“Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face.  “There,” it said, “that is not the breath of ghost.  Tell me your sorrows.”  – Aslan in ’The Horse and His Boy’   

C. S. Lewis

“Be still and know that I am God…”  Psalm 46:10

I don’t know if I will ever understand all that Claudine was thinking during those first days with me, but as I look back to that moment when she asked, “White Mom, do you not speak?” and put myself in her position, I can only imagine that she must have thought someone made a mistake.  “Are you kidding me?” she must have asked herself.  “I waited all of this time and this is what I get?”  She is big.  She is white.  Worst of all, she speaks gibberish.” 

That evening though, as the shadows lengthened across the dining room floor, I could hardly find any humor in the situation.  “Yes”, I stupidly replied in a language that meant nothing to her.  “I speak English, not Creole, but I promise you, between now and the time you come home, I will learn.”  It was a promise I kept.

She turned away and walked out of the room.

I followed her with Roseline in my arms.  When we passed the kitchen we found that Roseline’s housemother was there.  When Roseline spotted her, she began to scream and cry, fighting to be free of my grasp so that she might return to this one she called “Mama”.  I noticed a look of smug satisfaction cross the woman’s face.  I quickened my pace and carrying my screaming baby, led Claudine to our room to settle in for the night.  We were all tired, so I began to dress the girls for bed.  Everything I tried to do with Claudine was met with stony resistance which eventually returned to wailing.

Roseline was having near constant diarrhea.  As I changed her diaper the sight of her thin, frail body was more than I could stand.  I knew they were feeding her plenty, but she was not thriving.  Increasingly, I found that every mother instinct I had was screaming, “Take this child to a doctor now!”  Never, in my 10 ½ years of parenting had I ignored that instinct but this time I was helpless to obey it.  Until I had passports, we could not complete the Visa process and without a Visa, the girls would not be going home. 

Roseline clung to me constantly.   If I placed her on the bed for even a moment, she began to rock back and forth to comfort herself.  I was not naïve enough to mistake it for true attachment.  It seems that the arms of the one who terrifies are better than no comfort at all.

The orphanage director came by for a long enough to inform me there was no way the passports would be ready before I left as I had hoped,  (Part of the reason for my visit was to attempt to facilitate some progress on the case.)  and to inform me the phrase Claudine was repeating over and over in Creole was “I want to go home!” which she meant to be the orphanage, certainly not anywhere with me. 

The director left and I settled the three of us into the double bed for the night, Roseline on one side, Claudine on the other, and me in between.  It was utterly dark and a feeble breeze stirred from the limping ceiling fan above.  Through the open windows drifted the sounds of women singing as they finished their washing for the night, dogs barking, roosters crowing and the ceaseless sound of the babies downstairs crying.  I reached out for Claudine and she turned her back to me and went to sleep without a word.  Roseline began rocking frantically in her sleep and I placed my hand on her stomach to comfort her.  Then, I lay there staring into the darkness with tears pouring down my face, wetting the pillow beneath me. 

Two years.  Two years of labor, grief, longing and mourning…..and my daughters wanted nothing to do with me.

But those two years had taught me where my comfort lay and I turned my heart toward Heaven.

“Jesus, hold me close…..”