The Red Thread Between Us..

It’s an ancient story.

There was a woman who lived in a far away land; I know nothing about her actual life, but I have invented one for her. I don’t know hold old she was when our lives entwined, but I assume she was young, maybe even a teenager. I don’t know if she was married at the time, although she might have been. We are tethered together, or at least she is to me, in the story and in real life, unreleasable, more intimate than other more significant relationships, but vacant in understanding or involvement.

I don’t know if she had a loving family or even any family at all, but I imagine that she did, that they were kind and good but that their definitions of closeness, intimacy and family were distinct from my own, motivated by different needs, culturally unique, and yet, rooted somewhere, somehow, in the common experience we call love.

I don’t know if she was someone who laughed readily, or loved oranges or felt at peace in nature; I don’t know if she is someone who had long, lovely fingers or a mole above her upper lip.

For many years, I did not want to know; and conveniently, had no time to obsess about her.

I had work to do, to raise the child she gave birth to, the one she couldn’t, for whatever reason, keep, so that I could focus on her, my child, her child, my future, her past, mine forever, hers for a moment.

The path was complicated; adding a fourth child to the mix with a teenager and two pre-teens, a depleted, soon to be extinguished marriage, a thriving career, a recently deceased younger brother and I, about to turn fifty, the age many become grandparents.

None of it seemed to make sense; and I was told this over and over by the observers of my life; why, they all wanted to know, would I adopt now? I brushed their concerns and opinions aside for the two and a half years I waited for China, ironically, to become the voice of approval. The government sent me a picture of an adorable little girl of about seven or eight months old (although my daughter was eighteen months old by the time I adopted her), with eyebrows furrowed in exactly the same way they often are now.

There was never any question, any doubt, any wondering if it was the right thing to do; there was utter clarity. I never thought about why or why not to adopt; it was simply a gentle, then strong push towards an inevitable expanded life with my daughter, always at the center.

The woman who gave birth to her twenty one years ago must have had a contracted life without her; but she moved away from her thoughtfully; having carefully wrapped the baby in an old onesie, a worn thin blanket around her, and left her in a basket we would think of as perfect for a picnic, laden with yummy food and a red and white checked tablecloth to spread on the ground under a big tree, but in which she placed this precious child and deposited on the steps of an orphanage in Choa-Hu, in front of massive blue doors, where she would be found and cared for.

For these last two decades I have fed, dressed, bathed, read to, played with, nurtured, protected, laughter with, cried with, worried about, parented and loved completely this bundle she left me.

But lately I have found myself thinking about that young woman more, as the baby has developed into a lovely, introverted, sarcastic, hardworking young woman who is cautious, grounded, and loyal. And has a mole above her lip and long lovely fingers.

My daughter might be older now than the woman who gave birth to her. We will never know.

I don’t know any more about that woman than I did when I stood in the bare, cold, governmental office and legally claimed the baby as my own.

Although my daughter has known every part of her adoption story since the very beginning, we still tip toe around this truth, about the woman whose body bore her.

Yesterday, I called my sweet girl to wish her a happy birthday and was overcome with an awe and tenderness that somehow, through it all, the trauma of moving across country, family members’ deaths, divorce and destruction, she has turned twenty one and is poised, beautiful, and wiser than her years.

Maybe it was because she is becoming more of an adult, a woman capable of making her own choices, following her own path, that I told her I was thinking of the woman whose body nourished her for nine months and who cared for her for a day or two before offering her to me. I shared with my daughter how deeply grateful I am for this woman.

We were on FaceTime and she was walking to class, wearing her signature hooded sweatshirt and jeans. I got choked up and told her that a red thread connected us forever. I could see deeply into my daughter’s dark eyes, that furrowed brow doing its thing and I wondered in that instant whether she too might have been thinking the same thing. We were in the moment, in new territory, more confident, a more mature depth to our relationship, both of us comfortable with and cognizant of the red thread connecting three women forever.