A Sweet And Generous Spirit

To the Editor:

One year ago today, I sat waiting in a van parked on a flooded road outside Saigon. The door slid open, there was a flurry of umbrellas, and a tiny face in a frilly pink cap looked at me for the first time. There was nothing tiny about her smile. It was the big, delighted smile of a sweet and generous spirit. She was already four months old, and she had spent those months half a world away from me, but she was my brand-new daughter.

I look at her now, squatting in the yard, playing with a watering can. She’s very busy, swishing her little hand around inside, pulling up grass and making “soup.” She picks up the can and turns to me laughing. The muscles on her baby arms bulge; it’s amazing how strong she is.

What would she be doing now, in Vietnam, if she hadn’t come home with me? Her birth mother works in the rice paddies of the Central Highlands, going down into the South and up into the North as the seasons change. Her birth brothers and sisters work alongside their mother, but she’d be too little to help much yet. She’d squat nearby, pulling up reeds, swishing her little hand around in the shallow water beneath the rice plants. Because she’s so strong, maybe her brother would give her a basket to carry. She’d probably be laughing.

Just as there are all kinds of families, there are all kinds of ways to live a happy life. Who am I to say that I will give her a better one? I know she sleeps in a crib full of stuffed animals and down comforters. I know she eats fresh vegetables and fruit and ice cream. I know she gets Tylenol when she needs it and vitamins and a bath every night. I know she is kissed and snuggled and loved. But I also know that her birth mother loved her, and that giving up her child was what she did to prove it. I saw that in her mother’s eyes, along with fear and sorrow, and maybe shame. Incredibly, she thanked me.

I am so very grateful and so very lucky. Thank you, all my friends in Newtown, for helping me to welcome Natalie this year.

Vicky Monks

8 Hi Barlow Road, Newtown                              September 11, 2000