Happy Birthday, to Hibiscus

Happy seventh birthday to my wonderful, beautiful daughter.

The sun is fading.  My birthday girl and her busy brother and outside, and the littlest one is in the most snug and cozy nap on my back (in Pavo Hearts, for those who are curious!).  It has been a full and wonderful day.  Hibiscus has the last of the kids' birthdays-in-a-row, and we only made it to America in time for this one.  It's the first birthday in her little life that she's actually gotten to celebrate, or that anyone has cared about at all.  Maybe she's an unusual child who will get to remember her first birthday party!

I hope it was a special day for her.  She and I went out to breakfast this morning, which was actually her very first chance at alone time with mama.  In Uganda, Buttercup had time with me while the big kids were in school, and Emerson got some occasional alone time when the girls had to be somewhere, but there was no logistical way to have Hibiscus with me when the other children were somewhere else.  Today, we selected a cake together, had waffles, and went to the grocery store to get ice cream and juice for the party.  We played Jenga while we waited for our food, and she quickly figured out how to test the blocks to see if they were loose, and control her extra movements to not knock the tower over, as well as waiting for her turn patiently, and discerning the pattern to which blocks could be safely moved.  After two rounds, she said "let's try something else" as she started to make shapes with the blocks.  She said she was making a fence for a horse, and I built a horse out of Jenga blocks inside her fence, which impressed her.  Then we built other kinds of towers.

We ate our waffles and ended up talking about school.  She described how one of the staff at her Ugandan school had pinched her and called her a "villager" because she was eating her eggs in the car, and we talked about how that made her feel.  Well, I talked about that, because she still doesn't really have feelings words yet.  Then I asked what happens at Waldorf school in America, and she described -- her tone is still reverent and shocked -- how when she can't do something at Waldorf school, the teachers HELP her figure it out.  I asked her which way works better, being made fun of or being helped, and she said it works much better when the teachers help her out.  I told her that it made me feel really good that I could send her to school at a place where I knew she was safe from being made fun of, and the teachers help her out, and I'm sorry that that happened to her before, but that was the best that anyone was able to do.


And that pretty much sums up my feelings about Hibiscus's birthday.  I am so intensely joyful for her presence in our family and in my life, and so intensely sorrowful about what I haven't been able to shield her from.  About the things that meant she was on the road to become part of our family.

Last night I went into a Hallmark store to pick out a card for her.  I wanted something sappy and sweet and beautiful, and I thought about the things I wanted to write inside.  I thought about some words that I would say to her, to give her some little message to hold onto about how precious she is to me.  So much of our relationship, so much of our lives, is full of frustration and trying to guide her into place, into control.  Self-control, hopefully; eventually.  I know this time is hard on her, but I have deep faith that eventually she will settle into something much stronger and more positive than if I just let her be crazy and do whatever she wanted to.  But these months have been so hard on me, too, and I have sometimes lost my own self-control.  If I can't model patience and fortitude, at least I try to model handling my anger in a non-destructive manner, and owning my mistakes and apologizing.  But I'm not a very demonstrative person, so I fear that the occasional outburst of anger overpowers my gentle demonstrations of love.  In her birthday card, I didn't want to bring up the difficult parts, but I wanted to tell her about how much I love her despite them.

I stood in front of the rack of "daughter" cards and actually started to cry, although it probably wasn't visible to an outside observer.  (I mentioned that I'm not demonstrative!)  I was so proud and happy to have a daughter, and have a daughter whom I could give a card to and was old enough to understand and care.  It was one of those moments when you can stop and think about your life, and I remembered that it wasn't very long ago that I didn't have any daughter at all, and now I have this amazing and lively girl who is turning seven, and that I'm the one who can teach her about love, and safety, and faith, and beauty, and being a woman.  That whole display of sweet pictures couldn't sum up how proud and happy I am to be a mother of a daughter, of my own daughter, my very special girl.

Then I opened up cards and started to read them, to pick one out.  First of all, it seemed like most of them were written to be given to an adult daughter, so some of them I had to put down because they described "now you've grown into," as though growing into being yourself is a process that is ever finished.  I kept skimming and reading.

They were all filled with phrases like "through the years," and "on the day of your birth," and "your birth made me a mother," and "I remember all your birthdays," and "every year since your birth," and so on and so forth.

And I still felt teary, but now they were suddenly angry tears, and I left the store without buying anything, and I didn't manage to give Hibiscus any kind of card at all.  Writing about love is probably more my way of showing affection than her way of receiving it anyways.


I wasn't there when she was born.  I didn't know I was a mother then, and in fact, I wasn't, because it wasn't my job to protect her and teach her about love, and safety, and everything else.  But then no one else did it either, and I wasn't there to step in and protect her, and make her world better.  I was far away and I didn't know anything about her, while she was learning about loneliness, and hunger, and that when the getting gets tough, no one is going to help you out.  And I haven't been with her through the years, and I haven't seen her change and grow through her birthdays.  A few days ago she was telling us about some scary things that happened in her old life, and then contemplating how she never had "a happy birthday" before, and she wonders why I didn't stop the bad stuff and help the happy stuff along.  And I say "I wish I could have been there, and I would have made the bad boys stop teasing you," and "I wish I could have been there, and I would have baked you a cake."  Solving the problems in fantasy helps her a little bit, and her sad face turns into a little smile, as she imagines me chasing those bad boys away.

My own heart pains with the desperation of that wish.  I know that it makes no logical sense, but how deeply and passionately I wish that I had been able to be there from the beginning.  That I could have put myself between her little baby self and the cruel world that assaulted her without cease.  That I could have picked her up every time she cried so she learned that trust is real.  That I could have fed her, and made silly faces with her, and taught her feelings words when she was a toddler.  I have some misty vision of myself, perhaps time-travelling, in her parents' shack when she was a newborn.  I would say something like, "she's going to be my daughter anyways, so why don't we just start right now," as I picked her up, and they already knew things were bad and had been in the middle of an argument about how they were going to take care of an extra person, a helpless girl, so they would have been just as relieved as they were almost seven years later in real life.  And it wouldn't have saved her all the pain of losing the family you are born to, but it would have saved her six and half years of pain.

But I can't give her that.  I can't give her all those cakes that she missed, getting to take the first bite, the chance to be the most important person of the day six more times.


So we did what we could for number seven.  She picked out a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart from the bakery, which also makes me a little sad, because I always make birthday cakes but I wasn't able to manage it in time for the party.  She did not get a balloon or a box of chocolate or a carton of orange juice in the store, because of course she suddenly wanted everything, but I was determined to keep the excitement of this day within the realm of what she could handle.  But she had some time when a mother paid attention just to her, and acted like she was valuable and reasonable.  And she had a party filled with people who love her, which was ourselves and two other families.  When we sang our blessing and I added a prayer of thanks, for her seventh year, and being finally back in America so we could celebrate it all together, the whole table resonated with agreement and thanks for being together.

And new clothes.  And a dollhouse.  I could give her all those things.

Some times all that seems so joyful.  And other times, it seems so paltry.


So today, very happy birthday to my daughter, my special daughter, the daughter who fills my house with laughter and with energy, my very own daughter.  This year, I will try and teach you about love, about safety, about faith, about beauty, about being a woman.  I will try and do the best I can, and I'm sorry that it's not enough; that I'm six years too late.  We will start with this day, and do what we can with tomorrow.  I love you so much.