adoption

My daughter is coming home tomorrow with her husband, son, and new daughter from China. Bell Ji Fang is about to become come part of a vast and strange American family whose ancestors also came from other countries over the last 100-plus years. Many of these ancestors came here knowing little about the world they were entering, hoping that life would be good or exciting or just  different in some unimaginable way. She leaves a world of unarticulated memories behind her but probably memories that seeped into her senses and will on some nights in her life suddenly awaken her with sweetness, sorrow, or maybe fear and confusion. Maybe this is already happening; maybe it will happen when she is 16 or 33 or 80. Maybe one of these memories will give flesh to the young spirit she carries with her today. Maybe that spirit will yearn to go home, or maybe it will embrace her journey as her home.  Maybe she'll read this one day and think her grandfather was strange. Where could he have come from and where has he gone?