Yeah - it was a day ...

Before I get into it, please let me say this - if, in the middle of it all you simply set down and hold your child tight and pray, then you get it. In hell there is no reason, no sense of up or down - you just simply hold on to those you love. And so that is what I do. And I have a Mom to help me - thank god. She taught me how to love and be there.

Enough of that for now - I am considering other avenues about the Vanya problem. I may be able to do nothing but I least I will think about other agencies as options. Also, while my son clutches for him even tonight in sleep, that child may not be available for international adoption. Only about 6 to 7 percent of children in these institutions can potentially come home to America, or Italy or where ever. I highly recommend the Russian film The Italian so as to understand current romantic Russian cultural myths opposing our saving of the babies. Whatever I do, today, tomorrow, next year or the even the next decade, I will have to explain it to my little boy who even now is sleeping with his arm stretched out to hold the missing child.

An added complication to my personal path is the fact that I was also sponsoring children through the agency that facilitated Sasha's adoption and was abruptly cut off from further contact with them last year. I had hoped to visit them during the second trip because I so wanted to meet them. Though I asked, I was refused. The reason given the "foster sponsors" was that contact was being severed because money from the adoption family fees could no longer support the program. If the "house" director agreed, then visitation could be arranged. I send a letter to the Dom Director but never heard anything back.

I worry about the older children I was sponsoring. After much trouble, I had finally gotten them a recent photo of their youngest brother who was at another orphanage, some distance away. I had asked the agency if there was any way to get them into a program to visit the US over the summer (there are several). No response. There was never any substantive response. So my support of those children was ended. No ability to really try and find them.

I have their sponsor pictures framed and someday I will tell Sasha about it all. I sponsored them in love before I heard the call to save him.

So onto today. It was not so great. It started with Sasha jumping into my bed and then physically harassing a cat. Given it was pre-coffee for me that all sort of cranked me out. I went and got coffee but that is the general sense of how the day went.

I am currently telecommuting because, well, just because. And no, work isn't being okay. They are silent but not okay.

Back to Sasha, his behavior did not go so well today. We all look forward to the phyc eval. And meds. And therapy sessions. There are times I look into his eyes and the boy I know as Sasha is simply not there. It is the freakiest thing. I call to him, he says his name is not Sasha and then will not tell me who is there.

And so I just hold him and love him. And when I need to leave the house, Mom is here until I return. And today, at the end of the day, the Sasha I know came home. He came home after my Mom was gone and he had been fed astronomical amounts of food. Gone was the screaming for no reason. Gone was the chasing of cats so as to harm them. He went in and straightened his toys. He attempted to make his bed. He straighted all the throw rugs on the hardwood and represented it all with flourish.

And that is how my life limps along. A crazy boy lives in my house and we all move to shelter insanity. Safely. Until something can be done. Despite American cultural myths, the insane are not put away rather they are foist upon their near contacts. Those in desperate mental need of help are simply turned away. They are sent home. Without the needed medical support. Those who love them are left to cope alone. And sometimes those insane people run into traffic. My boy did. I have heard of others too in the local area. In the case of Sasha, none of us know how he survived. It was a really busy street. Maybe the hand of God saved my son.

At the end of the day, I simply do not know. How do I get ready for tomorrow? But of course I will because that is my job as Sasha's mom - I will be there for him.