Featured Adoption Story of the month  

I take my fingers from the keyboard and move the mouse about absently, watching the cursor do pirouettes across the screen. The words do not come. I decide to pull up a photo that was emailed to me less than a year ago, a photo that I had looked at so very often before our trip to Kazakhstan. A photo that at once filled my heart with love and self doubt. My son, Alisher, stares out at me from the screen of my computer monitor. He is three years old sitting on a tricycle, but his eyes belie no childish pleasure, nor do they betray a single carefree thought. There is no spark of curiosity, no glint of mischief. His face wears an expression of sad resignation. As I look into his eyes, my heart breaks once again, just as it has each time since I first saw the photograph.

A pounding sound that comes steadily through the basement ceiling releases me from my bittersweet reverie. It is now six months following our return with our two sons, Alisher (who we also call Alec) and his little brother Askar. The pounding I am hearing is the sound of my four children chasing one another in a game of their own invention, most likely involving a combination of dolls, pillows, blankets, matchbox cars, and dress up clothes: the hot commodities in this house. I hear the occasional shriek of joy, a cry of injustice over a toy or a turn taken away, sudden spurts of laughter, a brief moment of silence, and then it all begins again. I hear Alec call to his three siblings, "Come on, guys. I have an idea!"

I look back at the photo on the monitor. The words "I have an idea," echo through my thoughts. An idea. . . My son, in that photograph, had no idea. No idea of the injustice of his fate as an orphan. No idea about the world outside the orphanage that had been his home since birth. No idea how old he was . No idea what were his likes and his dislikes. He had no idea who he was . . .

When I first saw the photo, it did not have the same nuances it has for me now. It was a snapshot of a little boy, half a world away. A little boy who needed home, and family, and love. And we knew we could give him these things. Yet the fact that he looked lost and forlorn haunted me and my husband. What if he really was that sad? But no, we told ourselves, perhaps the photo was just taken at an inopportune moment. It was simply a snapshot after all, a flash in time. . . a millisecond out of a lifetime. Maybe he had just been stirred from a nap , or was taken away from a favorite game and plopped down on that trike. What child wouldn't look sad in those circumstances? How many times had we ourselves been caught unaware by the flash of a camera, looking tired or angry or depressed. Photos do not tell the full story, we told ourselves. They do not encapsulate or define us. I pushed my doubts aside. I carried that photo with me everywhere. I showed it to anyone who would look.!

And then we traveled across half a world to meet our son. And he was indeed that sad, that forlorn, that lost. Awash in a sea of circumstances he did not create, not knowing quite how to swim, but paddling and breathing nonetheless.

It is half a year, and another half a world later, and I close the photo on the screen. I rise, following the sound of the maddening and joyous tumult upstairs. My son, Alec, is playing with his little brother and his two sisters. "Look, guys! Mommy here!" He runs and throws his arms around my legs. "What you doing, Mom?" he asks. "Doing some work on the computer," I answer, "What are you doing, big boy?" "I play with Mira, Tamar, and Askar." "Okay, then go on and play," I say. He plants a kiss on my jeans. "I love ya, Mommy!" he calls back as he runs off to his game: a brave child in a brave new world. A world rich with love. Full of challenges. Ripe with possibility. Surrounded and supported by his family.

Our journey around the world has ended, but another has just begun. It is a journey of the heart. A journey of the soul. It is a journey we make together. Forever. We are a family.