My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Overthinking abandonment, broken stories, and peace

A desperate mother made a desperate choice.

She left her baby.

Two people—a woman and child, among a large crowd, no doubt—got on the train at Jiujiang Station in Jiangxi Province. And, at some point between there and Beijing, only one of them got off, leaving a toddler alone, chugging away on a train. Perhaps she waited until he was asleep and then slowly pulled him from her body as all mothers do when their babies are asleep on them and they need to get up. Perhaps she shushed him gently as all mothers do to make sure he stayed asleep as she slipped out from under him.

But, unlike all mothers, this one didn’t come back. I wonder if he woke up and saw her leave. I wonder if he cried. I wonder who heard him. He wasn’t found until employees were checking the train at the last stop. I wonder who walked past him and didn’t notice him at all. I wonder who walked past him and didn’t want to notice him.

A desperate note was found with him.

I am an unmarried mother…Now the father abandoned us. I am devastated, but without a marriage certificate, what else can I do? Now my family is forcing me to go home and meet a date and get married. I am so ashamed to take a baby home. My son was born on December 17, 2011. I hope a kind-hearted person can adopt him. If such luck fails, please send him to a formal adoption agency to ensure his safety. I could only pay you back in the next life. Thank you!”

According to an expert specializing in “child protection,” the mother has committed the crime of abandonment and, if found, could be sentenced to up to 5 years imprisonment. The expert went on with his expert words, “The right thing for the mother to do is to sue the father who abandoned them and the father would have to pay more than half of the baby’s living expenses.”

The right thing to do. 

5 years in prison, in a country whose prisons aren’t known for honoring people, in a country where women cannot legally place a child for adoption.

Who can tell her the right thing to do?

My heart breaks for her. In the depth of my spirit, I ache for her. I pray that she knows peace before she gets to the next life. Somehow. 

Maybe I hurt so much for her as she stands as a sort of surrogate for the mother who I wish had given her daughter a letter like this, some sort of explanation, some sort of story, some sort of history, something. Maybe I want to run to this woman because who I really want to run to is the woman who carried my child. I don’t know her story—whatever it was, I know only that it was broken.

Did she do the right thing? Right things in the midst of deep brokenness are sometimes difficult to name. Today, I wish I could hold her face in my hands and tell her this –

There is no repayment, nothing you need to do, nothing you need to give. There is no luck, only God’s mercy and grace both of which make beauty from ashes, wholeness when all is broken. Be free from your shame, and take courage in the One who can give you peace in this life and the after life forever and ever.

Instead, I will hold another face in my hands and speak words of love and truth to her.

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The Counted

I’m so humbled to have been invited to join the ranks of some amazing mamas and amazing writers over at No Hands But Ours. My first post there went live yesterday, and I’m reposting it here today.

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I’m a reader more than I am a writer. The stories from China I likely will never see–they draw me in, show me things in a new way. Some make me wonder; some make me laugh. And, sometimes, my casual blog reading while I sip on my morning coffee makes me pause and somehow changes the way I see things. Sometimes, they change me.

He’s a Western doctor in a very Eastern hospital. On one particular day, he witnessed something that didn’t seem all that unusual at first. About once a week, a group of people will come in, angry and looking for someone to blame. There’s yelling, a big scene, police come; 30 minutes later, it’s business as usual. A ½ hour malpractice suit, and then it’s over.

But, on this day, it didn’t end so simply. The protestors numbered 60 people, and the yelling turned to physical fighting. Their passion and grievance turned to blood—all over a baby.

Their baby had been born that day, a baby who no doubt held many dreams. And, he was born without an arm. They shed tears, raised their fists, and demanded compensation, yelling, “How can our baby live without an arm?” Unlike every other riot like this, they were actually protesting a life, not a death. 

This baby would be nearly 2 years old now. I wonder where he is and what his life is like. I wonder if he is hidden away by a family ashamed and afraid. I wonder if he is well cared for or served resentfully. Does he live still with the family who protested on his birthday or does he live with another? I wonder if he is a big brother now to a “more whole” child. He lives in a place where children like him labeled as “severely handicapped” don’t count. With a signature from one of those doctors, his family would have been granted permission to break the one-child policy. When a family has a child severely disabled, they are given a free pass to try again. And, that precious child, their first born, no longer counts. They are zero, do not exist. Even in perhaps the darkest time in U.S. history, African slaves counted as 3/5 of a person.

The way I see it, the birth families of children like this precious baby are faced with a decision I cannot fathom—very simply put, (a) keep their child and raise him or her in a place with no acceptance of a special need, where he or she will always be looked at as crippled and unable or (b) let their child go to maybe, just maybe, go on to count somewhere else.

I look around at my blogroll, at the families I now call friends 3 years into this adoption adventure. I look at the pictures of their sweet babies and silly children, read the stories of funny things they say and the trouble they get themselves into. They so much more than count.

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CNY in USA

My post reviewing children’s books about Chinese New Year has gotten a lot of traffic. Lots of moms looking for books to use as they go into their child’s classroom for a Lunar New Year presentation have been surfing for ideas. Paper lanterns have been made. Chopsticks have been practiced. And, no doubt, fortune cookies (which are not even from China, mind you) have been eaten.

