Dateline: The International Dateline, Northwest Flight 19 from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Beijing (via Tokyo), 9/10 August 2004
Our journey toward Vonne Mei Ling began on Sunday at 11 am. Vonne and I packed up 12 pieces of luggage and our three kids (Emily, Kevin and Jerome) into the Odyssey and headed out to the Providence Airport. Kev and I had run our cat over the bridges to my friend Bradd's house in North Kingstown earlier that morning, so when we left, we left an empty house. But when we all return in three weeks time, we'd be one stronger in count. As Kevin noted to me on our flight over to Indianapolis, this would be the last time we'd fly as a family of five.
As soon as we landed in Indy, the kids got excited and a bit nervous. Within minutes they'd be splitting off in two directions: Emily and Jerome heading west with Nona Vonne and Grandad Carl to Terre Houte, and Kev heading east to the old family farm in Payne, Ohio with Vonne's oldest brother Steve, his wife Bette, their youngest daughter Tresa and the new puppy she was carrying in her handbag. This is going to be the longest time any of the kids have spent apart from either of us and the first real time they've spent away from both of us. As Vonne noted on the shuttle we later took to our hotel near the Indy airport, this was the first night the two of us had spent together alone in a hotel since Emily was born in 1991.
Our reunion with our relatives at baggage claim was brief: both sides had long drives ahead of them and it was already after 7pm. So hellos and good-byes were brief all around, and after quick kisses and hugs with the kids, each suddenly became somber at the notion that they woulnd't see us until the end of the month. By the time we said our last good-byes over the phone the following morning, the same kids who were bickering and back-talking the whole way from Providence suddenly were declaring how much they missed us already.
And yet, even in that fear, I could sense the excitement in their voices--when next we met they'd all have a baby sister. As Jerry calls here: "My baby sister from China holding a Minnie Mouse!" That's his description because that's all Jerry knows: Vonne Mei is from China and the only pictures we have of her show a tiny baby girl clutching a primitive-looking stuffed Disney doll.
But soon enough we will all learn more. Vonne and I got up this morning in Indy on the 9th of Aug and go to bed tonight in Beijing on the 10th, having skipped smartly ahead one day by crossing the international dateline--a first for us both.
But it felt like we were crossing so much more than an artificial designation of where each new day on this planet begins. It felt like we were crossing over into a future that none of us can really understand in terms of how much will be asked from us--each individually and collectively as a family.
Vonne and I know how to be parents and our kids know how to be siblings, but now we're also going to have to become something other than "birth parents" and "biologicals," something other than a family of native-born Americans. We will have to open up our hearts and minds to someone who does not look like us until she becomes truly one of us--a fierce bit of legacy to everything Vonne and I hold dear in this family we've created and mightily defended in the past.
Why this child? I wish I could tell you. She does not complete our family, but she extends it beyond our limits and in doing so we say good-bye to what was and say hello to what shall be. Vonne Mei will not solve any of our problems nor fulfill any our fantasies beyond those already achieved or to be achieved by our trio of biologicals. She fills no gap in our lives, erases no debts, compensates no past injury. She comes wholly as an expression of our love for one another and our belief that that love defines not the limits of our family but a core that is ever expandable, always open to new possibilities, and as strong as our faith in God allows.
Vonne Mei becomes our future worth creating. In just five tomorrows we shall meet that future, our daughter Vonne Mei Ling. We can't wait to cross over.
