A foggy place

The time to go home is fast approaching and it is getting scarier and scarier the closer it gets. My mother laughed when I said that. Going to an unknown country with no connections, experience, or language knowledge, and no idea what to expect is supposed to be the scary part. Going back to my home where I have always had a place, to the country I have grown up in is supposed to be the easy part. "Supposed to" has a funny way of not always making it to a reality. No matter that I should be ecstatic to be going home to my family and those I love, instead my heart just breaks a little more at the thought because going home means no longer being here. I have found such meaning in my life being here. I have known who I was supposed to be and exactly what it was I should be doing. This is where I belonged. I belong with my children holding them, loving them, helping them. This is where I have truly gotten to be the person I wanted to be. It has been such a long and complex road, but only now am I finally starting to feel as though I belong and know just what it is to do. I finally feel like I am more of an asset and have something to offer. I have just enough knowledge to be able to work on my own without too many fears of doing it wrong. I have my own family here of the people I work with. Even when I am at a unit by myself I know I am surrounded by people who care checking up on me and making plans. 

I am looking out at the rainy foggy world of Chinese spring time and it suits my mood perfectly.

 I am back in Luoyang for three days to finish my goodbyes and packing, and then I am off to Beijing to try my hand as a tourist before going back home for good. It is a sad weird time for me, an in between time. I am not really here, but I am not really home. I am not working, but I am not really on vacation. I see my babies, but they are  no longer really mine. I am here to let go... A very strange place to be in. There is a lot of time to be alone and to pack and such, which gives me more time to feel alone. I don't really like the letting go and leaving. Now the time has finally come to do all of my adventuring, sight seeing, and present buying, but I find I have far less of a mood for it. I'd almost rather do without, though I know I would eventually regret it. Well I should get back to the packing and organizing and goodbyes. 

The story of a boy

I want to tell the story of a little boy I knew. He was born a gorgeous little boy whose body didn't quite match the perfection of his face. He had deformities and difficulties that would make his life far different then most children could expect when they greet this world. For whatever reason, after looking at this beautiful child his parents decided they couldn't keep him. I am not sure what their thoughts were or how that part of the story went. Perhaps they loved him but knew they had no hope of caring for him, perhaps they thought he would die anyway and they didn't want to see it, perhaps they thought he was repulsive or unlucky, perhaps they wanted to try again for abetter child, perhaps they thought that letting hiim go was his one chance at life. What ever their thoughts he ended up here, under our care and was there to greet me a few short days after arriving new and overhwhelmed to Luoyang. We met and became aquianted and almost immediately set out on an adventure together, just this tiny boy with the beautiful face and I. This was the first true adventure I went on after arriving. We went on a trip for a bout two weeks and both learned so much. I learned what it means to be a mom, and what all it entails. I learned how all consuming the love of a child can be.  I learned the structures of his face and every bump and curve of his unique little body. He learned who I was. He learned to trust and to love me. He learned that I would care for him and be there for him. He knew he was safe if could see my face. And I learned what it felt like to have a child look at you like that, to have a child settle when you hold them, and to fall asleep holding their hand.

We both went home to Luoyang and this little boy grew and started doing more of the things that little boys do, smiling, laughing, grabbing toys. He became close with his ayis. His sweet disposition and angel face always made him an instant hit. I made sure to visit him for  a couple hours or so when ever I could make it and to always kiss him good night. Then I went a way for a longer time on other adventures meeting and loving other cchildren. When I got back he had grown even more, and of course didn't recognize me, but that was alright. Little ones grow and change, and that is as it should. I was working on a different floor, but we became reaquainted. He could now sit up some, laugh, and play with  toys. He could give very slow high fives and was starting to clap his hands. He played on the mat some, but would inevitably end up in someone's arms. He was one of those children that is hard to resist cuddling. We became reaquianted and he would help me by letting me cuddle him and teach him high fives while checcking charts. He would smile and laugh and my day would be complete. 

