First Anniversary of "Gotcha Day"

robin ♦ August 23, 2006 ♦ 5 Comments

It was one year ago on Hainan Island in the South China Sea that Frank and I waited for a timid little girl in the Social Welfare Office. When she walked in, all I wanted was to grab her and hold her and tell her she was safe and I would always take care of her. But she was TERRIFIED. She wouldn’t let me touch her. I bribed her to come close to me with strawberry starburst. She fell for that for a minute, but then got wise. The ladies who brought her reminded her of the pictures they had been showing her of us, told her that I was her mommy, but what good did that do? She didn’t know what a mommy was anyway. I sang songs, talked sweetly and prayed earnestly for the next 30 minutes or so. In the end, they just had to go and leave me with my daughter-who yelled and screamed and cried and even tried to hit me. She finally allowed Frank to hold her in the cab on the way back to the hotel. With the new found calm I seized the opportunity to get close and stepped into the hotel bathtub fully clothed to bathe her and play in the water with her. It worked! Frank eased out and fell asleep-it was an exhausting day. For the next hour, my tiny Yuan Yuan/Ella Grace sat with me in the hotel room and played with my rings, wondered at the sticker that came off the baby powder bottle, and tried cheerios. She didn’t smile, she didn’t make a sound.

She didn’t know what had happened to her that day. She had no idea she had sisters. Her grandparents all waited for word, she didn’t even know they were there. She knew herself as Yuan Yuan-no last name, no parents. But that’s not who she was-she was Ella Grace all along, we just hadn’t gotten to her yet.
Today, she knows. Look…