Biology

This afternoon Liam cut his finger. This afternoon Liam cut is finger and then Evelyn had to face the grief that has been in her heart since June 25,  2004.
I am always amazed at how, in adoptive families, simple moments can be flipped upside down and inside out and leave you gasping on the edge of what you can stand. My least favorite part about being a mama is that it falls on me to say the things that no one else can or will say. It falls on me to shed light on the painful past and then pick up the pieces.

There we were, I was making some cole slaw, Ev was sitting on the counter reading,  A Fly Went By aloud, Liam was cooking in the play kitchen right next to us. I glanced down and there he was with blood all over, just cooking away. Upon investigation, he had a small paper cut and I just needed to put a  band aid over it. Ev was very confused by the whole thing. How did he get cut? Why didn't he cry? Why didn't he let you know?
We have been dealing with the Orphanage behaviors that we see in Liam and the only way to help Ev understand and thus be more patient and understanding, is to just lay it on the line. Today I said " Ev he didn't come to me because he doesn't really know he could. He has never had his very own Mama to help him when he is hurt'
That statement did her in. It really did.
Some may say that I shouldn't have said it. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have just made up a soft lie. BUT, Ev is a difficult girl. She keeps her emotions on strict lock down. I have to push things to get her to talk. About anything. Adoption talk though, is the worst. She has so much pain and confusion that she just likes to pretend it didn't happen.
 Maybe I should leave things alone. Let her stay in her denial. But what happens when she hits 20 or 30 and all of it crashes in on her and she never had a talk with us? What if it hits her and paralyzes her and leaves her alone and distrustful for a long time? How can I not teach her these things when it is so very vital to acknowledge our past?
I stood there in the kitchen and let Liam bleed as I faced a wet eyed Ev and talked. And I talked. And I talked. I realized that I needed her to TALK. So I asked her to use ONE word. Just one word about her past and living in the orphanage. She sat there on my counter and hid her face and yelled "I don't want to. I just want to pretend I wasn't there!!!!!" And I wept and I said "please..." and then, oh and then. She lifted up her face and I saw more pain there than I have ever witnessed in another person's eyes and she yelled, "SAD!!!!!!!!! I am sad for baby EVELYN" and then she wept. Great sobbing shuddering weeping. And I held her and I wept too. We were there together and in that moment we wept for that baby that was left alone at just one day old.
A mother and a daughter bound, not by the biology of flesh and bone but bound by the biology of loss and love.