May we see your photos, please?

I have entered a strange new phase of this adoption journey, one that is the sort of surprise that truly is unexpected and not perhaps calculated as a possibility that one doubted would really happen. Although I have this concept of many people playing roles in Youyou's journey, that cloud of witnesses is beginning to mushroom somewhat, and I feel like an Arctic explorer looking at an iceberg poking up from the water, trying to fathom its size.

Strange emails have begun to arrive--make that emails from strangers. They're quite friendly, in fact. One came shortly after I enrolled in a bladder exstrophy support group in hopes of gaining new information to ease our preparation for this young prince. A few hours later, the executive director emailed back to say that she knows of our son, has photos of him, had in fact entertained certain notions about expanding her role in his story. Then came today's email from a woman on the East Coast, who hosted Youyou and his ayi when he came for surgery at Johns Hopkins this summer. She wrote to give congratulations and to express her hopes of seeing Youyou when he comes home with us. She has photos, too, and she advises that we will both delight in and be exhausted by this little boy.

These are but two emails. I feel much smaller just now, as though I am but the latest person to step into a much larger story that has been heard round the world by many others. How old will he be before he begins to grasp the depths of his experience and its impact on so many? It makes me want to hold him close just now, perhaps to turn the night light on and to sit and listen. What do we think we're doing?