But, is one school party enough?

A petition titled: “Establish Lunar New Year as a National Holiday. Give it the same importance and weight as the other cultural holidays” was submitted to the White House yesterday with almost 40,000 signatures on it.

The petition read:

Our nation is composed of a wide array of nationalities and cultural background. It is imperative that we as a diverse nation to recognize and acknowledge that diversity. The Asian population represents a large percentage in U.S.’s population and is growing ever more. Students in public schools voluntarily take off from school to spend the Lunar New Year holiday at home with families. Yet, they are marked absent for their in-attendance. Please make this important holiday widely recognized and make it an official day off for students too. The holidays in our calendar year already consists of holidays from different cultures and definitely has room for Lunar New Year too.

Asian-Americans number approximately 17.3 million, comprising about 5.6% of the total U.S. population. In fact, Asian Americans recently passed Hispanics to become the largest group of new immigrants to the United States.

What do you think? Should the most significant Asian holiday of the year be made a U.S. holiday?

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A Chinese New Year SNAKE Cake

There are some things I strive to make a tradition. Chore charts, for instance. I’ve tried ’em. I can get them to work for a season, and then they’re done. No tradition. Just a short-lived attempt at something. 

Then, there are other things that happen one time and like it or not, they’re tradition. 
Last year, Chinese New Year’s Eve was spent creating a dragon cake masterpiece. Our Chinese school loved it. Way loved it and, started talking about snake cakes shortly thereafter. I made a cake once and somehow it became tradition–and one that stressed me out, mind you, since I am not a baker. In fact, I don’t even eat cake. But, I’m now the CNY cake maker at least in our little ‘hood. 
When I should have been sleeping, I was laying in bed pondering how to make this bad boy. I could have used the same body formation that I used for the dragon to make a slithering snake. But, I was worried it would look too been-there-done-that two years in a row. So, I went for the coiled look. 
After spending entirely too much time in the grocery store staring at the candy and icing and all that good stuff hoping some creative muse would come to me, I ended up with two marble cake mixes, two canisters of icing, two $.99 chocolate Valentine hearts, a box of fruit by the foot, a package of disposable 8″ cake round pans, and a gigantic bag of M&Ms. I bought double what I thought I’d need…well, because I assumed I’d have some problems and might need a do-over. Turns out the first run worked–I really only needed one box cake mix and one canister of icing. Maybe I’ll just have to make this again with what I have still in my pantry. 
I followed the directions on the cake mix box (I know, I’m such a faker) and filled one 8″ round more than the other (buttering and flouring those pans like nobody’s business), thinking the bigger round would look good as the bottom coil. Once they were baked, I let them cool a good while in the pans and then took them out to cool without flipping them upside down.
The edges didn’t look rounded enough for me. So, I used my bread knife and shaved just a little bit around the top to round it a bit. I saved the pieces I cut off because I ended up using those little cake scraps for the tail.
I cut a round circle out of cardboard that was slightly larger than the cake pan I used and wrapped it with foil. I put the bigger finished cake down on that foil-wrapped circle to start decorating. Before I covered the whole thing with icing, I mushed those extra little pieces of cake together and put a little bit of icing in with it to mold it a bit. I stuck that onto the side of the cake to be the tail and then covered it all with chocolate almond flavored icing. I don’t even know if anyone really noticed that tail, but I thought it added a bit to the look. I started adding stripes of M&Ms in a red and orange pattern, only doing the sides and a little bit onto the top since I knew the other round cake was going to be on top anyway. 
Before I put the other round cake on top, I put some icing on the bottom of it around the edges since I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get underneath it very well to spread the icing without messing up my bottom cake I had already decorated. Then, I carefully put it on top and covered it with icing and the M&M pattern just like I did the bottom, deliberately not having the stripes line up with the bottom layer. 
Once I did that, I took one of my $.99 chocolate Valentine hearts, put icing all over the flat back side and stuck in that icing a 8″ or 9″ piece of fruit by the foot which I had cut in half width wise with kitchen shears. I then matched up the other heart so that the “tongue” was sandwiched between them. I put a glob of icing on the center of the top of the cake and put that heart head on top of that, finishing it off with 2 yellow M&Ms for eyes stuck on with another dab of icing. 
Then, I stood back and admired him…and called my parents and made them take a look at him…and texted my husband who was away for a YL conference and made him look at him…and posted a picture on FB so that I could have some other people affirm me before taking him to the gala today to keep up tradition.
They liked it. Really liked it. They even told me that the NBC news crew got it on camera as they got coverage of the gala today. As with last year, they waited until the end to cut it. The head was the first to sell when they did finally cut it. My two boys who I proceeded to purchase pieces of my snake cake for seemed to like it along with a bunch of other kids. 
And, yes, though I vowed on FB at midnight last night that I would not be attempting to make a horse cake next year, maybe I did google it for a few minutes tonight, alright? But, I’m not committing to anything, okay? I think a dragon cake and snake cake fully extended my cake creativity…at least for now.

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