At some point I'd told K-Man, "So, here's what I think that we should do. We're going to tell our agency that we want a little girl in the age range between Q-Boo and Wild Child. We're going to tell them that we want a little girl with albinism but, I really don't think that they're going to be able to find her, K-Man. Albinism, it's just such a rare thing. We're going to ask them to look and we're going to get all of our stuff together but when it comes time to send it to China and they still haven't found the little girl that we expect, then we're going to sit down and rethink this. We're going to find another little girl and then, I'm going to assume that my visions of 'blonde and blue-eyed' and finding Gia were just the things that got us to this point. We were supposed to adopt again from China and those amazing occurrences are what got us here, onto the correct path."
I'd very smartly decided that our little girl probably wouldn't have albinism. We'd take another little girl when it was time to make that decision -so very smart and logical and "real world." However, in my heart, it was another matter. In my heart, where all things work according to A-Girl World, I was going to parent a Chinese little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes...until they told me that I wasn't.
Things become real, for me, when I name them and I’d been calling her “Luna” in my mind for a while. “Luna” is Latin for “the moon.” Gia, when you looked at her, she shined. All these kids, they shine. Just exactly like the full moon, they shine so brightly that it almost hurts my eyes to look at them. I 'd been pretending in my head that they were known as “moon children” in China. They're not and I have no idea where I got this idea but there it is. ( It is the title of a play, "Moonchildren" produced in 1971, which has nothing to do with either albinism or China.)
That night, January 4, 2015, I’d taken a break from home and was on my way to pick up dinner. All the way to the store and back, I was driving on auto-pilot. It had begun to rain, the sky was dark and mysterious, I’d turned on the windshield wipers in a trance. My mind was in China, in all the questions and possible scenarios. I’d made that decision that you have to make when you are facing a world of unknowns and possible heartbreak - I would go forward until I couldn’t anymore. My heart might break but it wouldn’t be because I'd refused to act and then, I'd felt it when my heart finally gave birth to the tiny hope of her. I was imagining that the full moon would always be our “thing.” I imagined calling her out to see it and that I’d tell her, “you shine just as brightly, you are just as beautiful.” Suddenly, the dark clouds outside my windshield began to move, they separated -the darkness in front of me temporarily parted to reveal a bright, shining, full moon. Is that? Yes, it is! A full moon, tonight? I’d had no idea. I heard myself gasp and then say out loud, “It’s a Luna moon!” It was gone by the time I got home but it was there, I'd seen it. It was real. And somewhere, a very far way away, she was, too.
In my heart and in my mind, she was "Luna" but outside, in the real world, I never expected this to be her actual name. We would fall in love with a picture of a little girl, who probably would not have albinism, at the appropriate time and then we'd name and love that little girl. But for that moment, until I had another little girl to take her place, my blue-eyed, blonde, "Luna" would be the one that would bridge the gap, in my heart, for my unknown daughter until I could find out who she really was.
And then, I went a little bit nuts trying to find her. I went back to Holt’s Waiting Children page and looked at the same kids over and over, I looked at other agencies, I wore myself out looking at sweet little Gia and studying the words underneath her picture, “I have a family!” and I grew tired of wondering if I’d ever have my own little version. Finally, I decided to stop looking.
I had just begun rereading the Harry Potter series and decided that I was going to put myself on a fast of all things “Luna” until I’d found Luna Lovegood in the series. No more looking for Luna, A-Girl, until you find Luna in the book. You will calm down, you will trust the process, you will NOT let anxiety get the better of you. Chill out. No more looking for Luna! For some reason, I'd remembered this to be ½ way through the first book. Um, no. It's not. I finished the first book and went to the second, the third, the fourth, until early one evening, WEEKS later, on page 179 of the FIFTH book, there she finally was. I finished page 178, and sucked in my breath when I looked over at page 179 because there I saw in capital letters, LUNA LOVEGOOD. Luna doesn’t just show up, she has her own chapter. I'd giggled to myself. We’re getting closer. I took my time, I read that chapter at my leisure and then I waited a bit more. In fact, I finished it and then I forced myself to sit still. You will NOT freak out and start looking for Luna, immediately. You will not. Two beats passed after I'd told myself those words, and then -I swear to you that no more time passed than that- Wild Child, who'd been hanging out in the library with me, suddenly stood up and looked out the window. He exclaimed, “Look, a full moon!” What?
Yeah, I'm looking for Luna, RIGHT NOW!
I bolted out of my chair and turned on the computer. The first child that I saw, the newest addition to the site, was a five-year-old little girl. And, she shined like the full moon.
 |
| <gulp> |
My mouth fell open and I almost fell off of my stool. I mean it, the world sorta went wonky for a few seconds. She was known as "Sarah" (they have Chinese names but legally can't be known by them so the agencies give them English names that they are known by on their sites. In fact, some of the kids who've been with more than one agency have several names that they are known by.) Sarah had albinism, she was five, (ten months older than Q-Boo) and she was living in an orphanage in China. She had blue eyes and, unlike white-headed Gia, her hair was very light blonde. I immediately sent in an email requesting more info about her...and then I just called them because, let's face it, email was never going to happen fast enough.
The conversation went a little something like this:
“I offered Sarah to the families already in our system about a week ago but no one was interested. I just now put her info on our website and then I went for a walk. When I came back, your info was in my email.”
On the other end of the phone, I closed my eyes and I said, "Just tell me what I have to do to get her file, I'll do it." I thought to myself, because she's mine.
I’d never seen a child with albinism on their website, this made two at strategic times, so I asked my agency contact about it.
She told me that, while they do see children with albinism, "every now and then," it was very rare that they’d have two in such a short amount of time, “…and especially little girls of that age….”
<grin>
Was it too much to believe that the "Luna" in my heart wasn't the bridge to my daughter, after all...that she was my daughter?
Application and money sent in. Now, we'd wait.
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