Young Jin

Young Jin

We had to take a test to become parents.  The portfolio part was easy enough—nothing a few bank statements and one very scary trip to the Department of Records in Detroit couldn’t solve (clearly a neighborhood a shadow of its former bureaucratic self). The social worker who conducted the interviews couldn’t have been nicer.  She had my wife over to her house, and was very reassuring when we fretted that the picture of us she asked for had balloons in the background.  “You do know some people give us photos in bathing suits, right?”

The last interview was between Christmas and New Year’s, where she gave us what she thought was mixed news.  “You’re approved to adopt, but since you want to go through Korea, it’s likely going to be 18 to 24 months before we have a referral.”  This was right after the Olympics, and word of their glutted orphanages was world news.  I went back to work disappointed that being a family was a while away, but conceding another year or two to build up the savings account wasn’t all that bad an idea.

I pretty much still felt that way three weeks later, when I came back to the office to find a phone message (remember those?) from the adoption agency.  I figured this was some kind of paperwork follow-up, and with three college degrees behind me, I was ready for the task.

Nope.  “We have a placement for you.  He should be here in March.”

I once heard a story of a premiere athlete who saw her doctor because, no matter how much she exercised, she couldn’t lose this gut she’d grown.  Turns out, she was seven months pregnant.

I sort of knew exactly how she felt.  His room was painted over the Winter Olympics—a room we had kept empty since we’d moved into the house five years ago—and I became familiar with the very wacky science behind cribs with drop-down sides, a science only bested by the mystery of child car seats. We only had six weeks for his arrival, not nine months.  But, like all things that need to be done with a purpose, there wasn’t time to think about what we weren’t doing, and it didn’t seem to matter.

We were to meet a 10 pm flight coming in from Seattle.  We got there, only to discover the original flight from Seoul had been delayed, so parenthood was going to start more around 1 am.  This was back when anyone could sit at the gate, and a departing plane is always a bit chaotic no matter when it shows up.  The first-class passengers demanded to get off first, but soon enough, a very grandparenty- looking man came out of the tunnel with a well-sized Korean baby boy dressed in red and white in his arms.

For us, the best place to have our child delivered was the airport.

We went back to the car, and our newest family member seemed understandably disoriented.  He fussed a little as New Mom put him in the car seat, and before things got out of hand, I thought I’d put on some music.  Fumbling for a cassette tape in the darkness of the parking lot, I was glad I wasn’t an Ozzy Osbourne fan, but I still wasn’t sure what we would get to welcome him to our world.

It was James Taylor’s version of Getting to Know You.

To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, gahm-sah-hahm-nee-dah, dear God for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough.

For Hazelnut

A cat, when she woke, soon would climb
In the next nearest lap she could find
Oh so warm and all purring
The lap-owner, not stirring
Was in for an hour of sublime.

Like what you see? Subscribe for free!