Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

The Birthday Girl!

Rose is 2!

Dear Rose,

Happy birthday little one!  It's hard to believe that we celebrate your second year of life today, and to think that only a year ago we did not yet know you'd be ours... what a journey we've been on.  

In a place where babies sometimes die, every life is celebrated with joy, and children's birthdays are not taken for granted.  COTP has a tradition of birthday parties and so yours was no exception!  We gathered together on the gated patio with all of your roommates, siblings, and many staff, too.  You opened a present with Natalie's help, we sang happy birthday and English and Kreyol, and of course, shared cake with everyone!  Not a crumb went to waste!  And when the party was over, and the sticky fingers washed, Noah read you stories and Elijah made faces, Daddy held you close, and we played "Smooth Road" on my lap 'til you giggled!  It was a great party!

It's difficult to imagine what goes on in your little mind.  You are full of jabbering, though few distinguishable words yet.  You love to laugh and play, feel powerful when you shut Roxie out of the gate, you love good things to eat and quiet cuddles, you light up when we come into the gate and cry big tears when we walk away.  Oh the walking away... that part is SO hard, for both of us.  Soon there will be no more good-byes!

I don't yet know how many days we will live in the land of your birth, if it be months or years, or even a lifetime.  I don't know if your days will be filled under tropical skies or the changing seasons of northern climes.  I think about what I will want you to remember from this time of your life, long after your cells have failed to record these days in any kind of active memory. 

You have been in care of strong women, many of whom leave their babies behind to care for you and the others each day.  Women who greet you in song in the morning and sing you to sleep with hymns each night.  Women who know what your life might have been like outside the gate and who pride themselves in how plump and healthy you have become.  Oh the Nannies have been your collective Mama until I could be your only.

Do you know of the beauty of the land to which you were born?  A land where mountains rumble with afternoon thunder and the palms whisper in breeze beneath the bluest skies.  A land where goats and their kids are tethered in lush fields and long-horned cows turn curious heads when we pass, on the dry road.  A land where trees hang heavy with blushing mangoes ready to juice up lips and run off chins, where bananas spring out from the trunk with showy flowering ripeness, and breadfruit hang heavily on branches high above the waving canes.  

You come from a people with strength and grace!  Do you remember the men resting on rustic hoes and then returning with bent back to shape the land for planting, the school boys bringing the cattle home for the night, with tethers draping behind like a long dusty tail?  Can you recall the woman with proud necks carrying the laundry, the goods for sale, the purchases from market, the woven bundles on which to sleep, all atop their heads - what balance and grace as they walk in the hot sun, shaded only by their load!

There is much intensity to the land of your birth!  The sun filters though the moist air with unhindered power and the day is only cooled when it beds behind the mountains at dusk.  The rains do not waste time with drizzle but pour and pound and puddle before they abruptly cease.  Likewise, people do not dispute in polite tones, but raise loud voices to drench the matter, then quickly dry up the concern and go on their way.  The mountains rise abruptly from the plains and return in sharp lines to ground level again.

The quiet places lie in the darkness of the night, when breezes rustle the canopy of leaves around the house, tree frogs croak their love to one another, and the cows bawl in distant fields.  The stars twinkle with billions of bright spots in the infinite sky, and fat toads take their places on the doorstep.

Poverty, too,  is rooted in this Haitian soil.  People you might have known suffer without adequate food, shelter, and clothing.  Though we are safe and well within the walls of the compound, many shiver in small homes when the rains pour through shoddy roofs, some lie side by side without the comfort of beds, and too many go to bed tonight with empty, hungry stomachs.  Often a man must chose between buying the next cement block to continue building a house or choosing supper.  The stomach often wins.  People come to the gate desperate for medical help for conditions that have easy cures, but no money means no cure.  

Some day I will tell you how your mother brought you through the same gate, hoping for a life better than she could give, hoping your small, frail frame could be made full and well.  She knew all too well of others babies who die of simple things and wanted better for you.  She had a love I don't know about, sweet Rose, but I promise to love and care for you in the way she hoped for you and the way God chose for you, too.  I don't know why he puts families like ours together, only that he does.  We, dear child, are the lucky ones!  We get to participate in reflecting the aspect of God's nature that so longs for relationship with us, that He adopts all of us as His sons and daughters.  I covenant to be your Mom, like God covenants to be our God -- you are my child, and we are His.

Today we celebrate that you are alive and well and that your future is bright.  We celebrate that you will soon be a part of our family and part of God's covenant family, too. 

Happy Birthday, Rose.

Rose, Mommy, and Natalie

Natalie helping Rose open her birthday present.

Mmmm... birthday cake!