5 years

 

5 years ago today a small, fidgety, bright-eyed girl sporting a very short haircut and a red sweatsuit with “NKIE” written on the back, looked at us for the first time and said, “Mama?” and “Baba?” (Mandarin for Daddy).  We nodded yes and a few minutes later she cheerfully slipped her hands into ours and walked out of the huge orphanage, the only building she had been - other than hospitals - for the last six years of her life -- as if this was all normal.

The city was full of confusion and sights and sounds she had probably never experienced, and her new companions were strange-looking and didn’t understand a word she said (and were pretty freaked out themselves), but she just kept chatting and singing to herself, bouncing along as we traveled from place to place -- as if this were all normal.

Even though I had seen her pictures almost a year prior to that and *knew* she was meant to be in our family (what a story that was!) I still was braced for all kinds of hard adjustments and trials.  But they never really came.  There was a miserable airplane ride and a few hard moments on a few hard nights, but other than that, our jigsaw pieces of lives all just FIT.  Jinna Rai slid into our family and we formed around her so easily.  It has all felt quite… normal.

Right from the beginning her heart knew so well how to love.  While staying in the hotels in China whenever Pete would leave to go get something and then come back, she would go running at him yelling delightedly, “Baba!  Baba!” and crash into him for a big hug.  She still greets anyone she loves with huge enthusiasm and is quick to tell them how much she likes them and has missed them.  That is her norm.  Whatever our normal was before we met her, it is full of so much more love now.