Life is full of choices that we have to live with after the fact, not all of them easy. When our girls told us that they wanted a brother, Max wasn't the first boy we considered. In fact, we asked about adopting two boys we had met when we hosted our Tanya during the summer of 2003. Aniyar and Madiyar visited the US with Tanya's Kidsave group and we never forgot them...they were charmers, 6 and 8 year old dynamos when we met them. They were very close to each other, bio brothers who looked out for each other. We asked if they were still available for adoption and were told that they were being adopted by another family...so we began to consider other boys from Tanya's orphanage who might fit into our family. We found Max and committed to his adoption through a different agency...and one week later, our social worker told us that Aniyar and Madiyar were available for adoption after all. That day stands out vividly in my mind...Craig and I were faced with an awful choice. Would we honor our commitment to Max...our would we adopt Aniyar and Madiyar, thereby leaving Max in KZ? We knew that Max wasn't aware of the fact that he was being considered for adoption so he wouldn't ever know what he had missed...but we had made a commitment as a family to the boy with the knobby knees whose picture was already hanging on our refrigerator. We took a deep breath and moved forward with our adoption of Max...but Aniyar and Madiyar remained in our hearts.
When we traveled to KZ to adopt Max, we couldn't resist asking about the boys and were told they were doing well. Madiyar had moved on to the boarding school orphanage for older kids in Ridder while Aniyar remained in Ust-Kamenogorsk at the pre-school orphanage. We saw Aniyar while we were visiting Max; it was heart-breaking to have him bring me little trinkets and climb onto my lap for hugs, knowing we couldn't bring him home...
No comments:
Post a Comment