my look of horror as one of excitement, because they launch themselves as well—right on top of Shen Bo. Bits of plaster flutter down from the ceiling. They are laughing madly and looking back at me for . . . what? Approval? Wild applause? Instead, I shriek the time-honored phrase of all parents: “Are you crazy? You could have gone out the window! You could have been killed!” As I rest my face in my hands, trying to decide whether to laugh or cry, a small hand pokes me in the back. It is MeiMei, her face still serious. “We were having a talk, remember?” She glares at her brothers. MeiMei is wearing one of her big sister's nightgowns. The sleeves dangle far past her hands. She looks like a sad little waif. Clearly, something important is on her mind. This is where I blow it again. “MeiMei,” I implore. “Please get back into bed. I'll be there in a minute to tuck you in.” Her brown eyes widen and she sniffs loudly. “Please?” I beg her. “You can look at a book till I get there. See if Emma Rose can come up and read to you. OK?” She shuffles out, and I round on the boys— already forgetting MeiMei's sad expression. Twenty minutes go by while I watch the boys make their beds and clear the anarchy of their room.When I am done putting the chastised boys to bed, it is late. Emma Rose has fallen asleep next to MeiMei. I bend to turn the lamp out, but MeiMei stirs. Her eyes are wet with tears. “Oh, sweetie,” I whisper. “What's wrong?” My presence opens the floodgates. Her tears turn into racking sobs. Her nose runs, and she gasps air as though she has been running for miles. Amazingly, Emma Rose, inches away, never moves. Her soft snores are in stark contrast to MeiMei's wrenching cries. At last MeiMei can speak. I give her the time—the listening— she has been waiting for all evening. “When I get older, I get bigger, right?” She waits for my nod. “And my feet get bigger, and my arms, and my head, and, and . . . well, everything, right?” “That's right, MeiMei. You'll get taller, maybe taller than Mommy.” Foolishly, I have not yet seen where this is headed. She pulls her hands from the long sleeves. One hand has fingernails painted bright purple; the other hand, her little hand has mere stubs for fingers. “Well, I thought—” She pauses and swipes at her eyes. “Well, I wanted, I thought . . . my little hand—” She can't go on. Finally I help her. “You thought your little hand would grow into a big hand?” It must be a wonder that her foolish mother has caught on at last. She gives me such a look of trust, of love, of wonder at my brilliance. “Yes,” she whispers. “How did you know?” All night I have pushed her away. I don't deserve this kindness, this faithfulness. Now my tears come. MeiMei misinterprets my tears. “Did you think my little hand would get big too?” “No.” Time for honesty. “Your hand will grow some, but it will always be smaller.” She holds it out and examines it. “No fingers?” She looks up at me; so much hope in those words. How hard to dim that hope. “No, no. I don't think so.” She bows her head, inhales sharply, absorbing the pain. I hold her and we rock together, comforting each other. Emma snorts in her sleep and rolls toward us both. Her long brown fingers come to rest on MeiMei's pillow. We both look sadly at those beautiful hands. MeiMei is ready to tell me the hardest part. “I thought they would both grow, both my hands. And I would play the piano, with both hands, like Emma does. Silly for me to assure her she can play one-handed. We have already contacted the piano teacher, knowing MeiMei's desire to learn. But I would be missing her point. No, much as I wish, this is not time to cover her grief with my plans. How hard it is to let our children have their sorrow: MeiMei's little hand, Emma's mourning for her birthmother, Yuanjun wishing for his baby brother, left behind in Shanghai. A child's tears are agony for a parent. We distract the pain away, we try to jolly them, and we tell them why their pain is not so bad. Because we bleed for our children—and, if we can get them to stop crying, to stop looking sad, we can pretend the grief is no longer there. But, finally, at the end of that long evening, I did something right. I held her till the tears stopped, till some measure of peace crept back into her soul. I don't know what it feels like to have only one hand and to want, to desperately want, to play the piano like her big sister Emma Rose. Two hands, flying wildly over the keys; making music to set us all dancing. To clap two hands loudly, to play the violin like sister Sara, to bang the drums like John. I didn't say: “You can play just as well with one hand.” Even if I know she can make wild, soaring music with one hand and a little bony wrist. It wasn't the time to speak such words. Tomorrow we would discuss the piano teacher's plans. Tomorrow we would find ways to make music on the violin. Tonight I did something I had been stumbling over all evening. I let a child cry and held her grief close to my heart. I let her be heard. MeiMei gave me a greater gift. She trusted me with her tears.
Marybeth Lambe lives on a small dairy farm with her husband, Mark Levy, and their eight children. When she is not milking cows, Marybeth works part-time as a family physician and a writer.
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