Meeting Djedly

I always like sitting by the wing on the plane. When I was a kid I would watch it transform and as the flaps would raise and the plane would soar, and I could see it all happen. I’d think of all it must have taken to bring us safely to a stop on the ground.

This ground was different. The blue ocean with green and brown swirls underneath the metal bird…the mountains we just flew over amidst the waves below. Our landing in Port au Prince was unlike any other I’ve ever experienced. The anticipation was unparalleled. 24 hours earlier we gave two of our children hugs as we set off to spend our last night together before meeting our son. Our beautiful six year old tucked in the hills, back beyond the walls and the buildings and the rubble of the 2010 earthquake aftermath…that’s where our little guy would be waiting for us. And as the plane came to a stop everything inside of me leaped.  The long journey that brought us to this point…we made it. Our day had arrived. He was just a short drive from where we sat.

We deplaned and followed a long line of hot and weary passengers, all acclimating to the heat and the humidity. We followed the quiet line to a bus and loaded and overloaded the bus and drove a short distance down the tarmac to unload in a metal building that housed a make shift luggage area. More lines formed inside and we cluelessly stood in a line waiting to experience our formal entry via the customs officers. From there we started the hunt for our luggage. We watched as a group of men converged on each of the passengers asking if they could assist them in finding their luggage. We didn’t fully understand what they were asking and kept a dumb and thankful smile on our faces as we obliged and took their help. These men climbed over each other in their own organized pattern to search for the tiny print on each bag to identify and gather their customer’s belongings.  We then stood in another line and waited to be surveyed by the watchful eye of the last stage of the Haitian customs arrival process. This is the final stage and the last person who determines if your bags should be searched and scrutinized.  After we emerged from the building we found ourselves huddled into a group of passengers with a similar identifying method on their bags. We all had pink and yellow ribbons on our luggage. This is how we came to find and meet people just like us, other adoptive parents. We greeted, shook hands, hugged, smiled and exhaled in success that we had all finally made it to this step. We were in Haiti.

My thin cardigan was one very thick layer of way too much fabric for my liking in the 90+ Haitian heat. We stood for quite some time waiting for another family to join us…my patience growing very thin as I knew that my little boy was less than two miles from where I stood. Our time came. And our whole group moved together toward the parking lot to pile into a van together. I had experienced some interesting car rides, but nothing like loading as many people as possible into one van with no seatbelts and half of the cushion of the seat ripped out, coil exposed, to spend the ten minute bumpy ride to our hotel practicing a balancing act to keep our bodies stable as we rolled through each bomb crater like hole in the road on the way.

The dusty, seemingly hand-carved streets were full of pits and holes and bumps. The trash that litters the side of the alleyways we slowly moved through in our metal bubble of people astounded me. I’ve been to places where people have very little. And as much as I’d researched, watched videos and documentaries, read books, heard stories and imagined; I never could have been prepared for the widespread devastation that even just the few blocks of Port au Prince we experienced on our way to the hotel exposed us to. We saw rocks and piles of garbage burning, broken down trucks and animals waiting what would probably be just days before they would be caught and eaten. We saw remnants of what must have been donations. Broken chairs, one shoe, an old magazine. As we passed houses with walls around them we noticed that many of them were likely empty. The windows were broken and the only sign that anyone may have lived in them recently was the dry concrete slathered on the top of the walls with broken glass placed sharp side up to prevent looters from accessing the property. We saw tents tied to tents, tied to trees, tied to more tents. We saw people standing on the side of their tents, some washing their babies in a bucket. Some were combing their children’s hair. Some with a look on their face as if to say, “what are you looking at?” I have never been stared at outside of my home in a way that I was looking at these people, and it immediately made me feel like the horribly ignorant American that I am. That was a big lesson.

The gate to the hotel is built into a stone wall. A simple honk at the gate signals that we are today’s delivery. After a heavy unloading, we were greeted by the parrot and warned that he bites. He also pees and shrieks and hacks, but that is something that we all learned about eventually. Checking into our room and unpacking, my heart was pounding out of my chest. With my anxiety and my excitement at an all time high, we were practically ready to run to the orphanage to meet our sweet. So we loaded back into the van and bumped up and down the road a little further. We made our way through the back streets of the Delmas neighborhoods and through a market area, over a ravine filled with dirty water and trash…and pigs. Another honk at another gate and we were there. We were there! This is our son’s home! A small lurch forward up a driveway brought us to a rest in front of a small home, Maison. My first step onto the grounds my son calls home, I was greeted by the intensity of the sun once again. And I felt a sense of comfort. A sense of calm. I felt like I was home too.

