Adoption Journal (10)

By Ridley Pearson

We leave behind tears and trials, terror and joy. We bring home God's greatest gift of all: a human bundle of pure and perfect love. We leave behind thousands more like you. I've dreamt of these children at night, haunted by the thought of the others left behind and the futile knowledge that they only escape one at a time.

The other day in the thick and congested open air market, we turned down a narrow lane to noise and a large gathering of Chinese, all pressed up one against the other. Wondering what could attract people so... a dignitary? a calamity?...we approached somewhat cautiously. Why all the noise, all the keen stares toward the gated building? We finally found ourselves swallowed by the throng, for it closed in around us as the gate opened. And there was our answer: children. It was a school. The students, about ten to twelve years old, were being let out of school one child at a time, the eager parent waiting outside as if this child had come home from war. As if this child were the only child on earth... and of course they are. One family, one child. For nearly twenty years now. These are the rarest of all assets, the harbingers of China's future - one precious child, greeted each day after school like a returning veteran.

And at the White Swan Hotel, twenty, thirty, perhaps fifty or more such children checking out each day and boarding buses for the airport in the arms of their American, German, or Canadian parents. One family, one child. And in rare cases, twins. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Each day. Every day. An adoption factory at full throttle. Yet only skimming surface of those we leave behind.

And one of those couples will be smiling quite brightly tomorrow at noon as they pass through those doors. A little glimpse of a miracle. A magical moment. You still study everything around you with that innate curiosity of a young baby, but you stare at the two of us equally hard, for an equally long time. You stare and stare, and grin every now and then, grin up into our returning gaze with wonder and excitement in your eyes. And the world stops for that moment. No one is aware of it - people think their lives go on as they do every day - but the whole world stops for that blink of an eye, and three people in a cab on the back streets of Guangzhou hold their breaths and make sure this is real. And it is. Which for them makes it the greatest story of all...

(part 10 of 10, completed)