Reality hits Katie
Katie has been asking about her birthmother a lot lately. A couple nights each week she has been going to bed in tears. She tells us that in the middle of some nights she will stare out her window, look at the stars, and think about her. When she asks why her birthmother gave her up, we don’t have anything truly comforting to say. Marissa has a picture of her Vietnamese birthmother on the dresser. Katie has nothing. One night the only thing that would comfort Katie was for Chris to dig up a picture of Maoming orphanage director holding her. On a handful of nights, Katie has held the picture under the nightlight and slept on the floor next to it.
She does not like it when Chris goes on rare weekend trips with her mother either. I had a business trip overnight Thursday and Katie was upset that I was going even for just one night. Subconsciously it was another opportunity for a parent to leave her.
Katie had her “special day” at school Wednesday. Each week over the school year a child in her class has one. For each special day, a different child is singled out for adoration. She has been looking forward to her special day for weeks and in a little way, it has been a distraction from her recent concerns. She got to have her family visit her at school and have lunch (McDonalds!) with her. She also got to choose a handful of close friends to join her. For her fifteen minutes in the spotlight before lunch, Katie excused herself from the classroom and came back in a shiny, bright red and gold Chinese outfit for the occasion (Her idea!) before introducing her relatives. Marissa, Chris, the grandmothers and I had all written a note or poem on why she is special to us and we all read them aloud to her classmates.
I ended up going last. I had six clipart mini-posters to the share. The last one had hearts and said “Katie grew in her mom and dad’s heart instead of her tummy.”
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