A Little One Lost

A dear friend of mine shared some very sad news with me this morning. She and her husband have been trying to adopt their little boy from Eastern Europe since last fall. They are experienced adopters and have worked diligently at the tasks required to bring him home, nonetheless encountering red tape and bureaucratic delays at every bend. Today, they received word that their son has passed away.

My heart breaks for my friend and her family and for the little boy who will never know he had parents and brothers and sisters who loved him from half way around the world. He died alone without ever experiencing the joy, comfort and care of a family. And not just any potential family maybe if ever… no, a specific family who was impatiently excited to meet him and more than ready to bring him home.

This is the sad, horrifying reality for orphans around the world. They are expendable. Their deaths go largely unnoticed and no one mourns them. We don’t like to think about what could happen to any child in an orphanage and especially not about what could happen to our very own child, a child we already love and cherish from afar, while two governments take months and months to complete endless paperwork. My son has waited for me for over a year. He is alive and I am thankful. But I am utterly disappointed and deeply angry at a state government that takes over four months to provide child abuse clearance checks, at lockbox personnel that returns applications without looking and seeing that all the documentation is, in fact, included and… well, at everyone who thinks orphans have nothing but time and that there’s no urgency to unite them with their parents. These children are not numbers, they’re not a list of diagnoses. They are fragile human beings who deserve the full attention and the best effort from everyone involved in their care and in their adoptions. Instead, sometimes it seems as if those in power are casually gambling with the little lives whose destinies have been placed in the realm of their responsibility.

To my friend, I am grieving with you, I am hurting for you. I am futilely wishing I could make it un-happen. I am here for you, whatever you need.