We stepped up a short flight of stairs and went through an iron gate and found ourselves on the porch of the house. We were greeted and asked to wait patiently while our children were brought out to us. We had previously been warned that our children may not be ready immediately and that we should wait for the nannies to have our children adequately presentable. Another line. This was the longest wait of my lifetime. We watched as one child after another was led to the porch. We took photos of the other families greeting their children, holding them preciously close and basking in the joy of their new love. The minutes turned even longer and nearly a half an hour later with my foot bounding wildly, trying to contain my excitement, but with every ounce of anxiety exuding from my pores, one of the fellow fathers decided to go in search of our son himself. He discovered that there had been a miscommunication and that the staff was unaware that we were there. Our son was cleaned up and shortly thereafter he was led to the front porch. He walked out wearing a little red t-shirt tucked into a pair blue shorts. His hair was shaved very close and his little arms and legs, though long, were very small and thin. He looked at the two of us, and my husband and I immediately kneeled down in front of him with smiles that hopefully reflected every miracle and heartburst we were feeling inside. I reached out my hand to shake his hand and said, “Hi!” and he smiled back at both of us, looking at me and looking at J. As we smiled more, he smiled more as well.

We took him by the hand and led him to a bench to take a seat and try to calm our heartbeats. J and I looked at each other and smiled. I remember saying, “this is really real!” and he said, “yes. Yes it is really real.” At long last, a line we stood in brought us to the point we had hoped to reach. That day we had our sweet little boy in our arms and everything was perfect.

The beautiful women who take care of the children in our absence made a nice meal for us to enjoy on the porch. We shared Styrofoam boxes of rice and a Kreyol vegetable and meat sauce. We ate. He ate. We ate some more. And he ate more and more and more. When our plates were empty, J refilled one area of the plate with rice and brought it back for Djedly and I to share. Before beginning to eat, he carefully divided the rice and placed half of it in the other section of the plate, making sure that I had exactly half of what we were given. It was such a sweet and simple, tender moment…one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Sometimes the smallest experiences speak the loudest words.

We spent several days at a hotel nearby getting to know each other. We learned that he loves superheroes. And cars. And he loves spaghetti. He was initially terrified of the pool, but later learned to absolutely love it. Within a day, he was jumping into J’s arms and having a wonderful time swimming. Watching him look at J and soak up the fact that for the first time in his life he had a dad was one of the most touching and beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed.  I watched him sleep. I didn’t want to miss a moment. He would curl his little fists up under his head and tuck his legs up and peacefully sleep. I could only imagine how many nights he missed his mom holding him and comforting him, but I didn’t want to force myself on him by wrapping my arms around him…though I so badly just wanted to cradle and love him. One night he fell off the bed and instinctively, I snapped awake and grabbed him…my heart pounding and as his sweet and quiet cry calmed, my tears flowed. I couldn’t help but think of the many nights he cried at the orphanage with no one to cradle him and calm him, hold his head and rub his back and dry his tears. No one was there to tell him that he was loved. And so for the rest of that night I laid next to him and just held him and silently cried. There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But only my embrace could talk at that moment. English, Kreyol…those languages would just speak words. I wanted him to feel the action of my love. I hope he did. I tried to take everything into my memory. I wanted to know the shape of his fingers, the shape of his toes, the length of his arms and legs, the swirl his hair pattern made. I wanted to know exactly how his eyes changed when he smiled, and what his little teeth looked like. I wanted to fill the gap five years presented.

Our days together were awesome and beautiful. It could only have been better if we were able to take him home. But sadly, after five days of falling in love deeper than we’d imagined, we had to bring him back to that same porch and cuddle him and love on him and then we had to leave him.

Knowing that we would be leaving, the well of emotions I felt was intolerable. There’s no way to describe the feelings you have when you know that you are walking away from your child. We would be leaving on a plane. We would cross over an ocean, and be miles and miles and miles away from our sweet little boy. He would be tucked away behind a wall amidst the broken buildings on the hillside up the windy and bumpy streets in a land that shakes and where wind howls and rain splashes and pools and rages. He would be there. Alone. And all we could do is tell him that we love him and that we will be back for him.

I didn't watch the wing when we left. I focused on where my son would be. As we climbed into the clouds I looked back at the hillside we had ascended. I traced the path of the roads we took to get to him and I wept knowing that with every second we were racing further and further away from him. Then the calm blue of the ocean broke through the bumpy crest of the mountains we crossed; and we disappeared into the clouds.