From the Soul

It is often said that an adopted child is born from the heart. I know that AJ certainly was born in my heart. The first time I saw his picture I was sitting alone in my classroom shaking, my eyes tearing with joy because I knew, in my heart and deep in my soul that I had finally found my child.

Months later when I was sitting in a social worker’s office in Russia waiting for him to come to the room I paced nervously. How would he react to me? Would he like me? Would he let me hold him? And then I heard the doctor climb the stairs, stop and the top, set him down on the hallway floor and allow him to walk. All I could hear were two little feet paddling toward me. I looked at my husband in awe and mouthed “he’s walking!” because our social worker at home told us he was not yet. The doctor peeked around the door and AJ quietly followed her, hesitant and noticeably shy.

Our representative scooped him up and asked me if I would like to hold him.

Yes, I nodded, as I could not speak. She looked at me, never saw that I was trying desperately to hold back tears, and handed him to me. He was so frightened but he was able to loosen up the second day and get acquainted. When we returned to complete our adoption we believe that he recognized us. He immediately warmed to us and hated when we left each day, either throwing a fit with the caregivers or hitting me, a sign that he was growing comfortable with us.

When we finally left the orphanage for good he did not understand, nor did he know he was leaving but the orphanage is still in his soul, as it is in mine. A part of it will always be in him and me, just as Russia and his birth mother will be. It is where he spent over two years of his life and it has made such an impression on him that is has helped shape who he is and who he will become.

In honor of that this is what I would like for Christmas from my husband, my true soul-mate.

“The brief but effective message, “ot dushi” in modern Russian, is finely engraved in decorative Cyrillic letter forms of extraordinary complexity on this unusual ring. The letter forms are taken from a Russian Art Nouveau pattern book of about 1900, An album of Letters and Initials, by K.D. Dolmatov, in the Library’s collections; the letters are spaced around a bold contemporary ring band and separated by characteristic Russian motifs.”