He was moved out to an outlying unit, and just when I was accepting how much I was going to miss him I was moved to be with him for a little while. It is funny how God plans these things. He became sick shortly after I arrived here. I was able to see him and play with him and hold him some, and then he got sicker. I was the one who got to be there to watch him , hold him, and do what was possible to help him, and I was the one who got to be there in the end when it came time for him to let go. I was here to say goodbye. I was the one who was there to wrap him for the last time, to hold him for the last time, and to kiss him good bye.... He never knew what it was to have that family or dream of his own. He can no longer hope for the time when he can come home to the family he is going to share his life with. Those worries and fears about how he was going to manage in life with his difficulties are no longer a concern. There may have been so much that he didn't have, but I know when he left us he wasn't alone, and throughout his little life he was loved, and most of all he will never be forgotten. And I know I wasn't the only who loved him and will feel his loss. This special little boy touched many. I wasn't the only one fighting and hoping for him. In the end I know, no matter what, that the change he made in my life and the place he has in my heart will always be there. He might not have known his own mother to love and remember him for always, but I know that, that at least I will be able to do for him. He was here when I started my journey and now that the end is in sight it is such a blessing that I was able to be here as he ended his. There isn't any place I'd rather have been. 

The longest nights

The longest nights are when you are waiting. The nights when you know what is going to happen, but you are hoping it won't. The nights you spend being ready, and hoping you won't need to be. Then the time comes and it's over and you are left more than a little lost and confused, not knowing quite what to think. 

I am there now, looking back a little, looking forward a little, but trying to not look anywhere, to just be, just for a little while. I am tired of feeling, and trying not to. There hasn't, honestly, really even been time for either. It is hard here because you see so much of the opposite side of life, death. That is the side that is rarely seen now in the home and life I have been used to. Now I get to see it all from a whole other perspective. I get to be the one saying goodbye, the one standing on the sidelines waving goodbye with absolutely no abillity to stop the flow of the journey. I see the tiny babies who should be being treasured and cooed over, knowing they have the whole world ahead of them, simply waiting to die. The question not being if, but when. Will they hang on struggling making it for a year or two or will they only manage a few days. They ARE beautiful, and every feature and struggle only makes them more so. I see the little ones with inoperable heart conditions that are constantly a slight blue color, children with deformed extremities, children who spend every moment of their lives gasping for air, and I have no doubts that I will never find more abstoundingly beautiful children. I love them, every one, and I can't help it. I don't want to help it. These children deserve love more than anyone I have ever met, and yet being in the situations they were born into they are some of the least likely to get it. At least why they are here I know that however long or difficult their lives are they have found a home and love. They might not be able to have the home or the full medical treatment they could have in a family who could care for them as they should be cared for, but at least they have what we are able to give, and they have love. That is the most essential thing in my eyes and always will be. When I see the smiles or feel their tiny arms around me I know there is no where else I could be meant to be right now. The questions only come when you see that there is nothing more that can be done, and there is only time between them and the inevitable. You can be there, you can check, sometimes fix some things，and you can comfort and relieve distress, but ultimately you can't stop it. I understand it, and am even ok with it in some ways. I know that there will always be death, and it comes at different times for all of us. I can even find some comfort in it when I see them fighting, and are just so exhausted. The pain and fear that accompanies a failing child is one of the hardest to see. When they can't understand what is going on, only enough to be afraid. That is one of the most difficult. Sometimes it is easier for them. They don't struggle, they don't fight, their breathes just get farther and farther aprat until eventually there are no more. And then that is terribly sad too, because your sadness just draws out as you are left waiting. Then it's over,  and you can finally do what ever you need to deal with it, and then you move on to the next time you are needed, and maybe you will get to see one of the instances when a child rallies beyond expecations, or a little one you have loved finally gets to go home to a family of their own where they can be loved and treasured and have everyone one of their special moments celebrated and remembered forever. A place where mother and father are more than just words and they can finally find a place where they can know will always belong and be wanted.