Monday March 21, 2016

Making a mockery of the saying “You can’t go home again”.

Before we get into the meat of today’s main event: the return to Matthew’s orphanage; you should know that we barely managed to avoid a significant family tragedy this morning at breakfast. Not sure how many of you are aware but Aelex has recently had her braces removed. This is a double edged sword for me as her Dad. On the one hand, she looks even more beautiful than she did previously but on the other hand she looks even more beautiful than she did previously. I imaging that this turn of events has not gone unnoticed by the teenage boys she interacts with on a daily basis which means that I am most likely going to have to confine my daughter to her room for the remainder of her natural life, but I digress. In lieu of her braces, Aelex must now wear a clear plastic retainer in her mouth at all times, except when eating. This is problematic mostly because if Aelex’s head was not attached to the rest of her body we would currently be the parents of a headless daughter. She tends to misplace things very regularly is what I’m saying. So, at breakfast she removed her retainer and wrapped it in a napkin as she had forgotten her case back in the hotel room. I’m sure you can see where this is heading, so yes, we left the hotel restaurant and returned to our room sans retainer only for Aelex to realize some time later what she had done, or actually: failed to do. With her realization, Dorothy rushed back to the restaurant in order to attempt to recover the retainer before it was lost forever in some Hefeian landfill. Obviously, the Chinese wait staff, in all of their ridiculous efficiency, had already cleared the table and sent the remains of our breakfast back to the kitchen to be disposed of. While the staff of our hotel in Hefei are friendly and polite across the board, their overall grasp of the english language is spotty at best. Try explaining what a “retainer” is to someone with a single to double digit word count understanding of your language, and you with a no-digit understanding of their native tongue. By sheer force of will, Dorothy was able to get the gist of the issue across to the restaurant staff so that within moments, a team of kitchen employees had dumped several garbage cans worth of refuse on the kitchen floor and were busy sifting through the detritus looking for who knows what. After several minutes of dirty work, one of the waitresses actually found our daughter’s not inexpensive dental retainer much to Dorothy’s relief triggering a standing ovation from the rest of the employees who were now able to conclude their hunt and return to their day jobs of not cleaning up an absentminded teenage girl’s mess. My only reaction when Dorothy returned to the room and relayed the story to me was to inquire if she remembered to take a picture of the garbage being dumped all over the kitchen so I could post it to this website. I remain optimistic that Dorothy will start speaking to me again sometime before the culmination of our trip.

After our daughter’s dental appliance was thoroughly decontaminated and sterilized, we met up with Georgiana for a 90 minute drive to Matthew’s orphanage in Lu’an. As it turns out, the current location of the orphanage is not the same as the one Matthew lived in for the first 13 months of his life. This meant that our trip to Lu’an would need to hit multiple sites in order to cover all of our bases in giving Matthew the full story of his early life.

We assembled our gifts for the orphanage staff and the children currently living there, and organized a few dozen pictures of Matthew’s life since he joined our family so that Georgiana could transcribe captions for each image into Chinese allowing the orphanage staff to understand what was being shown in the photos. Since we had a decent trip ahead of us, there was no need to rush and we were able to get all our ducks in a row well before we arrived at the new building.

Once there, we were escorted into a much more modern, cheery, and attractive building than the one Matthew spent his formative year in. We were greeted by the orphanage’s assistant director, a very welcoming woman who poured us all green tea and offered us sundry refreshments as we waited for the arrival of the head director to make the visit all official-like. Matthew seemed a little nervous but kept assuring his mother and I that he was fine. He’s generally a straightforward and articulate kid so we took him at his word and made no assumptions about his state of mind.

Within minutes, in walked the head director who Dorothy and I both recognized from the first time we met him which was precisely the same time we met our son for the first time. We chatted pleasantly about Matthew, what type of person he was, and answered general questions about his life and accomplishments as the director leafed through the photo album of Matthew’s life to date. The conversation was warm and genuine, with real concern demonstrated for Matthew’s well being.

Matthew had written a letter of thanks which he read out loud for the director as Georgiana translated. His eloquence served him well as he talked of his gratitude for their care in his first year, his pride in his Chinese heritage, and plans for the future. Everyone seemed pleased to hear Matthew speak so openly on the topic of his feelings and future.

The director was very warm towards Matthew, gripping his hand and repeatedly patting him on the shoulder affectionately. You could see Matthew being put more and more at ease as he wrapped his head around the reality of the fact that he had come full circle so early in his life. The word “poignant” sprang to mind just as the occasional tear escaped from the corner of our eyes.

