Friday

I've been taking photos of the city where K's orphanage is, thinking I'd maybe do a post about that city and what we saw and did there, possibly even today since I'd have extra time. That is not going to happen. I can't get my brain to move that way.

It was hard to leave K. It would be hard to leave your child under any circumstances, but leaving him where we had to leave him made the situation significantly harder. I was vividly reminded today how very vulnerable orphans are - what a tragic thing it is to belong to no one. Even K's baba, much as she loves him, is not someone that K belongs to. This is her job. She has no say in his care, no right to advocate for him - she is very limited in what she can do for him. She can smile at him, hold him, call him sweet nothings (which she apparently does!) and make his whole body smile...for the two mornings a week that she is with him.

K made eye contact with me for a few brief moments today. Long enough moments that it was obviously that he was looking at me. And multiple times, too. But he was not into playing and having fun like he was yesterday afternoon. He was, however, still evidently comfortable in our presence. Whether that was resignation or a sense that we were "safe" and could be trusted, I can't read from him, but he was very willing to be held and to let his body relax against us instead of holding stiff as a board as he did on Monday. Back then I assumed that his CP would not allow him to relax, but we have learned through the week that his tension is related to his emotional state. When something startles him, or he is unsure of something, he stiffens. But you can see here, he is pretty relaxed.

But certainly not all that jazzed about being with us. ;) [And like we keep reminding ourselves, this is a very good thing that bodes very well for his future. We know he can learn to love. We see that with his baba. We know he is discriminatory. We see that in the way he responds to us and to the various other people who have interfaced with him over the week. He has appropriately varied reactions to different people. And as I've said over and over on the blog as much as to myself, when we earn his love we will know we have earned something worth working for. So by Christmas, if not sooner, we're hoping we'll be able to get something of that reaction out of him!]

So many people we've seen this week talk about how much potential K has. "All he needs is lots of therapy and he's going to be just fine!" I think there's a lot of truth in this. And I think that the love of a family is going to do wonders, too. He will no longer be an orphan! He will belong to someone, and have family who belongs to him. But I can't get out of my head the fact that the physical healing (getting this almost nine year old boy to be bigger than his not-quite-four-year-old brother) is only part of K's story. He was, as a tiny, vulnerable, premature infant, put in the "care" of a facility that has been compared to Auschwitz. And somehow, amazingly, he managed to stay alive. Many children didn't, and many children who were with him over the years did not fare as well as he did. The two other couples who were with us on their first visit to their boys (ages almost six and almost nine) make K look like Superman. K can roll over!! K can hold his head up sometimes! K shows interest in toys! And he can grab them!!! AND, K responds appropriately to interactions with the various people in his life (love for baba, really likes his PT, relative indifference, but not fear, towards us as kind strangers, complete lack of response to the nurses who wheel him in and out of the visiting room, distaste for the doctor who tried to rub his cheeks all cute, but apparently has NO rapport with K personally). K, at 27 pounds now, is MUCH bigger than the other two little ones we spent time with this week.

But seeing how much K reminds me of Reuben in the way we know he takes in more than he lets on, I wonder what it's going to be to him to work through the trauma of the intensity of the neglect and mistreatment he received for the first almost 8 years of his life before the old director was removed and the new director began making changes. And things don't magically change overnight at a facility of this size just because the director has a different mentality. Even with changeovers in the staff, there are still plenty of the nurses and caregivers who are not only used to the old ways, but resentful toward the director for the changes in protocol being imposed on them.

Today, after we gave K one last hug, smoothed back his hair, gave him a kiss and told him obichum te (I love you) and gave him in his stroller to the nurse, she walked over without a smile, shoved his head back against the back of the seat, and rolled him out of the room. He made no protest. Why should he? This is just part of life, right?

Maybe for now. But it won't be for long. Those days are ticking off one by one, and we are going to be BACK. And we will take this boy away from everything he's ever known, and I'm hoping his life will just explode out of the walls its been held within and he will begin to be able to live. As a son, a brother, as someone who is valuable and wanted and loved and cared for, for the rest of his life.

Don't worry, little boy. Next time we see you, we will not have to leave you.