The Colors of Grief

THIS book is wonderful. I wish I would have read it before we adopted Lottie and Emma but I didn't and sometimes even when I feel I have read something "too late" it is really not too late, it may be just the right time that I needed to hear those words. For an adoptive mom, I have learned much about grief from my little ones. We all lose someone eventually in life. Some of us have lost loved ones throughout our lives for different reasons but I was specifically looking for a book that could help me understand their loss in a different way. I have not finished the book yet, I (ahem) have very little "free time" but I wanted to jot some thoughts down.

Lottie suffered from this tragic loss on the day she was born, her "birth" day. I have always known that the anger my sweet girl feels is from this day. The second loss she suffered from was the day we met her when we took her from everything she knew.

Emma was a different story. Emma suffered loss when she was 17 months old, when her first mom had to put her in a children's home and then again when she was 18 months old, when she was removed from the home by her first mom and taken to an adoption agency. Then she suffered loss again when she was removed from her first foster family and then her second foster family and she even suffered loss from the short 23 hours she traveled with a Korean student to meet us in a Texas airport. That was a short relationship for her.....but still....that was loss. I was there and I remember her suffering.

The book describes the initial loss as this "Someone never returned, a very important, very precious person to who she "was" and who she would "become"-a critical, essential person in her every day life.  A dark looming cloud fell over her world, forcing her to take a journey of recovery from her very deep wound." Most of our little ones were abandoned on the day they were born. Don't think for one second that our children didn't know the feel of their mother's touch or the sound of their voices. They knew that.....they felt it every day they were in their womb. The author goes on to say, "Losing a primary caregiver-ESPECIALLY the mother- ESPECIALLY when the child is young can the the MOST difficult grief to heal, because the child's entire life picture has drastically shifted.  Her world has shattered.  Her beliefs have been shaken.  Flooded with strong and confusing emotions the child may shut down or fall into despair.  Raw emotions abound.  Infants cry.  Toddlers scream and throw tantrums." (emphasis was mine)

I have read books upon books upon books to my girls that will prompt questions inside of their hearts about their experiences. They are completely different. Emma has stories of fantasy about her first mom...well...some could be true, I don't know but I just listen to her and smile along with her because she loves to tell these stories. They always change. For over six years, Lottie only wants to hear "her story" from the day we met her. Never wanting to talk about her time in the orphanage or her mother. Do I know anything about that time? No, unfortunately I don't but does she need to talk about it? Absolutely! Last week, she did. She finally asked the hard questions and guess what? She is mad! She is so angry inside about what happened to her. I won't share all that she said because these are her private feelings and trust me....THIS is one private child! But I will share one feeling because it is important for adoptive parents and friends and family of adoptive parents to hear this. I did not give her this thought. I have never even told her about the "one child policy" or that only girls were abandoned. All of us know what our children can handle and she is way too sensitive to process that at seven years of age. She only knows her mother could not, for reasons unknown to us, take care of her. Before I tell you, I want to stress that you be honest with your children but be sure you only tell them what they are emotionally mature enough to handle. Only you know your child and her heart. Please be careful with their story. So, the other night we were laying in bed after our prayers and singing time and she wanted to ask me some questions. This took a very long time for her. She kept putting her blankie over her head.....she hid in the covers....she thought I was going to think she was "weird" etc. Do you see how hard this is for them? I kept assuring her that these are her feelings and they belong to her. She has every right to feel whatever she is feeling.

She finally told me.

She finally said it aloud for the world to hear.

She is mad.

She is angry mad!

She asked me all about the day the "stranger" found her (although she never asked where) and how do they know that was the day she was born. We talked all about the umbilical cord and how doctors can examine it and measure it to see the age of a baby. Well, then she was furious and began crying. I held her for the longest time and then she said this:

"Mommy, if that is true and the day they found me was my real birthday. That means I didn't get to spend ONE.WHOLE.DAY with my Mom. I am so mad at China. I do not like them."

Do you see that? Do you feel that? I'm her Mom and I feel it! I feel that anger and sadness.....ohhhh how I wish I had answers for her and I assured her that I was mad at them too because anything that breaks my baby girl's heart....breaks mine also. My daughter's are happy most of the time but something....anything can happen and wham...Emma has gone inside of herself or just silently cries or Lottie has an emotional breakdown. Over what? I never know. It just happens. Who knows what it is....it could be a smell or a phrase they hear or something in a movie they watch. The thing is....they don't even know the trigger...it just comes back....like a wave of sadness.

Why am I sharing these intimate things with you? Because I want you to LOOK for their grief. "Grief is a difficult journey.  Grief is not logical. No one chooses to be sad.  One just feels it.  Grief ungulfs us like a sudden eruption as our heart spills over."

