Coming to America

*turn on your volume for this post*

I want to post about Independence Day 2008 but it will have to wait because I am thinking about Independence Day 2005.

I remember as a teenager, hearing this song, Neil Diamond's, "America". Friends and sisters would begin to giggle a bit. There were always some cool faces to make and some funky dance moves to say, "this song is awesome in a terribly lame-neil-diamond-catchy-kind-of-way." There was always some laughing and lots of shouting of, "TODAY!" I don't think I'm painting this scene very well, so if my friends or sisters are reading this, then you can just imagine us back in the early 90s listening and dancing as goofily as possible to this song on the 4th of July.

But 2005 was different. You see, Loumy had just arrived home from Haiti. The wait seemed so terribly difficult and long. In retrospect and in light of the fact that I know many families that have waited YEARS for their children to come home from Haiti, I realize that nine months was not so bad. But, if you haven't already been through the actual process of adopting a child from Haiti, then try to imagine this:

You are with your very own, most beloved little child in an impoverished, third-world country. You go into a house and hear crying echoing throughout the walls. You enter a small room. You see play pens, and several sets of cribs stacked on top of each other. You count 30 babies. It is extremely hot in this little room. The babies are wet--either from the heat and humidity or from their soiled diapers or both. There are varying degrees of crying from loud angry cries to soft, listless whimpers. There are two nurses in this room, rushing about, feeding or changing babies and then setting them back in their cribs. You see another nurse out on a nearby patio, where it is slightly cooler, trying to insert an IV into a very ill infant. These people are trying so hard to save these babies. You know that sometimes they succeed, but often they do not. They are trying their best with the very limited resources they have.
One of the nurses points to the crib where you are supposed to set YOUR baby. Your throat starts to constrict and you feel light-headed. You carefully set your child down and he looks up at you in confusion and then terror. You immediately pick him back up, your heart pounding, and he clings to you.
There is NO WAY you can leave him here. He is your child. You are connected inseparably. This place is not safe. He needs to be at home surrounded by his multitude of grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles. He needs clean clothes and diaper changes and all of the food he can eat. He needs his pediatrician to help him when he gets sick. He needs his Dad to give him a blessing when he can't sleep. Most of all he, like your other children, and all children, needs his mom to rock him and feed him, to read to him, to sing to him, to put orajel on his gums when he's teething, to take him on walks, to blow on his neck when he is too hot, to swaddle him and shush him when he's been frightened, to tickle him and play peek-a-boo to make him laugh. But instead somebody is insisting that you put your baby down and leave him there. In that crib. Alone. And you are forced to leave him. You have no idea when you can see him again. You feel nauseated and a literal pain is shooting through chest. This feels SO wrong. You put him in that crib. And he screams. It feels like somebody has ripped out your heart and you are numb from the shock of it.

And then you are in a van that will take you to the airport where you will fly thousands of miles away. You leave your child. You begin to sob. Huge, heaving waves of grief pour over you. You beg and cry everyday to God and anybody else that will listen. You pray every night that angels will surround your child and keep him safe. Your child is suffering and he needs you. And you need him. You feel completely helpless. You become desperate. And finally, the day comes. Finally, FINALLY somebody tells you that you can have your child back.

So, now maybe you can better imagine my state of mind in the summer of 2005 when Nichole, D'Asia and I stood for hours waiting for a plane to land that would reunite us with our children and our anxiety wondering if the escorts actually made it on the plane. Maybe you can imagine the pure joy I felt as I slept with my son on my chest all night long--just the two of us alone in a hotel in AMERICA (Miami to be exact) because we'd missed our flight home and everything was booked because of the holiday weekend. You can imagine how I felt as I walked through my hometown airport and looked down from the top of the escalator to see Chancho dozens and dozens of family members holding up signs, welcoming my son home. You can understand why I suddenly held him up, high above my head, arms completely outstretched for all to see that yes, indeed, I had him and we were home. You can imagine my tears as a cheer erupted from the crowd below.And now, maybe you can imagine why, as I watched fireworks at a certain soccer stadium and heard this same song, "Coming to America...today!" that I had heard every year, along with "Proud to Be an American", my reaction was a little different. This time I held my child in my arms and cried completely unabashed as I released the fear and the anxiety of the previous nine months and reveled in the FREEDOM of our blessed reunion.

* Epilogue ~ this year we went to the same fireworks show and listened to the same songs. Loumy snuggled on Chancho's lap, in great happiness and awe at the beautiful display. I'm sure he could not remember that night when he was not even 10 months old. But I remembered and my eyes began to sting and something began to swell in my throat as I heard the introduction to this Neil Diamond song. And I said to Chancho, "Let me hold Loumy!" And he looked at me and very solemnly said, "No." And I was pleased because I knew that no matter how much Chancho likes to act like he is not sentimental, he was reliving the same moment that I was and I was not going to ruin it.