Sunday, March 11, 2007

Two Years Ago Today...

........when it was dark, they bundled her up in a pink and orange sweater, with a two toned blue hat firmly on her head and carried her to the social welfare institute, where they left her on the steps in a box with a bottle and a bag of formula. They attached a note with the day and time of her birth. They left, perhaps looking back again and again as the box got smaller and smaller until it was no longer in sight.

Are they thinking about her today? Are they wondering where she is? Do they have any idea what they are missing?

Perhaps they do.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

Our daughter's birthday is this weekend and I have been thinking about her bparents a lot so I know what you mean.

Anonymous said...

I think they probably do wonder what became of her. But I think that, ultimately, Ariana was meant to be with you, and they probably know that, somehow, somewhere inside them. Ariana sure does!-Malinda

Anonymous said...

On my birthday every year at some point I think about my birthparents. I wonder if they get through the day without remembering what day it is or if it is still strong enough in their minds that a few days before my birthday they start remembering and it pops in and out of their minds as they go through their daily life.

As you know, I am in contact with my birthfather but only had brief contact with my birthmother. But I will always remember what my she told me -- that giving me up was the hardest thing she ever had to do. And when you consider that sentence the most important part is "had to". She felt that it was the only choice that she had. I choose to believe that this was because she loved me rather than because she didn't.

Certainly Arianna's parents will miss the joys of having that beautiful little girl.

But they also gave her two great gifts. The first was life itself. The second was a life with you, which will afford her so much that they would have been unable to give her.

To recognize that you can't give your child what you believe she needs and then to go through the heartbreaking process of giving her to someone who can provide her with those things, I believe, is a great selfless act.

-Deb

Anonymous said...

It's me....Kim who also adopted from Yong Feng. Our daughter, was left outside the gate at Yong Feng on March 14, 2005. She is about a month younger than Ariana, but it is so interesting that they came to Yong Feng within a couple of days of each other. When the girls get a little older, I would love for them to stay in touch as pen pals. I wonder the same things so often...what were they thinking, what were their circumsances, etc. I like you wonder about how heart wrenching it must have been to abandon an older baby...Chloe was 4-1/2 months old when she was abandoned, and it sounds like Ariana was almost 6 months old. Very somber.