7

Pure Love
February 14

"My" Little
Lessons

February 14th, 2006 was the most awe inspiring day of my life
in many years! As I write this, it is five minutes to three at
home in Minnesota and very early in the morning here in
Wuhan. I woke up in a quiet, peaceful, dark hotel room. I
grabbed my notepad and pen and decided sleep could wait until
later. I am of all things laying inside our deep white bathtub
fully dressed, that's without water, to write this entry. I am
here because I didn't want to interrupt Mylin or Pete as they
sleep. I stuffed a towel under the door so no light would wake
them. As I shift to get comfortable in this white garden tub,
I am filled with joy! Ivory colored marble surrounds this tub,
with silver accessories and the crisp contrast actually makes a
nice place to put my words together. A slightly greenish glass
panel runs horizontally around the top of the marble wall bath
surround. Now on to the most unbelievable day... I'll warn you
now that what I'm going to tell about is pretty emotional so
get out a tissue. Tuesday morning our tour guide Peter took us
to Beijing Airport. This was the first time six adoptive
couples and all their luggage jammed into one taxi bus. Each
day we toured different places and each day some adoptive
parents passed on the events. But this day we all went to the
airport together. The night before, Pete and I had purchased
a Swiss Army suitcase from an adorable young, male vendor
for a very good price. Pete had great fun with him and by the
time we left with the suitcase the young man said, "Peter you
are my friend!" We bought the extra suitcase because our
guide told us that we would be flying the next day (Valentine's
Day) on China Southern Airlines to Wuhan. He said luggage
was limited to 45 pounds but there were no limits on how many
suitcases we could bring. When we got to the airport we
waited a long time in a slow check-in line. The young man we
checked in with said, "You can only have two bags a person."
Pete immediately got very tense and embarrassed because we
had many various sizes of suitcases and bags and at that point
we had eight pieces to check in. Some of the other families
had a child with them so they were allowed two more bags
than us. What was most frustrating was that we had one and a
half suitcases of things for our new baby (all suggested by the
adoption agency) and a half a large suitcase full of gifts for
the orphanage and others. None of this mattered to the young
man who again said, "Two suitcases per person." So after
much fuss which included our tour guide arguing our case in
Chinese, we had to pay $40 extra to take all our luggage. We
decided to carry on the two smallest bags. When we went
through the security check Pete and I set off alarms and both
of us were stopped for a search. I was ready to burst into
tears because they found Pete's leatherman tool in the bag we
now hurriedly decided to carry on rather than check. By this
time the rest of our group went ahead of us and most likely
didn't know what was happening. Pete and I were both very
distressed because we knew it "looked bad." One man opened
and examined his tool. Pete spoke up nervously, "I was going
to check that bag but they said we had too much luggage so we
had to carry these on." At this point I'm imagining our next
challenge is that we will have a language barrier and we will be
held off the flight. Suddenly the man who inspected the tool
picked up Pete's bag and again sent it back through the
scanner. This man then folded up the tool and said, "Do not
take this out of your bag. You get one time!" I put my hand on
my heart and promised him we would not. At this point I felt
the power of prayer cover us. The flight on China Southern
was on a beautiful 737. The seats were covered in a striking
blue fabric with a flower pattern woven in the fabric. We
were quick to get on board and put our bags in the overhead
compartment. The plane was completely full. The flight to
Wuhan was one and a half hours away. It was windy so at
times the plane shimmied in the air but all in all it was a good
flight. We were met at the airport by two women, Shirley and
Molly. They would now take care of our group in Wuhan, the
town where our daughters were in an orphanage together. We
put our luggage in a van and we all climbed into another taxi
bus. The ride to Wuhan was very cloudy and gray. I felt
cloudy and gray inside as I sat and looked through the widow
on our drive to the hotel. The hour long drive made a indelible
mark on my soul. Wuhan was much different than Beijing.
There was much poverty and many, many people. The people
of Wuhan are beautiful but their surroundings match the
grayness of this day. A sadness grew in me with each passing
mile. "This is where my daughter lives?" I would ask in my
head. As we got closer to our destination there were some
very nice buildings, often large, modern and impressive but
often beside buildings with broken windows, packed in living
conditions and visions that show a lack maintenance. My
memory is visually marked by the flight of clothing hanging
from windows of all the crowded places. High rise buildings
that house people are everywhere. When we pulled into our
