Just over a week ago, I said goodbye to my children for the last time.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
On Tuesday, we got to work, expecting to have a normal day with our kids. Instead, Alex and I were informed by Teo that one of our children was going back to live with his mother. It made me so very sad; I had thought to have three more days to spend with this wonderful little boy that I had come to love so much. It also gave me a taste of what I was going to have to do in just a couple of days. We pushed him on the swing. We held him one last time. He kissed us on the cheeks and we did the same to him. And we watched him walk away with his mother. What made it even sadder was knowing that his little sister would not be going home with him, at least not yet.
Looking back though, I realize that this really is a good thing. Just the night before, I had been thinking about saying goodbye to him on Thursday and worrying about he would take it. He had arrived at the orphanage only eleven days before us and was very shy when we first arrived. Soon, he opened up and was a happy, overly energetic three year old. He remained a sensitive boy though. More than once, he was sobbing when it came time for us to leave at the end of the morning. All we could do to comfort him was to hug him and repeat "pe mâine", promising him that we'd see him the next day. Thinking of saying goodbye to him on Thursday, I could not imagine what we would do when we could not tell him that and we would instead have to tell him that he was never going to see us again. So really, it was a blessing in disguise for him to leave before we did.
Then came the final goodbyes to the rest of our children on Thursday. I got to spend a little time with all of my children at the orphanage. Maria came back from daycare in time for me to spend a little cuddle time with her. I carried her as I went around to each of my children in their cribs (it was almost nap time for most of them) and as I gave last kisses and hugs and said goodbye to each one, she greeted each of them by name and with a smile, wanting to hug and kiss them too. Seeing this, I knew she would be a loving sister to each of these children that I had to leave. This made it slightly easier to hold it together as I finished my goodbyes. Until I headed for the door, and she started saying "pe mâine, pe mâine" as she always did when we left. I could barely hold back tears as I went back to her and told her in my broken Romanian, and with some help from the workers, that this was our last day and we were not coming back.
Leaving that room, knowing I will probably never see these children again before heaven, was the hardest thing I have ever done.
And yet, it could have been harder. Oh what a blessing it was, that we were the ones crying and not our children. I do not think I could have left that room if any of my children had been crying. They weren't all smiling (that may have had something to do with most of them being sick), but none of them were crying.
That afternoon was also my last time to go to the hospital. Early on, I was disappointed that it was not a full day. Two of the children we normally would have spent time with were asleep, and we had reached our last child of the day by half way through the three hours we normally spend at the hospital. Upon reaching the room of the wonderful little boy that I told you about in my last post, I realized that it was actually a wonderful thing that those other children had been asleep.
He was crying when I first saw him that day. I changed his diaper, which while I could tell he appreciated it, it is not a comfortable process for him. After a short while spent trying to calm him, a nurse brought me a bottle and I was able to feed him. After being fed, he barely cried for the rest of the hour and a half that I was able to spend with him. His hands were looking good and while he couldn't move around much, his arms were free to grab at things, and as most of the children have met this summer, he was fascinated by my jewelry. Oh how he loved my rings.
This was the fourth time I had seen him, and I had seen him crying, calm, and fascinated, but I had not seen a smile, and I decided I was going to get one. The act that actually brought a smile to his face was a simple one. All I had to do was blow on his face. How much joy that can bring a little child in a stuffy hospital room. Knowing that the nurses wouldn't have let us see him if he was contagious and seeing him smile, I became a bit braver in my actions with him. I let him grab my hands and my rings. I tapped him on the nose (children are so confused by that). I rubbed the healthy part of his cheeks. And then, I realized that there were parts of his sides that were healthy and unbandaged. It took a bit, I don't think he's been tickled in a while, but he laughed. A boy who a week before had looked so miserable I wanted to cry, was still just as sick, but he was laughing. With some more tickling and more touching of as much of his good skin as possible, I got more smiles and laughter and I even got him babbling, another thing I had yet to see him do. He even made a grab for my glasses, which I promptly removed. I continued to let him touch my face and grab at my nose, as I realized, this boy is probably only touched when absolutely necessary to change his diaper or his bandages. How lonely it must be to have so little human contact. And so I gave him as much touch as I could without being able to hold him.
I stayed with the boy for an hour and a half, with the nurse's encouragement (not all the nurses like us or let us stay that long) and was able to leave without him crying, which is a bit of a feat with a lot of the children at the hospital. On the long walk home from the hospital that day, I realized that Heavenly Father had arranged for those other children to be asleep. He knew what I needed, and He gave it to me. He gave me the chance to see that boy happy before I left, a promise from Him that He would take care of him after I was gone.
And I'm going to hold Him to that promise.
I have learned many things this summer. I could never hope to tell you it all. But I will tell you the most important lesson that I learned:
I can trust God. I need to trust God. I may wish that I could stay with those children forever. I may wish that I could bring them to America where they would have access to better medical care. I may wish that they all had families that loved them and took care of them right now. But that's not possible. And while I may wish they had physical people with them right now taking care of them, it's okay that there aren't. Because our Heavenly Father is there. He is taking care of each of those amazing children. He loves them and is watching out for them, and He can do so much more for them than I can. He will make sure that they are taken care of. All I have to do is trust Him on that.
So that is what I do. I am still sad sometimes when I think of my children and how I can't be with them any more, and that is okay. But in the end, I can be at peace because I trust that He is looking out for them. And one day, I will see them all again in heaven. I will see them healthy and happy and I will know that I was right to trust Him. I will know that He took care of them when others could not.
Trust Him. He really does know what He's doing, even if we do not understand it.
