The Day We Came Home
The Fourth of July took on new meaning for me…
By Dr T J Jordan
There were weeks when I thought we would never get home. And then there was the glorious moment when our plane hovered above a New York airport, poised to touch down on American soil. I had never felt patriotism until then…
It was nighttime on the Fourth of July, somewhere over the United States, and the fireworks that were shooting into the skies beneath us seemed like a greeting delivered just for me and my infant daughter. For the last few hours of our flight, I watched the flaming colors, overwhelmed and exhausted, more exhilarated and more traumatized than I had ever been before.
I had traveled to China to adopt an infant girl. Meeting her for the first time was the only thing I could think about for the months leading up to travel. I was ecstatic and sentimental, fierce and tender, filled with the anticipation of a new kind of love and a new kind of life as mother.
In my joy, I was unprepared for the extreme hardships that would come with the triumphs. I didn’t know that my dad would lie dying or that I would be weak with relentless hemorrhaging. I didn’t know that I would witness the horrors of infant deaths or suffer the terrifying effects of starvation for the many weeks when food was unavailable. I couldn’t have imagined drinking the…
