Brush with Greatness

Before we went out to dinner tonight, we noticed that there was a red carpet flowing through the downstairs lobby of the hotel which Max had to run up and down. When we went outside to get a taxi, the woman who always helps us said we had to go down the street to get a taxi tonight. Usually they pull right up to the hotel entrance. But instead of the entranceway being surrounded by waiting taxis, there were numerous black official cars. Some of the only Mercedes I've seen in Vietnam.

Turns out the President of Vietnam and the President of Laos were in the hotel ballroom for dinner, celebrating several decades of good relations between the two countries. We thought nothing of it, found a taxi and asked him to take us to an Indian restaurant on Tong Don road.

After a quick dinner, we headed back to the hotel. I asked the receptionist if the presidents were still here and she said yes, and that would be coming down in about five to 10 minutes. Tom and Max headed upstairs to our room, not the least bit interested in the political greatness surrounding us. But, with my journalist's instincts piqued, I decided to stick around for a few minutes with Molly even though it's about 50 degrees hotter in the lobby than in our hotel room.

If indeed, the presidents were there, I wanted Molly to be able to see the leaders of her country. Though she may not ever remember it, at least we will have the memory etched in cyberspace for eternity. I quickly befriended one of the security guards who was more than happy, proud even, to tell me who was upstairs and all the other big VIPs who have stayed at the Melia in the past, including, he noted, Fidel Castro.

It was definitely a Lost in Translation moment because I thought he meant Fidel Castro was upstairs in that very moment. Finally we realized that no, he wasn't there but he has been here in the past. You know, a fellow Communist country.

Anyway, he kept me apprised of each and every dignatary who walked by. There were only four other people on star-alert like myself. Most of the other people in the lobby and lounge either didn't know or didn't care. There was no press in sight and not a single photographer on the scene. It was so mellow and low-keyed it was almost as if it were a non-event. Of course, all the newspapers are controlled by the government so I'm sure speeches and press releases were already on the propaganda printing press before the night even ended.

So, as it turns out, walking only several feet in front of where Molly and I were standing - pretending not to be paying attention or the slightest bit interested - we saw the Head of the Communist Party of Vietnam (who ranks higher than the president), the president and vice president of Vietnam, the President of Laos and other dignataries. Some were high ranking generals - you could tell by the lines on their face and the medals on their chest - and then they were followed by their lackies.

I COULD HAVE SHAKEN THE PRESIDENT'S HAND if I wanted to as he shook two or three hands on his way out. He sort of looked up at me out of the corner of his eye but I would have had to make a less than graceful leap onto the red carpet with Molly in my arms and it just didn't really seem that important afterall. Plus, my buddy the security guard might have lost faith in me if I had done such an uncool thing.

As I told Tom after the excitement, it was the most un-American thing I've seen in Vietnam so far. Here were the heads of state and there was hardly any security whatsoever. No secret service, no bodyguards. People have said Vietnam is an exceedingly safe country but I didn't realize how so. And to think the security guards were giving me just the information my inquiring mind wanted to know. Surely, their counterparts in the U.S. would have been way tight-lipped and indifferent.

Also in the lobby tonight we bumped into one of the Irish couples who also adopted a baby girl the same time we did from Thai Nguyen last Wednesday. I've been saying how lucky the Irish are because as soon as they get their babies passports, they can leave and go home. Unlike us Americans who have to wait an extra week or so til the US Embassy processes our paperwork. But I certainly need to amend that now because we are the more fortunate in America. The Irish have been waiting 6 years to adopt their baby. Six years. They have heaps of classes to go to and lots of bureaucratic paperwork just like us but their process takes so much longer. I didn't want to tell them that ours started in earnest in January.

They said as soon as they get back to Dublin, they will put in another application to adopt another baby but this wait will only be three years. Yipes.

What else happened today? It was a free day for us - no adoption stuff to do. Tom took Max to the War Museum where they saw all sorts of things reminding us that indeed the Vietnam War did happen. I say that because just cruising around as happy go lucky tourists, without the occasional historical museum or jail here and there, one might never know there was a war here several decades ago. People are very nice to us - even old folks smile. For as far as they are concerned, the Vietnamese won "the American War" as it's called here. We are so blessed to be naive.

This afternoon, I treated myself to a massage which was about a B- or C if I were to give it a grade. Low marks compared to Barbara Haddaway. But for $23 for an hour here at the hotel, even an okay massage is a good one. Then I got my hair washed for $7.50. The woman doing my hair massaged my head for about 20 minutes while washing my hair and then gave me a head, neck and shoulder massage before blowing my hair dry. It was all too good to be true and you can be sure I will indulge in that ritual again before we leave.

