I sometimes imagine the day when I will be in a room with my daughter’s two birth mothers. I so want to meet with them. What did the Chinese mother think when she learned that she was pregnant? Was she excited? Sad? How was she living at the time? Where was she working? Was her daughter, little Xiao Qing Guo, smaller than they expected? She was tiny when we adopted her, so I suspect she was a peanut at birth. And then there was her clubfoot. Perhaps that was the reason you decided to risk leaving her at the Hygiene Station, where she was found. You could have been arrested for “abandoning” your daughter, but you chose a place where she was sure to be found by authorities and taken somewhere for care. She was newborn when you left her. Did you even get to hold her?
I want to ask, how did you function in the days and months following her birth? Did you recover alright? Could you do your work, live calmly, move forward?
If you could have named her yourself—rather than the orphanage caretakers—what would you have named her? The caretakers gave her a name meaning “Spring-light green,” or “to celebrate.” These are happy names. Was there a special name you wanted to give her? A name you hold in your heart whenever you think of her. If you met her again—now—you would be amazed at how well she is doing, at her musical talent, the potentially rich voice, the humor, the mischievous way she torments her sister…her sister from Ethiopia.
I could just imagine Bekelech, of Ethiopia, listening intently while we talked. She would have her own questions, even her own exhortations (I would expect) that she would add to the conversation. She might be wearing the beautiful white overdress accented with an embroidered orange-bordered shawl, and a pristine turban crowning her head—the one she wore when we met her in Hosanna, Ethiopia. Or, she might be wearing something even more beautiful and celebratory.
The burn scar on her neck might be erased, or it might be ornamented with an elaborate, beautiful tattoo. Her strong cheekbones, broad smile, and penetrating eyes might well remind us of her strong will, faith, and integrity. She might be the shortest one in our group, certainly shorter than me, but maybe not shorter than you (Chinese mama), because who knows how petite you are?
I want to ask Bekelech, how are Uncle Wolde, Girmachew, Birtukan, and Birihannesh, your children? Were your children able to go to school? Did you finally get a permanent home for yourself and your children? Were you able to escape the scourge of malaria that killed your husband?
I could tell her that her daughter, who she named Mekides (meaning ‘temple’), has done very well in school. You said you wanted her to be “well-educated,” I'd remind her. How often I have thought that you yourself could have excelled in whatever field you chose, so keen is your own intelligence--if not for poverty and lack of opportunity.
And then there is Mekides’ physical strength. She tries to pick everyone up—even older children—and often succeeds. She is intent on testing her strength, and she is always taking things apart and trying to put them together again, or asking questions like “How are we standing upright when our side of the planet is upside down?”
The world is upside-down, in so many ways. But in the end, everything will be righted. I believe that. And I look—very hopefully—toward a time when I will be able to have a conversation with you, my daughters’ birth mothers, in a place where Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and Amharic flow into a common language that we all understand at once. The nuances, beauty, and complexity of the languages will be perfected and commonly held…their linguistic integrity and richness equivalent. There will be no "stranger", no "alien." Division by poverty, race, capacity, and gender will dissolve into a final realization that all such things are nothing but figments based on pride and rationalization...unacceptable and unjust in every realm of the Divine.
In the meantime I long to know you—the women who are embodied in the gift of daughters we share across continents and time. I thank you for your gifts from the bottom of my heart.