Do you remember the day you met your adopted child? I mean....really remember....through their eyes. This next part of the book will sting a little and I don't want anyone to be hurt or beat themselves up for it but just try to read it through the eyes of your child. "These children (from China) are often brought wearing 3-4 layers of clothing even in the heat of August.  When the new parents take the child up to the hotel room, some parents begin to remove often smelly, sweaty and dirty layers of clothes and bathe the naked child, believing that doing so will allow their newly adopted daughter or son to "feel much better". BUT with each layer of clothes being removed, the child experiences a "derobement" of familiarity, the hidden regulators wrapped in these pieces of clothing-familiar scents, textures that were stroked, twisted and pulled; temperatures and weights from the layers; colors and patters that were visually explored; and tastes from sucking and picking. Stripped of her clothing the child's physical loss generates a deep insecurity.  So much of what she knew is gone.  So much of what is present is foreign.  The layers of clothes contained "connections" to home and family; safety and security." Now, I will say that I think some adoptive parents are very naive about this but I believe it to be true....every single word!

I will never forget the smell of my girls when I first held them....ever. It was a sweaty, dirty, sweet sort of smell and I was never offended by it. I had waited to hold them for so long that when I buried my nose in their little necks and breathed all of them in......I felt like I knew who they were. Lottie came to us in little green pj's...no socks...no layers...that's it. Her little monkey toes were so dirty. I thought she had large dark birthmarks across her neck, legs and tummy but it was dirt....that had been there a long time. Don't forget...it is not cultural to bathe your children every day in China. I would venture to say a very small percentage have a basin to bathe their children in. Especially in the winter months they will just wash them off. Dirt on your child does not mean they were neglected. You must forget your American ideals when you enter into another culture. Please don't bathe them on their first night with you, it is very traumatic for them.

She never cried. She just stared at all of us....soaking in the moment....storing everything in her mind. She was traumatized.....scared out of her mind but this is how she deals with fear. She is quiet and analytical. She is a thinker. When we got to the hotel, we fed her and we tried to put her to sleep in the crib. She began to sob so I scooped her up and put her beside me in the bed....she began to sob. So I picked her up in her little green pj's and put her on top of me with her little dirty face on my chest so she could hear my heartbeat....and she fell asleep rocking herself and sucking her thumb. I remember going to sleep with the smell of her hair in my face and crying....silently...because I knew that she laid on a piece of plywood each night for nine months rocking herself to sleep and sucking her thumb with a little towel. She still has those pj's and we have never washed them. We have them here in Mexico with us in my top drawer, they mean something to her. Smell is very important to Lottie, I have talked about that before.She just now stopped sucking her thumb but she will do it if she is very upset. This is sort of a pet peeve of mine and just my own personal opinion but don't take that away from your adopted child....that way of soothing themselves. I have read blogs where people try to get rid of the paci's or stop them from sucking their thumbs while they are still in China, I don't understand that....I really don't.

We met Emma in an airport in Austin, Texas. She flew in with a Korean student who went to UT. She clung to her. In that short 24 hours, she had grown even an attachment to this precious young woman. One might I add who smelled and spoke just like they did in her family. When the student finally had to leave, Emma began screaming .... and screamed and screamed. I was frantically going through her bag trying to find something that would be familiar to her and I grabbed a white blankie, I laid it over her face for her to smell and she passed out....cold.  She woke up when we got to Dallas with a big smile on her face. Was Emma suffering like Lottie? Yep....but she handles it differently. Emma escapes from her feelings by acting like nothing is happening. She flees from all of her feelings! She goes deep inside of herself and just stays there. She kicked and screamed in that airport fighting her way back to where she came from....she was not having any of it....I was perspiring all over the place....she was strong and determined and then finally she decided...okay...I'm out of here....and passed out. 

"When trauma occurs, a child unconsciously builds an invisible wall to hide her pain and shut out terror.  To lose their primary caretaker (mom, grandmother, foster mom, nanny) as an infant shocks the undeveloped mind and body and instills a lingering fear of abandonment.  This develops into insecurity.  Insecurity is often accompanied by an anxious belief that "It could happen again". Lottie has never verbalized these words to me but her actions show it and we are working on this in a fierce way. Trust is a long and winding road:)

People say to me that there is no way, especially Lottie, can have memories or feelings that she remembers from that day. WRONG!!! (insert buzzer sound here)  "A 0-2 year old physically experience the facts of a significant loss, because of the abrupt removal of the hidden regulators which causes the child's body to become dysregulated. The body remembers even when the child lacks the explicit memory that has yet to emerge".

They remember, they don't know the details if they were brought into your family at an early age....but they remember those feelings. They are stored in their memories in a way that I will never understand. They can be brought back up to the surface by an new trauma in their life. New teachers; new school, new friends. new...anything.

This loss doesn't go away. Yes.....love can heal many things and I believe in a Savior that can heal anyone but we have to be able to see our child's pain and grief. Is your child ever upset or blow up for no apparent reason and after explosion or melt down you wonder where in the world that came from? They don't have the words to verbalize their feelings because they didn't have the words when it happened. We have to look for these moments....we have to be there to prompt questions and read them books....we cannot turn our heads the other way and think that our love fixes everything because it doesn't.....it just doesn't. Their little minds cannot even begin to grasp what happened to them until they are at least 20 years old. Please don't wait until then to educate yourself on loss.....if you look....very closely.....you will be able to see your child's world through their eyes. Take the time to really listen to what is in their hearts....they are dying inside for you to know......they need to trust you with the most important detail of their precious little lives. Make sure that door is always open.

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard but must be felt with the heart (Author Unknown)