aftershocks

The fingers of human stories entwine in unforeseen ways, irrevocable and complex.

On Thursday, May 22, we woke up late, but it was not a problem. We were quietly excited—in a few hours, we would travel to the Consulate for our oath-taking ceremony, the last phase in China of making our adoption complete!

As we got ready for breakfast, I checked the email, and suddenly everything stopped. Friend Rinda had written quickly to ask for prayer on her way to the hospital. Steven and MaryBeth Chapman’s daughter, Maria, had been hit by a car at home. She wasn’t breathing as they lifeflighted her to Vanderbilt.

We paused to pray, to ask for mercy, to fight the fog of unbelief. Surely this was a passing thing. But moments later, friend Tricia followed with a new email posting the saddest news of all, that Maria had died.

I reacted with denial, much as I did when I woke up to the hotel swaying that afternoon—it seems so long ago now. It couldn’t be true. There must be a mistake, a misinterpretation, a communication breakdown. We didn’t say anything to the others in our group as we boarded a bus to the Consulate, and my heart filled with the strangeness of it as we took our oath, one small family in a sea of adopting Americans, some already struggling fearfully with their children’s burdens.

How could one family’s happiest day be the same day another family would hope against ever happening? Where are these children going, and what is to become of them? The mingling of joy and grief throughout is too much for words, let alone imagination. How could one mother who encouraged and helped us so much more than we can repay-without whom we would not have our son, in truth-lose her daughter as our own hope’s fruit finally ripened?

“If he is buried in a landslide, who am I to say his story, our story, is wasted? The events thus far have been not a means to an end, as a prelude to a life of leadership or remarkable character, but instead have been their own fullness, fruit of the love of others.” My words from just days earlier throbbed in my aching head as I stared past endless anonymous crumbling concrete housing filled with numberless persons whose paths will never cross my own, save to say that they lived in the city through which I traveled that day my son became my own-but not my own, still. Do I believe those words I wrote? I cannot think of a time when what I’ve pondered has been challenged so quickly or profoundly, but I think that what I was trying to say that day is all that I have even now. In an earlier time, I would have sought justification, a deitific purpose behind such sadness, or perhaps condemned some ethereal spiritual attack. But those thoughts scar the mind, marring the receipt of love. That season of joy in that lovely family was its own season, and its end does not mean the end of joy, else what can we hope for? I cannot ask what the meaning of this is, any more than I can ask what great work my son must be destined for, seeing the number of people and weight of sacrifice required to bring him this far. It is its own time, and it is full, growing fuller still, whether we will it or not.

Even as the Chapmans ushered their daughter onward, we bundled our son home. Near and far, to and fro. Even as we flew homeward over Canada Saturday, the funeral commenced, and when we arrived safely, wearily, home, we were met at the airport by friends, sweet faithful friends, who came straight from that funeral to our homecoming. Near and far, to and fro. Joy, when it is sombered, is a deepening thing, slow to blossom and hard to hold. A rose in a vase is enjoyed in the fullness of scent and color, even as it dies of its severance.

I’m reminded of when I read “The Grapes of Wrath” in high school. I was so angry at Steinbeck that I barely finished the book. The moment in which one family member passes even as another is conceived in the same vehicle was too much to bear. I couldn’t explain why, then, but it nagged at me, kept me awake, drove me to beg the teacher for an alternate book, any alternate book. Looking back, I think it was, perhaps, the self-consciousness of the construct, the idea that this near and far, to and fro, happens in the same breath in this life, but it is truer than what he writes. Somehow, his telling of this thing which truly unfolds was a lie. Perhaps the lie was hopelessness, or maybe it was that such a moment had to be invented, as though it does not naturally happen.

I’m reminded, too, of Peter, the disciple I would name “Most Likely to Have Americans Compare Themselves to in Hopes They Were So Cool.” In a moment of sifting, scores of followers suddenly found Jesus’ words incompatible with their expectations of Messiah, and they left. Jesus turned to “the 12” and asked if they were prepared to leave, as well. Peter replied, “Where would we go?”—some texts interpret it as, “To whom would we go?” I’m beginning to think, more and more, that his words were unhindered by ambition or personality—it sounds like the query from a man at the end of himself.

But we are home, and we are HOME, and it is good that this time has come. Our little prince finally slept through a night last night, and the moments of his day are enormous. There is yet more to tell, as we settle in and begin something like a schedule...the homecoming, the emails, the help from doctors and nurses as we traveled, the stories and improbabilities, the mighty story of our son's origins, the weaving of the strands that for a time served as legend to us...to tell them as they unfolded would have allowed me to dwell in places that would have disabled me from moving forward, and we desparately needed to move forward each day there. There is more and still more, fuller and fuller.