Georgia was all of eight and a half weeks when she made her first flight. It was aboard a rickety Aeroflot plane to Moscow from Tbilisi, where my wife and I had adopted her. She was in our laps for that flight, squirming, fussing, crying. Apart from the tears, that's pretty normal behaviour aboard any plane.
On the flight home to Montreal, we had bulkhead seats and Georgia was in a bassinet hooked to the wall in front of us. It was a perfect arrangement: with little effort we could check on our new parcel and remain in our seats, or stand over the bassinet and change her nappy. I hope I'm not embarrassing my now 15-year-old when I write that one particular change stands out among all others: her "poop" had left the confines of the nappy and travelled up her back to her neck. It was everywhere. Georgia was crying; my wife, who had been ill, was beside herself. I was trying to make myself useful.
I was reminded of this last week in the Kuffler and Bucher restaurant in Frankfurt airport. I had an unreasonable six-hour layover in my flight home to Abu Dhabi from my home in Montreal. I suppose I could have gone into town, but what's open at 6.30 in the morning? Maybe a greasy spoon or a cafe. I opted for the Frankfurter an Kartoffelsalat with a bottle of mineral wasser.
My meal over, I had five hours left to kill. Behind me, also killing time, were a mother and child. A rather special mother and child. She was new at this and they are new to each other, I thought, and I was right.
Jessica, an American from Florida (we shared Boston connections), had adopted Elijah from Ethiopia. His middle name was Tesfahun, which means "be my hope", and he had recently turned one. This was his first flight, too, with an unintentional layover caused by the cancellation of a flight. Elijah Tesfahun had spent most of his life in orphanages, given up for adoption by his mother, 16, too young, too overwhelmed and too poor to cope.
By the look of Jessica and Elijah together, the birth mother had made the right choice. Jess was caring without being overly solicitous, loving without being fawning. When he was thirsty, she gave him something to drink. When he was hungry, she fed him some cereal. And when his poop went up the back of his "Bananas for Mommy" one-piece outfit and down his left leg onto her jeans, this travel-worn young mother bore her cross and changed him like an old pro.
And I, with my flight finally ready to board, tried to make myself useful. I went off in vain search of baby wipes.
Jess has been blogging about Elijah's adoption story on the website loveiscolorblind.org. It's a moving story, one that reminded me of something someone in Georgia told me back in 1995: international adoption creates world citizens.
