Not every child will react the same, but every child will face a traumatic seperation. There is just no way around that.
Noah came home to us, so all we saw were the smiles and the happiness on our side. When we picked up Kali it was so very different. By the time she got off the plane she was pretty cheery and smiley and that is what my family saw.
What did they miss....
Me (and my close friends) watching this child with her family for a week. Family, not foster family, not temporary family, HER FAMILY. Because from Kali's perspective, that is who they were. Period. She had no way of knowing this was a temporary thing, that wheels were in motion, that rules existed, that made this all so.
Her foster family, bless them, treated this child with such love and care- so much like their own child that she could never ever have suspected she wasn't.
Then we came to Korea. We had the most fortunate, unbelievable blessing in our trip; we spent every day with her foster family. We really hung out with them for lack of a better term. Not the few hour arranged meet and greet with Holt officials around. No we went to their church, their house, their local shopping places, etc., etc., we were welcomed beyond any expectations. And they spoke no English. In ways this was hard, in ways it offered a unique perspective because while we were with them, we also were observers a lot.
It was so unbelievable to see her daily life. But nothing read, or told to me could have made the same impact on me in the way this did: this was her family, this was her life, this is all she knew, she LOVED it, she was happy, she was content, she was in HER family. Those strangers that looked weird, smelled weird, sounded weird, well, we were a novelty that she glanced at every now and then and then went back to her life.
Then the last day of the week came. We were at a local eatery, her whole family was there, we shopped during the day we dined at night, those interesting people were still there. THEN- out of nowhere her mother is crying, her mother's friend (also a foster mother) LITERALLY rips her out of her mom's arms as she desperately tries to hold on, she is crying unbelievably, her mother is shaking and crying, her mom's friend is shaking, her little brother is crying, and she is handed to this strange lady and her friends and instantly wisked away from her family and all she knows.
She sobs uncontrollably the cab ride to the hotel, all the weird strangers are sobbing, the cabby is yelling at her in Korean- 'stop this is your Omma, your Omma'. He pulls the cab over to yell at her some more, 'stop stop Omma Omma'. I swear at the time that this child knows she will never see her mother again, she is crying just so deeply. But yet she does not know at the time. Her whole world is gone to be replaced by a one completely unknown to her.
She is the better person than I would be. I will admire her for this forever; by morning she will smile at me and laugh. It is a lot of a defense mechanism, but it is more than I think I would have be able to muster.
SO ALL THIS TO SAY.
Yesterday she was having a day at my mom's. She has some attachment strain and it is getting way better, but she has her days.
So her Aunt Laura and I (present in Korea for the whole trip and at the handoff, in the cab) took her for a walk last night.
I told her how ticked I was that my mom still sometimes does not seem to get it. That she told Brian at pick up that 'something is wrong with her lately'. Bri said, 'Di, she still has some attachment stuff and some days are better than others.' My mom said, 'I don't belieive that, she has been home 10 months now and she was a baby when she left Korea at 7 months.'
So Laura said, 'that is so unfair to her. I admit I didn't get it either but seeing all that, being there, it has profoundly changed the way I understand the whole process and what they go through. In its most blunt terms, but for the paperwork, it is a kidnapping---and Kali can't read.'
As crude a statement as that is, as harsh as it seems, as much as it is not 'really' what is going on- it hit me like a lightning bolt. THAT IS how it feels like to them, that is what it is for them, viscerally.
And then I thought, if one of my nieces or nephews was taken, kidnapped at the age of seven months, if someone just came into the house and took them out of their pack and play and left forever- well EVERYONE would expect them to still be devestated by it ten months later. Everyone would say, 'of course this baby has issues, needs to be treated special, it was kidnapped from all it knew by God.'
But our kids don't get the same break because technically it is far from kidnapping, it is a legal process, a good, happy thing for the most part---problem is that nobody can as of yet figure out how to explain all that to a baby.
How utterly unfair to them!
