Tears for Joy

When we were in Chongqing, we were given a yellow plastic folder with photos and a diary of Joy while she was in the orphanage. It is almost like a scrapbook of sorts. Most of it is written in Chinese, with some translations from our guides in China. The pages are decorated with flowers and fancy designs and some English phrases, like, "I wishing you everything goes well...Tomorrow is another day...These are my friends..."

The photos start around the time she was taken in and end around the time we adopted her. An organization called "The Half the Sky Foundation" has a program of nannies that visit (or work) in the orphanages and at some point create these journals.

I have looked at the pages several times. Each time I look at them, I find myself concentrating on the familiar expressions and looking for the Joy that I now know. I read what they wrote and I think, "Yes, that sounds like her, she would have certainly done that at that age". At the same time, there is a sense of distance from these pages. Is this really her? I get a strong sense of sadness and longing. Why couldn't we know her then? Why couldn't that be me holding her? These rhetorical questions float around in my mind. I wonder about her birth family and what her first given name might have been. This folder is a part of her past that we don't know, that we can't know.

I looked at the photos again tonight and maybe it was Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" playing on the computer or maybe just enough time has passed since coming home and I can be more honest with my feelings, but, I found myself crying. Crying for the things that will always be a mystery for her, for the things that we know that are hard to think about, for the families she has left behind and finally for the joy she has brought to us.