To Sing Frogs Chapter 22e

Mama Olga telling Luba Farewell

“What?” Amy asked with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“She knows when the coat goes on she has to leave. She thinks we’re taking her away from her mother.” Olga looked at me and gave a half-hearted smile as if to stop sobs of her own. Then she grimaced while nodding in agreement.

Stass spoke sternly at Olga and she nodded again. Then she forced my screaming daughter into the coat. The director pulled the knitted pink and white stocking cap onto her head like a hood for the condemned, and tied the scarf quickly, as if she was tightening a noose.

“I told Olga this isn’t going to get easier for Luba,” Stass explained. “I told her, we just need to get it over with.”

Amy and I nodded somberly and Bill turned off the video recorder. No one would be able to watch this again. It wasn’t the happy dress-up of a new baby we had anticipated. This was tearing a child away from her mother.

Olga kissed the shrieking writhing Luba and passed her over to the mother-for-evermore. At Stass’s abrupt instruction, Amy headed out the door of the director’s office. Luba shrieked and lunged, grabbing the molding around the door as they exited into the hallway. “Mama Olgaaaah!”

I saw sheer terror in my daughter’s eyes. Amy continued to move forward and the little fingers broke free. Luba lunged again, gripping the edge of the open door as they passed around it. “Mama Olgaaaah!” Her eyes were open wide and they raced wildly. She looked like someone who is afraid of water, pulled away from the bank while struggling to retain a grip on the grass. “Mama Olgaaaah!” she screamed as her fingers gave way again. Down the hallway she went as if washing down the rapids of a raging river. “Mama Olgah! Mama Olgaah! Mama Olgaaaah!”

The would-be mother followed behind us unwilling to heed the pleas of the one who wanted to be no one else’s daughter. As we left the building and stood on crumbling steps, the director and several other workers stepped out as well.

Amy blew it. Rather than rushing straight to the car, only ten meters away, she handed Luba back to Olga for one last goodbye. My wife couldn’t bear to watch. She left me to retrieve our daughter while she hurried off to wait and cry in the car. Bill followed Amy to make sure she was all right.

I stepped away and pulled the camera out of the bag. Four cooing orphanage workers in lab coats stood by watching. Olga waited in her best sweater, black skirt, and black dress boots. She stood—not a hair out of place—in the best presentation she could make for Luba’s memories. She bravely posed with the child on her arm. Both of them faced the camera while tears streamed down their faces. Courageous Olga managed a smile. Luba didn’t even try. She ceased her screams—believing she had been granted a reprieve—though sobs still jolted her body.

“John,” Stass said firmly, immediately after hearing the camera click, “this doesn’t get easier. It only gets harder. It gets harder for Luba. It gets harder for Olga. Everyone has said goodbye. Go get your daughter. It’s time to go.”

Luba screamed like an air raid siren while I pulled her away from Olga. The director peeled the little fingers from her sweater one by one, until finally, the pinky and thumb broke free. A concerned little Katya had already trailed her sobbing mother to the car and Stass followed me as I quickly walked away. “Mama Olgaaaah! Mama Olgaaaah! Mama Olgaaaah!”

If you only knew where I was taking you. If you only knew what I will give you! If you could only understand the life you will have, you would run away from this godforsaken place and never look back.

            I stopped in my tracks and Stass almost ran into me. I couldn’t breathe. I knew what Amy would have said if she could read my mind. My wife would have said it was like what God does.She would have said He takes us to a better place, even if we don’t want to go, even if our friends and family don’t want Him to take us. My wife would have said that when it’s time for us to go, the Perfect Father takes us home. I was glad Amy couldn’t read my thoughts.

I didn’t want to hear what Amy would say. Luba was so young, so inexperienced, and so naïve. She couldn’t possibly understand what I would do; not even in the smallest way. Then I knew Amy would say that Luba was closer to understanding our ways than we are to understanding God’s.

I didn’t want to hear it was a good thing my little brother had been taken away. Of course I heard it far too often immediately following his death. During that time I always responded harshly enough to draw emotional blood. I continued until those who were close to me decided it was better to leave well enough alone. Now, in my own mind there was evidence I couldn’t ignore, as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I wouldn’t tell my wife. I have never been brave enough to surrender. Pride unconditionally mandates victory or eventually, undisputed defeat as the only possible options.

I was really glad Amy couldn’t read my mind.

Stass gently pushed me forward and I dove into the car with my shrieking daughter, embarking on the first leg of our journey home.

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