hotel I had already prepared myself for the worst conditions.
Instead we entered opulence. There was some confusion when
we arrived. Shirley our guide seemed tense and concerned as
she spoke fluently in Chinese to the women at the front desk.
I prayed that we would not be separated from the group whom
mostly already had rooms. Suddenly out of the corner of my
eye I saw brightly colored Chinese babies, many of them,
enter the lobby in the arms of caregivers. It was a virtual
rainbow of Asian baby beauty that floated past us as we stood
waiting. If our room had been ready we would not have seen
this unbelievable sight! I felt tears well up inside me because
reality just walked into the hotel wearing traditional Chinese
puffy baby clothing, I WAS going to be a Mommy today and
Peter a Daddy, and I was overjoyed! Finally something that
we had planned for so long was real! Shirley handed us keys
as the world seemed to spin around me and we were moving
towards a room with 25 minutes to prepare to meet our little
beauty out of the rainbow I had just seen. My mind went
absolutely blank and for a minute I may have even been afraid.
I raced back and forth in our hotel room but nothing I did
made any sense or seemed appropriate. I plugged in my
curling iron and curled a couple strands of hair that had gone
lifeless in the humidity of Wuhan. I gathered a bag of
diapers, my passport, and a gift for the foster mother but I
didn't know if I would see her. I felt sad inside my heart for
the loss of two women, her birth mother and her foster
mother. When I look out our hotel window I have feelings of
guilt- we have so much in comparison. From the seventeenth
floor we can see very far. The images are unbelievable,
interesting and colorful. There is a part of Chicago that runs
along the highway that has housing similar in it's sadness.
Wuhan is filled with people. The streets are full of people
with a busyness that resembles the center of New York. My
daughter was one of it's citizens but soon we will take her
away from here to a new home and homeland. We thank the
heavens above so often. All the families were told to meet in
the hotel's 3rd floor conference room at 3:30 p.m. When
Pete and I arrived Shirley had already started giving out
information to the group. She was going over information
about payments that were due, our schedule for the up coming
days, our options for touring the orphanage, and she told us
the babies would be arriving in the room shortly. It was
incredibly difficult to listen to the information I should have
been listening to very carefully...after all I was about to
become a mother and Pete a father in minutes. After about
fifteen minutes or so I watched Shirley's eyes grow larger
and focus on the back of the conference room. Our babies
had arrived! I had been sure I would know my little Ping right
away but all the babies had changed so much since we had
seen their pictures in December. There were two babies that
could be mine. One had 2 pigtails like sprockets on top of her
head, the other had a lot of hair and it was cut in a bowl cut
style. Shirley was still trying to give directions but my head
was focused on identifying my baby. I searched for that face,
the one I already loved in my heart; the face that hung near
my classroom door and on my refrigerator. All the new
parents stayed seated at the edge of their chairs waiting for
permission to find their baby. One baby ran giggling to her
new mother Cindy. Many of the babies began to cry. They
were all dressed in what I call Chinese puffy clothes which
are padded and very warm. The room was full of red cheeked,
black haired Asian babies dressed in bright squeezy outfits.
Adults held on to them proudly but we were never introduced
to any of them. I kept focusing on a beautiful baby, the only
one with pigtails. Could it be her? "Is she our baby Pete, is
she?" I asked him. Pete said, "Oh Diane, that's got to be her,
look at that nose." I wanted to leap from my chair to look
closer at her face. I would look to the front to listen and
immediately turn to the back again to search for an answer.
The trim Asian woman holding this baby was very attractive
and she wore a bright yellow turtleneck. I noticed that she
would make eye contact with me but I still didn't know if that
meant anything. Pete was sure it was our little Ping. The next
time I turned back to look at her the woman looked directly at
me and said, "Mama." Two minutes later Pete said, "Look what
she's holding Diane!" That beautiful baby with the pigtails in
her hair was dangling the soft covered photo book we had
mailed ahead from her fingertips. It was at this moment that
I felt the awesome power of God. One day many months ago I
was sitting in our church and Pastor Greg was speaking. I
asked God to give me a sign that somewhere in China he was
choosing a little girl for us. With my eyes closed a vision came
to my head of a round faced Asian girl with two pigtail
sprockets on her head. She was beautiful. This vision had
carried me through many long days of waiting, but at the
moment I realized that my vision was real and swinging our
photo baby book from her hand - I could have fallen to my
knees. In all my life I will never forget this day. This
fabulous Valentine's Day.