It Happened so Quickly

We’d gotten up early to drive to Portland. This was the culmination of years of effort, struggle, sacrifice, tedium, false starts, disappointments, embarrassment, humiliation.

Anyone who thinks adoption is easier than pregnancy and childbirth should come try it for themselves.

But now, we had finally come here, to this spot at PDX, the Portland International Airport. Standing together, the three of us, John and Kathe and Waldy, waiting for them to come.

We saw a pair of dark-skinned girls, but as they got closer we saw that they were not Hamitic, and older than the girls we expected, and there was no boy with them. We saw another girl, and looked for her sister and brother, and didn’t see them, and went back to waiting.

Finally, we saw what we were looking for: two girls and a little boy, all dressed in white linen Ethiopian formal wear, and wearing small backpacks. And they saw us as well. First one girl, then the other, then they called their brother’s attention to us.

They didn’t run. They’d surely been cautioned not to run, and they were good kids. But they picked up their pace a little bit, and it felt as though I was connected to them by an elastic bond that drew them toward us.

Then they were in our arms, my wife hugging one girl while I hugged the other, then the little boy, who had already hugged Waldy.

Touching them seemed to make them real. These were our kids. We were their parents.

It happened so quickly.

The Magic Eight-Ball says: "Hurry up and wait".