Mary

It is interesting to me, how the heart can choose.

Without any direction, without any logical explanation, throughout life there are those my heart just knows, no questions asked. 

And here I was, surrounded by tons of lovely children, with whom I laughed and played, whose hands I held and whose faces I touched.  

And yet out of them, only a handful: the ones my heart chose.

You've seen her here already,

this amazing child full of strength and joy.

 Spunky she is,
and her gritty laugh needs no prompting.

Often, she just laughs at herself.

 She is a good friend,

a leader full of good ideas.
Many of our games were at her instigation,
and she learned Eenie Meenie Miney Mo with barely a blink of an eye,
her English ahead of the rest.

She was always by my side, and of all the children there I thought: 

She's the one I would take home.

But one day I watched her, chattering and laughing and playing with her friends (the friends who are her brothers her sisters her mothers her family) and I thought: It wouldn't be fair, to take her from this.  She would never find herself again, in the coldness that is American life.

And yet.

 Where is this sad place that she goes,

when no one else is looking?

Would a home, 

a mother to call her own, 

would it make a difference?

The day before our last, she laid her head on my knee.
She said "I will remember you."
She said "I am sad."

And then, when it was time to leave for real, she stood next to me, her arm around my shoulders, as I knelt and hugged Nome good-bye. And when I stood back up, to shift my arm back to her, to shift her arm around my waist, she looked into the distance. She said to the air what we were all saying: "See you again!"

She turned and walked away,
head high and shoulders bravely set,
into the gathered crowd.

I turned and watched her go.

I thought: "I understand, I understand."

See you [please] again.