One Month Later

Before we post a follow-up to "Jesus in China", I'd like to write a little bit about hitting our one month anniversary of our "gotcha day". This is a euphemism in the adoption world for the first day you're greeted with your new adoptive child. For us that was January 25th, just a little over one month ago. To use an often over-quoted saying, we really cannot believe that it's already been one month. In some ways it feels like just yesterday, and in so many other ways it feels like each day has lasted more than 24 hours.

This morning, Saturday, Victoria allowed me to sleep in. (I've been working my tail off lately flying up and down the coast, traveling east and so on to be involved in annual performance reviews for the approximate 425 people that fall under my supervisory purview at work. Although grueling, this is my favorite time of the work year because I get to talk about and spend focused time praising and encouraging some of the most remarkable people in world, or at least I think so. This is one of the reasons I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like.) Upon awaking and lying in bed alone, I thought about each one of my children and my wife, wondering what they were doing at that very moment. Turns out Austin and Meagan were in the Rockies enjoying an exciting day of downhill skiing, Annie was getting ready to head off to work in San Luis Obispo, Barret was at a volleyball scrimmage at a nearby high school, the little ankle-biters were up and running around the house, Victoria was trying to have a quiet time (emphasis on the word "trying" because she was constantly interrupted by Poppy and Willow), and Piper was lounging around after the little girls woke her up earlier than she really wanted (they're just too giggly and they all three sleep in the same room together - in fact, I can hear all three of them goofing around in the room across the hall right now as I type this, and it's after 10:00 this evening). As it turns out, Piper was super tired because she stayed up (much to our chagrin) until 1:00 a.m. Skype-ing with some friends in China - I think we're going to have to put some boundaries on that in the future... that's what parents are supposed to do, but we failed this time.

Knowing that we would be spending a good part of the day in the City of San Francisco enjoying the Chinese New Year's Parade (one of the largest, if not the largest in the country), we decided we would stay home for the morning and just relax a little. Not long into our relaxation mode, Piper decided to grab a piece of construction paper and sketch out a calendar for the month of February. I poked my head over her shoulder from time to time to see how her progress was coming along, never really asking her what she was doing but o' so curious to know what her intentions were (after all, the month of February only has one more day left in it). Later on, when I peered over her shoulder just one more time, I noticed she was writing Chinese characters into each of the days of the month, sentences if you will, together with simple three-pen stroke faces with two eyes and a mouth. She was uncharacteristically quiet, determined to complete her task (which is not uncharacteristic of her).

So what does all of this have to do with her "gotcha day"? Well, as it turns out Piper decided to journal the last month of her life (see picture above), and those Chinese character sentences were her paraphrased remembrances of her most significant times during each one of those days of the month. Rather than share with you our perspective of the last month, it would be better for you to know her perspective. And as it turns out, almost every face she drew in each one of the days of the month was a happy face. She had a few faces that were neither happy nor sad (straight line for the mouth), one face that was sad, and one face with tears on it. So let me explain, because she meticulously explained each day of the month to Victoria and me after she completed her journal. Almost every day has been happy, for the most part, remembering her first train ride, shopping with Annie, games with Austin, Meagan and Barret, going to parks, etc... They're event oriented, but always with family. The days where she was neither happy nor sad were days when she was either tired (had to run the mile at school one day) or exposed to a large number of new people at one time, like church or school (she does not like entering into new environments with a lot of unfamiliar people, at least not now and not here in America). Her one sad face was her first day of school (although she sort of begged to go school for days before she went), and her one day of tears was when I made an innocent faux pas that frightened her so. (I may share more about that in another post. She let it go about five minutes later after the incident, but I cannot seem to shake it so easily. Such is Piper, and such am I.)

I guess where we're coming out with all of this is that the entire month has been nothing short of pure joy, from both of our perspectives. We know how we feel, but to know how she feels, why that's a little more difficult to uncover. This calendar, this journal is the closest thing we've been able to dive into in order to know how she's viewed all that's happened to her in the last month. From this 14 year old perspective, life is pretty happy most of the time. While we know that this is part of her God-given disposition, we also know that part of God's given grace has gone before all of our family to usher this transition through the sweetness we've all experienced.

So this one month "gotcha day" anniversary is reflective of joy, and also reflective of thankfulness. Each of you have contributed to this joy through so many means, and together we say "Happy Anniversary".

Gotcha,