All day today, in the rare, quieter moments, my mind has drifted far away from here and all the busy-ness that keeps me. I am thinking of China, and of Scott and Lynne; of Caleb, Seth and Madelyn who are home with their grandparents, and of Gwen, who waits.
I have writtten here before, and perhaps you have read it, of our friends who are adopting their fourth child, Dear Gwen, from an orphanage in China. They left in the wee hours yesterday morning.
I, of course, knew they were going. I had counted down the days with Lynne, just as we have, together, counted down the days of six pregnancies between us. And then the Day of Departure came, and suddenly I didn’t remember what time their plane left, though I knew their itinerary. And I hadn’t had a chance to call on Wednesday. And I was afraid to call on Thursday morning. And I missed her call to me.
Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
Still, I am thinking of them, imagining how they’ll see that magnificent country, a place I’ve only tried to imagine, a place whose beauty, in film and photograph, has many times taken my breath.
I know they’ll enjoy the beauty. And they will try to see and understand as much as they can, as they will want, forever after, to talk with Gwen about the country of her birth. But it must be difficult to absorb, being, as it is, so Entirely Other, and they being so anxious to see Their Girl.
I find that I am thinking about these things All the Time.
Twice before I’ve had friends in China. My friend Dora spent a year there after college teaching English. My friend Heidi spent six years there doing the same thing, falling in love with the people, the customs, the country.
But now, with Scott and Lynne there, going so briefly on so utterly life-changing an errand, I find myself fixed on China. I find my thoughts going again and again to where they are, to Gwen as she waits, to joy unconceived and unfolding in the weeks and months and years to come. I can’t explain this quiet distraction, this soft pull in all the corners of my mind. I guess I have to adjust and simply get used to it, and use it as reminder to pray: for the next twelve days or so, half my heart is in China.
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