To Sing Frogs Chapter 45a

I am sad because we have to say goodbye, again,

Sarah’s journal from Spain

 

Chapter 45

 

Left Behind

 

   Mike laughed as I entered the kitchen. He and José Manuel sat at the table eating ham and cheese while waiting for the rest of us to get up. My son made a crack in Spanish, something about brothers from another mother.

I looked in the tinted mirror. His dark hair was the same length and parted on the same side as mine. His black mustache reflected my light one. Both of them dropped straight down from the corners of our mouths, halfway to our chins. We might not have noticed the resemblances had I not worn my burgundy button down, virtually the same as the one José-Manuel had on. Both were tucked into blue jeans. A Spaniard would not have worn my leather cowboy boots but his casual leather shoes wouldn’t be right for my horse.

They say we each have duplicates on worlds in other universes. My match is closer.

 

 

I sat on a cold, hard, wood chair in a dim and quiet corner of the villa. A large pink image of Hello Kitty rested on my lap. Tears fell from my eyes and splashed on plastic sleeves.

Earlier that morning Marina and Yana presented Sarah with a gift. Natalia had taken Marina back to the Partizansk Children’s Home to get pictures of their friends for Sarah. Then the mother and daughter shopped for the perfect photo album. The English words under the world-famous image of a cartoon kitten expressed the feelings of Marina, Julia, and Sarah—Best Wishes For You. You’re really understanding and caring. I’m so glad to have a friend like you.

The pictures didn’t belong in a Hello Kitty photo album. I stared down at an image of the orange building of single-brick monuments, twenty-six windows long, three windows high, four windows deep. The playground equipment—that had cast such long shadows when we drove in at night—remained. Trees near the building were older now. They more closely resembled ones bordering the property. Tangled branches now hung closer to the orphanage as if to imprison the tortured souls more securely.

There were photographs of dormitories where Sarah’s friends who remained now slept. In place of cartoon figures, wallpaper and paint tastefully decorated rooms more appropriate for teens. The size of the beds and chairs had changed along with the styles. That was all. Each room still had twelve twin-sized beds and twelve plain mismatched chairs. Each chair touched heads of both beds that it separated. Potted plants were placed around the room and simple pieces of framed art hung on walls. It would be the best life most of these children would ever experience.

I recognized orphanage workers from five years earlier standing with Marina. They were older now, like me.

Then there were the ones I walked away from. They were now entering their teen years. I looked at the half dozen girls and several boys. Some of the photographs had the girls each holding a red tulip in remembrance of Sarah. Others showed various friends holding several kittens. Peers of “the three who now belonged to someone,” stood on the cusp of change. Like the teenaged girls who came to tell Sarah goodbye, soon they would be gone.

I looked at a picture of Marina standing alone, back in the dormitory where she had prayed with Sarah and Julia. The cartoons—a line of turtles, the monkey, and the palm tree—remained on the wall. So did the sun. Its rays were no longer there. The number of adoptions from Russian orphanages continued to fall. Rays of hope that sustained my daughter and her two best friends were all but gone.

Mysterious Way Believers don’t need to know “why.” I have progressed to the point where that question is not always the most important thing to me. This, however, was not the day when I didn’t care about that particular query. Today I wanted to know. Why did three best friends get out with their families? Why did the others remain? Why weren’t there enough families for children without parents? Why didn’t society fix the problem? I condemned those few adopting parents who had all but eliminated the hopes of Russian orphans by their selfish, hasty, and often criminal actions. I convicted the bureaucrats who let those issues destroy the chances for children. I damned the world we live in. Finally I had one more question. I wanted to know “where.” Where was God when my friends needed His help?

I turned to the last photograph and saw two familiar faces among thirteen others I didn’t recognize. A pair of orphanage workers posed with eight boys and five girls between the ages of four and five. These were only the most recent of those who had replaced Sarah’s group as the newcomers. They would remain at least somewhat loved and pretty much taken care of for another ten years or so.

My weeping increased.

When you cry people always tell you everything is going to be okay. I hate that lie.

Everything wasn’t going to be okay.

 

Go to other sections of To Sing Frogs

Go to John M. Simmons’ blog