I look at this picture and my heart seems to skip a beat and to melt with love within me. Today would have been his 3rd birthday. And so I again reflect on his life and the meaning of the love I had for him.
I look at hundreds of pictures of orphans. My heart goes out to them with love and prayers that they find their family. Some I have even thought, "yes, maybe we could be their family." But none have ever stirred me as the pictures of this sweet child. Why? Who can explain love? Really, truly? That subject has probably been the most explored topic of history. Not just love between a man and woman, but family love, a mother's love, God's love. I believe that there is something about love that can never fully be put into words or even fully comprehended. And I won't pretend to even try. All I know is before my first child was born I fell deeply in love with that child. After he was born (and we finally knew his gender!) my love deepened profoundly(which had nothing to do with his gender!! It was just nice to finally know that bit of info.)
The love for this particular child was strong and real, just like it was for my children before they were born. Who can explain that? All I had were his pictures and some first hand accounts of his personality and some sketchy details about his health. I didn't feel him rolling around and kicking inside of me. I didn't feel his hiccups or his quiet times. He wasn't part of my DNA. But still, I loved him.
But as I think of my love for him, I can't help but think of his birth mother. I can not even begin to fathom what the circumstances were that brought her to abandon her son. I can surmise from what I have been told, however, that the majority of children who are abandoned are abandoned because the parents lack the money to pay for the surgeries that will save their children's lives. There is no health care insurance. The fees could easily take several years worth of the parent's wages. And there are very few charitable organizations that help parent's pay for the surgeries their children need, thus letting them keep their babies, not abandon them.
I think to the time of his birth. I can imagine the parent's would have been very pleased to know they had a son. When did they find out that he had a severe birth defect that would kill him? Was it just shortly after birth and the doctor informed them as they cradled their son? Or did they have him many days before the slow realization came to them that something was drastically wrong? I can easily imagine the profound love and the depths of the anguish they must have felt when they first realized his problem. The helplessness knowing they did not have the money up front for his surgery. The hopeless feeling, the agony. The wishing that time could turn back and their son could form correctly in the womb.
I don't know if it was the mother or the father who finally made the decision to abandon their son. Abandon him in hope that someone would find him who could help him. Help him to live. Who was the last to be with him? His mother? Could she really take him somewhere and just leave him? As a mother I can't even wrap my mind around this concept. Having to abandon your child in hopes that he can find help and live.
Oh how my love and heart go out to this mother...these parent's who have to do such a horrible thing to seek help.
Bo Yu did receive the life saving surgery. His prognosis was not good. He almost did not survive. But than his body fought back and he survived and thrived. He became strong and medically stable. He was in a good medical orphanage that loved and cherished him.
And yet all the time his mother had to learn to live without her son. The child she had nurtured and loved when he was within her body. The child she was forced to abandon because she could not pay for the medical help he needed. She could not know the outcome of her son. She could only hope and hope and hope that he lived. Does she think of him every day? Does she grieve deeply? How could she not?!
What she does not know is that her son lived for two years longer, only to die from something else, very unexpectedly. She can't know. She is grieving and will always grieve for that son. But tempered with hope that he is alive.
But I know he did not live. And I grieve for him. I grieve for his mother and father. I grieve for the injustice of life that forced them to abandon him in the first place. I feel very connected to a person in China whom I will never meet on this earth. I feel that I am grieving for her, since she does not know to grieve for his death. I pray for his mother and his father that they will come to know God and in heaven we will meet and celebrate the life of Bo Yu, restored to perfect health!
Bo Yu will never be my son but I will always love him as if he had been.
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