It’s sometimes hard to talk about Angel, simply because there isn’t a concise way to explain how he became mine. I was working at an orphanage in 2013, and, on October 4th, a tiny, hours-old baby boy arrived after he’d been abandoned in a trufi (a form of public transportation). As newborns require a significant amount of care and the willingness to give up on the very concept of sleep, the tías let me keep him with me. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months of taking care of this beautiful, often-sick, rather high-maintenance child. In the first three months, he had severe jaundice, a couple of colds, one infection, and vomited after almost every bottle (come to find out that he was tongue-tied). He never slept more than 2 hours at a time, and he cried if I wasn’t holding him.
And I loved him as I’ve never loved anyone before or since.
As Angel grew, I reminded myself that he wasn’t mine; he would never be mine. It was harder and harder to remember that as time went on and I taught him to roll over (he wasn’t a fan), sit up (champion baby), crawl, pull up, and all the rest. One night, when he was 5 months old and violently ill, we watched Star Wars together at 3:00 am because it was the only thing that would calm him down. His first word was “dada,” about which I am still a little bit bitter. I made him a baby book because I wanted him to know that, no matter what happens, no matter where he goes or what he does, he has always been loved and wanted.
On the day he turned 11 months old, I left Bolivia, and I haven’t seen him since.
About 6 months after I left, Angel was assigned adoptive parents. To make a long story short, they were not the right family for him, but they took him home anyway. I spent 12 days in a sort of horrified stupor, and then I got a text from Hannah. Skype now? Urgent. I pulled up the video on my phone, and I saw my baby’s little face there with her, and I sobbed. His first family brought him back, and it is the greatest miracle I’ve yet to see. A few months later, he was reassigned to a Bolivian lady who lives in Italy and loves him beyond words. She sends pictures every once in a while, and she’s everything I could have hoped for if I’d been able to choose Angel’s mom.
It’s still hard to think that someone else holds that title now. Someone else will send him off to his first day of school; someone else will watch him grow up. I got 11 precious, short months with Angel, and, regardless of legal or biological definitions, he will always be my son.
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| Little Man |
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| October 4, 2013 |
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| Hanging out with Grandma. |
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| The last time I held my son. |
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| Angel and his best friend/cousin Carmin |
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| Meeting his adoptive mom. |