Tonight, when I was putting Max to sleep, we were talking about all sorts of things, mostly airplanes and bridges but then the subject of adoption came up, as per usual with Max, completely out of the blue. First he said it would have been a lot easier if Molly had just flown to Dulles airport like he did rather than all of us traveling to Vietnam to get her. I replied that yes, it would have been easier but then we wouldn't have gotten a taste of her country like we have been since we arrived. I told him I regretted not going to get him in Korea for the same reason but promised to take him there one day if he wanted to go.

"I would just like to meet my birthmother," he told me. I was astonished!!! "I would like for her to see how big I am now. That I'm not a baby anymore." My heart sunk. Everything I've read on adoption these days says not to couch these conversations with "Well, you know the day we adopted you was the best day of my life" or other related sentiments to make the kid feel better. While that may well be true, it puts the focus on me and not on him and his feelings. So I listened and said I understood how he was feeling. I was ready to talk more (as I always am) but then I heard him snoring softly next to me and so I took my cue and just held him.

It's sobering moments like that that catch me off guard. Yes, we have adopted some beautiful children and now we - as parents - are feeling complete because we wouldn't have had a family without them. We are so blessed to have such happy and bright little people in our lives. But there may always be a hole in their hearts, a sense of wondering about identity, possible issues with abandonment, questions about loss and why they were placed for adoption, or in Molly's case, abandoned. When I allow myself to think about what our children have lost - or more precisely - what has been taken from them, my heart cries. There are questions that may never be answered for the rest of their lives and surrendering to that existential mystery is no easy task. I know for a fact because of my own story.

So how do we, as conscientious adoptive parents wanting to do the "right" thing, balance the instinctive need to want to protect our children from any more hurt or pain AND, at the same time, be honest and give them the what little we know about the stories of their lives that they are so entitled to know? There are no easy answers and I am bound to screw up so many times along the way. What comes to me now is that the best things I can do are a) be accountable for when I make mistakes, b) do the best that I can and c) ask for guidance when needed --- always coming from a loving, spacious place in my heart. So big that I can hold my little ones with love at the same time they might be feeling pain. I also try to keep things age appropriate as I've done with Max. He always surprises me, weeks, months later, with a question that takes his story to the next level of depth and understanding. Little bits of information that can be digested over a lifetime, on his cues, rather than living in denial or waiting to have "the talk" on my terms.

Then again, talking about adoption is nothing compared to talking about war and landmines with Max. Since Cambodia, he has been thinking about landmines and has a lot of questions about what they do, how they hurt people and why. And, then after his museum visit with Tom today to the war museum, he wanted to know about why the B-52 planes on exhibit were shot down and what that meant. They are new concepts I can see his bright mind trying to digest. Heavy ones at that. And they are so hard for me to talk about because I am such a peace-nik. My skin isn't nearly thick enough to go to the war museum as it's just a part of history I don't need to know about anymore.

We are Quaker. We are pacifists. Something that has been engrained in both the McCall and Moore families. I remember riding on top of my Dad's shoulders at anti-Vietnam war marches in the late 60s, early 70s. At the time, I just repeated everything my Dad said, being the able bodied parrot that I was. But something rubbed off on me, through osmosis? conscience? heart? Maybe all of the above. But I don't like it when people fight or hurt each other. I don't agree with war in any circumstance so how do I explain to my son the facts as I know them? I've consciously been trying to hide the concepts from him for four years now but we can't escape it. I don't want him to play with toy guns or even use sticks as guns but I know if he is meant to be doing this, he will figure something out. So, I let him do his thing (which thankfully is not about guns yet or hopefully, if we're lucky, ever!) But I do tell him about how Mommy and Daddy don't like guns and how they hurt people. He's smart enough to take that in.

On a lighter note, he suggested renaming his sister this evening. "I think we should call her Gopala Molly Williams Brewster McCall." I couldn't believe he got all the names right! He hasn't given up on Gopala yet and truthfully, neither have we. We call her both Molly and Gopala as well as other terms of endearment.

Scariest thing I saw today: A family going for a ride on the family motorbike - daddy driving with young son (maybe 2? 3?) sitting on his shoulder (!) and momma holding on to husband and kid, with another smooshed in between them. No one wearing helmets. There are way more motorbikes on the roads than cars and buses but this is ridiculous. So much for the family van. So much for car seats, let alone seat belts.

Funniest thing I saw today: a woman, wearing the omnipresent conical hat, bicycling down the road with her bike covered with brown feather dusters for sale. They were hanging out of the basket in front of her, on her lap, coming out of baskets on the sides of her and behind her. In fact, she looked like a brown version of big bird on a bike. Next to her, the cyclist peddling toys and balloons cracks me up. They look like at any moment they might float into the sky.

Tomorrow's nefarious agenda includes allegedly picking up passports at the police station and we are told, one of the seven families will have their medical tomorrow but their name wasn't disclosed this evening which means everyone has to wait by their hotels. Ugh. It's hard to believe that communication here couldn't be a little bit cleaner and clearer.