Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Building a History

Last night we met with Tami while we were in Denver. Tami had photos and stories to share about T. and her experiences in Kyrgyzstan. We also had the pleasure of meeting with Karen, our Kyrgyzstan program coordinator with Adoption Alliance as well as Tabi, Tami's daughter who was adopted from Kyrgyzstan. This is actually the first time we have been able to meet anyone with our placing agency face-to-face prior to adopting, as with our Kazakhstan adoptions our placement agencies were out of state and we weren't able to meet them. We sat down at the dinner table and opened up the laptop to view photos of T when he was a toddler.

Here I was, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and seeing my son-to-be as he looked when he was the age Josh is right now. I saw him in various settings, dressed up for a Christmas party, bundled up outside in the cold, playing with Tami and other visitors to the orphanage. 8 years recorded in 15 or 20 photographs. 2920 days and these precious snapshots are what we have to begin to build a history with. It is far more than many adoptive parents have, and yet I can't help but think of the hundreds of photos I have of Matthew and Joshua, comparing all the moments I have captured of them versus the few moments captured of T's life. I am grateful to Tami for helping us piece together a history for him. I am even more grateful that his future will not remain largely unrecorded, that there will be many "firsts" we will share with him, photograph, and place next to Matt and Josh's in our family album.

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