Indistinguishable Degrees of Separation

When Brent and I decided to adopt from Ethiopia we had NO IDEA how connected we would become to our kids' birth country. I think I envisioned a deep love for the country, similar to my love for Cambodia, forged on memories, life-altering experiences and simple human connections. I envisioned family trips over the years and books and movies and special Ethiopian feasts.

Over the past year, I've found that the depth of our connection to Ethiopia seems to ebb and flow but continues to deepen beyond anything I ever imagined. There's times it exists somewhere in the background, ever present, but not too demanding of our attention, comforting, like the freeway noise at our new house. At other times, times like now, it occupies the forefront of our existence. For whatever reason, when one connection to Ethiopia opens up, they all seem to. It's times like these that I really can't think about much else, that I truly feel like I've got one foot in this country and one foot in the other one. The same is true for the kids. These days, the ride to school is colored by conversations about E-Tiopia.

Today, completely unexpectedly and through at least nine degrees of separation, I received this picture and eleven others.

Little Miss E as a toddler, taken many years before we met her by someone that has spent more time living with her than we have. Until today, the only pictures we had of Elsa were two baby pictures and then the millions I've taken since we became a family. I cannot communicate the immensity of this gift, nor can I communicate the mess of emotions that bubble up within me as I stare into those gorgeous eyes - those same gorgeous eyes that will greet me first thing tomorrow morning when I wake her up for school. The same eyes, the same nose, the same girl, but a child I never knew.

I've often felt deeply saddened for Elsa as I watch her struggle to define herself and her place in the world. She lived an entire lifetime prior to joining our family, and then poof! Brent and I arrived on the scene and whisked her away from everything she ever knew to a foreign land. There is hardly any proof that her previous life existed, yet she lived it. It formed who she is today. Pictures like this give her just a little piece of that life back.

Many adoptive moms of older children have spoken about their yearning to know their child as an infant. I never really felt that way until today. 

The connections to Ethiopia are wide open right now, information is coming in on many fronts. I hope I can breathe deep enough to truly experience it all.