A Letter to My Son’s Mother

Dearest,

I was thinking of you today.  I usually try not to.  Not that I try to avoid thinking of you.  But since we’ve never met, and truth be told - I don’t even know if you’re alive, I can’t conceive of you really.  I can’t picture you.  Not in a tangible way.  I think of you in the abstract.  Here but not.  A part of us, but not.  Certainly a part of him…but then sometimes, not.  We are living life and the motion of it carries us forward – onward…away from those days in Ethiopia.   This makes me both sad and happy.  Happy because he is so wonderful…such a joy in our lives.  Sad, because I often get a pang when I think of you – of great loss.  Not just for him.  For us too.  That we couldn’t put our arms around you, hug you, comfort you in some way.  Show you how much he is loved.

I like to think you were pretty.  If you could see your son today, you would know why I think this way.  I like to think you had no choice.  I pray that was it.  I hear rumblings of infant thieves who take the young from their mothers and sell them to the highest bidder in places like the one you surely lived in.  I hear stories of those who discard their young because of presumed curses on the babies.  I hear this and I think to myself – please when it is all said and done – don’t let these things be true for him.  Let it be that you, his mother, truly had no choice.  That you left him somewhere you knew he would be found.  That you wanted him.  That you loved him.  That you still do.  I want that so badly for him.  So badly for me…

I’ve been trying to picture you in a tangible way – not in the abstract.  But as a mother who could not, for many reasons, care for him.  And in that, you gave him unknowingly into my care when you left him that day.  I like to think of you hugging him…kissing him…crying over his little body.  Telling him that you love him so.  That you would never forget him.  You had him for two months.  Two months in mother-speak is practically a lifetime.  Certainly enough time to fall completely in love.  I know for me, it took only a moment…a look…holding him in my arms – and I was in love permanently.  I like to imagine you felt the same way when you gazed into those beautiful chocolate colored eyes and held those gorgeous fingers and toes in your hands.

I want to confess that sometimes I feel incredulous that you could walk away from him.  How could you, I think to myself.  He’s so amazing!  He’s so much that words aren’t enough….  Then I feel so very sad that you had to do that...walk away from him.  Then I feel angry that you left him there.  What if he had died?  Then I feel broken that you were in a position to have had to leave him there to begin with.  I feel sad that he’ll never know you again.  He had you...he had you and your arms and your heart...even for a little bit...and then he didn’t.  And as grateful as I will forever be – I am always filled with such grief that he won’t know you.  He won’t be in your arms again.  He won’t know why you did what you did.  He won’t understand in this lifetime.  And I’m sad and incredulous and angry and broken all over again.  For him.  For me too I guess…

Are you still thinking of him?  Do you love and miss him as much as I like to think you do?  He’s so tall.  Handsome and bright.  Funny and loving.  He’s affectionate and kind and full of energy for life.  He has a smile that would melt every sad place inside of you, and a laugh that makes you come undone.  He loves to hug and kiss and doles out generous pats on the back.  He loves to chatter and sing and dance and play.  He loves to climb and roll and do summersaults.  His eyes are big and beautiful and his fingers and toes are still gorgeous. 

He’ll be four this year.  Growing up so fast and changing so much.  I wish you could see him, hug him…let him give you one of his incredible kisses.  He would hold your face in his hands and he would kiss you soundly on the lips.  Then he would kiss each cheek.  You would dissolve into the ground, just like we do.

I wish you could pull him onto your lap and tell him something wonderful in Amharic.  I wish you could tell him about his grandparents, about his father, about his siblings…

I wish so many things for you, Dearest Mother of my son…and I wish so many things for him.  Our son.  Yours and mine. 

I like to think we are alike.  That we would both do anything for him.  You would give him up to save him.  I would raise him up to save him.  I like to think this way, because it helps my heart to think that you love him as much as I do.  Even though I’ll never know all the answers my heart wants, I still like to think that you might be, at this very moment, on the other side of the world with a heart full of questions too.  Was he found?  Is he alive?  Is he growing up?  What does he look like now?  Is he cared for?  Does he have food to eat?  Is he well?

Is he loved?

Yes, dearest…he is loved.  So, so much.  Some day, on the other side of heaven, I’ll show you…

~ Your Son’s Mother