I know you

It's funny. I often hear people comment that technology is separating mankind. Stripping away our civility and humanity. Now that you can send emails instead of hand-written cards, people have lost little courtesies along the way. We don't do business with a handshake anymore. We buy from cyber stores and return by mail. I understand the concerns, but don't think we have lost. Or at least, I haven't lost. I have gained. So much.

If we were adopting 10 years ago, I wouldn't have you. I wouldn't know you. And I feel that I do -- in a deep and profound way, my faithful readers. I know that we are more alike that not. I know we care about the same things. I read your emails, postings and blog comments and hear your personality, your sense of humor, your heartache, your moxy.

I know that, like me, you only wish to parent, and share your heartful of love with a child. It doesn't matter if that child shares your DNA, wining smile, or cowlick at the nap of your neck. It only matters that you love that child more than you knew it was possible to love another human being. I feel the same way.

I know that, like me, you are drawn to Ethiopia. You cannot put it into words, and when someone says "why Ethiopia?" you have a million reasons, but none of them entirely sums it up. In ETH, family is everything. Everything. Children are an absolute gift, more precious than gold. Community is at the heart of everything from everyday shopping to religous festivals. Your neighbors ARE family, and your family lives near enough to be actual neighbors. People help each other out -- in whatever small way they can. Mothers and fathers love their children so much, and only want the best for them. They do not relenquish their children for adoption easily -- no, it is the hardest decision they will ever face. It is a decision made out of the most self-less type of love imaginable. They want their children to have a good life, a life they cannot provide. So they entrust another member of their community to raise their child until a family can adoption him/her. For you also, family is everything. You will raise your child with the same self-less love that his/her parents demonstrated in the moment they took their child to the orphanage you adopted from. You see the stark beauty in this, the intricate dance that brought your child home. I do too.

I want to know you, meet you, have coffee with you. I feel a closeness to you. We are mamas, we share this incredible bond, but it's more than that. I know that if we met in person we would have an instant connection. We would be good friends. We would get together for play dates with our children. We would go shopping togther. We would read books and share them in our own private book club. We would disagree on parenting styles and agree on parenting styles. We would research day-care and nanny-shares. We would celebrate holidays, birthdays, deaths, births, and random Tuesday afternoons.

Without this machine I sit in front of, without this technology, I wouldn't know you existed. You would be a pleasant dream, but that's all. I would hope someone like you was out there, but would know no more.

With this machine, with this "cyber space" world I spend so much time in, I KNOW you exist. And I meet some of you. Not all, but some, and enough to know you all exist in your place in geography. As time goes on I'll meet more of you. I'll come up with excuses to visit Aberdeen South Dakota and Seattle Washington, and Holland Michigan. I'll stop by upstate NY on a business trip, or plan a family vacation to Arizona. I'll visit my family in Indiana the exact week you are visiting your family in Indiana "Oh Amanda, what a funny thing meeting you at this random Olive Garden in Hobart, Indiana, how in the world did that happen??" You know I don't like Olive Garden and neither do you, but we're both there and so we are crying and hugging each other and crying and hugging each others children and our husbands are looking at us like we are nuts, and we probably are, but it doesn't matter because we have found each other. I have found YOU.