Eventually, we were invited to share lunch with the orphanage staff, which we readily accepted. We entered the staff dining room which featured a very large circular table surrounded by about 25 seats that quickly filled up with staff members who all stopped to say hi to Matthew. Then in came the food. And then some more. And more. Some more was then brought in. Then a little more. Followed by several other dishes as well. They had really gone out of their way to honor us with their hospitality. We were told that while orphanage adoptees returning to visit their former home was a rather frequent occurrence, Matthew was actually the first boy to make the pilgrimage back. Everyone was very interested in his story and asked us many questions about his life and development. Matthew’s a pretty easy kid to brag on, so we happily did so. Everyone there appeared genuinely pleased to hear about all of his success, and beamed most proudly when Dorothy and I talked about how the industriousness and dedication evidenced so clearly in Matthew was also part of his sisters’ DNA and we credited their heritage as much as our parental influence.

As lunch progressed, the director continually served Matthew — seated to his right — from the rotating center of the table which was very touching to see. Not that the director is a stern man, but the relatively manifest Chinese trait of inscrutability receded whenever he interacted with Matthew, demonstrating genuine consideration which was immensely gratifying.

We found out at lunch that Matthew is one of over 500 children who have been adopted from the Lu’an orphanage over the years which meant that he “has 500 (additional) brothers and sisters out there in the world”. The fact that he was considered part of a wider family was moving and it was easy to see this knowledge impacted Matthew deeply.

One additional perk of being considered family, we were also to find out, meant that wine — generally forbidden to be served at official functions on the orphanage grounds — could be served without consequence as we were not outsiders but officially one of them. I was so touched I had another glass of wine right then and there. Toasts were made and received, then remade and returned yet again. This was just the type of family gathering I really enjoy.

In addition, I also played the role of comic relief at one point, attempting to serve myself some dry noodles that needed to be placed in some accompanying broth to cook before being plated. Everyone at the table who knew this jumped up to stop me before I made too big a fool of myself, and the crisis was averted. My ignorance of the cuisine regulations caused no small bit of laughter among the initiated, but I didn’t mind. I mean after all, if your family can’t laugh at your most foolish moments, who can?

After lunch ended, we said our goodbyes to the director and most of the assembled staff, save the assistant director who had greeted us initially and was going to give us a tour of the facilities. We walked the halls being shown the children’s activity rooms and empty bedrooms (since it was Monday, most of the children were at school) but there was a room with some sleeping infants that we were invited in to quietly enter. I can tell you that walking around the cribs and the napping children brought back a flood of memories and emotions that were difficult to contain. I’m pretty sure that if she could have gotten away with it, Dorothy would have gladly snuck one or two of the infants in her carry-on for the return trip home.

It was in this room that one of the most touching moments of the whole day happened. The caregiver who was there minding the children asked which of our three kids were originally from the Lu’an orphanage and when Matthew was pointed out she asked for his original Chinese name. When the assistant director told her, you could see the caregiver do a double take. She rushed over to Matthew and hugged him because, as it turns out, unbeknownst to any of us, she was one of his original caregivers when he lived in the orphanage. Well, at this point why even bother to try and hold back the tears, amiright?

Finally, we retuned to the first room that we were greeted in when we arrived. The assistant director then brought out a manila folder which we were to find out contained all of Matthew’s original paperwork from the moment he was first left on the orphanage’s doorstep as a 2 day old newborn. In the folder, the first thing we saw was his very first baby picture of which we had never seen nor had any copy. We carefully photographed each and every page of the folder’s contents, not really sure what all of it meant, but positive that we needed to take as much of our son’s history away with us as we could. His first, baby footprint captured in bright red ink was also included in the file which, for whatever reason, seemed as important a relic of Matthew’s history as any photograph could.

Once we finished with the paperwork, it was time to leave the orphanage and say goodbye to the people who cared for our son during the most vulnerable time in his life. It was an incredibly emotional, and even more satisfying, visit that surpassed our most optimistic hopes for finding additional meaning in the one chapter of our child’s life to which we had the least understanding. I can’t really tell you exactly how Matthew felt about the whole experience as I still think he is processing all of the emotion and information that he absorbed today. It was definitely the right thing to do in bringing him back to find out more about who he is — and indeed was — but I think the echos of this trip will continue to sound in our childrens’ minds for a long, long time after we leave China for their new, permanent, and yes, adopted home in the US.

On the way back to Hefei city, we made a quick stop at the old orphanage site to show Matthew the physical location where he lived those 11 years ago. The much less modern and pleasant structure might have been more disappointing in isolation if it wasn’t preceded by the care we had just experienced at the new location. It’s not the house that makes a home, it’s the people who live there.

Well, that’s about all I can write for now. Matthew is not the only one still processing everything that happened today. I think both girls also have some thinking to do before we get to each of their orphanages over the coming week. Right now, the whole family is simultaneously drained by, yet emotionally at peace with, what happened earlier. These are the types of things that one can never fully prepare for. So just roll with it I say. And continue to roll we will. Together, as a family.

Enjoying the days of wine and uncooked noodles…