Twice this week I had the opportunity to be in the room when an adoptive family met their new child for the first time.  It’s a beautiful moment from the perspective of the new mom and dad.  But if you watch through the eyes of the foster mother, it’s heart-wrenching.  She carefully answered each of the eager new parents’ questions — How do you put her to sleep each night?  What’s her favorite food?  What do you do to comfort her when she’s upset? When one mom asked the question, “Have you enjoyed being a foster parent?” I watched the foster grandma’s eyes well with tears as she tried to explain that she didn’t think there was a more beautiful or precious child in the entire village than her little one.  As I watched these foster grandmas bravely struggle to answer each question while maintaining her composure to avoid scaring the little girl seated in her lap, I remembered another moment… when we sent the foster parents home with their new little ones.  After a week of visiting the child in the foster home so they could get to know each other, the day came to go home.  With bicycles loaded with diapers and baby clothes, they happily peddled off to their homes, ready to show off their newest family members to all of their neighbors.

In China, it is a common social custom for grandparents to raise grandchildren.  With busy parents off working and supporting the whole family, it’s more common to see little ones clutching the hands of grandmas and grandpas at the markets than mommas and daddies.  For myriad reasons, sometimes members of the older generation don’t have little ones to raise, and oftentimes those are the families who decide to foster orphans.  And almost unfailingly, they throw their whole hearts into the effort.  Taking care of the children not only brings in a few extra yuan a month, but it also brings laughter and joy into their lives. While I’m sure you could find families who do it for the money, the majority of the families I’ve met have been deeply concerned for their kids, and pour an enormous amount of love and affection into their lives. And, when the kids leave to go to their “forever families,” they take part of their grandparents’ hearts with them.

One time I was in the small home of a very poor foster family in another province.  I was there when the old gentleman and his wife were told that one of their three foster children would be adopted soon.  They both started crying.  After he had regained his composure, the grandpa walked to a corner of their small, one-room house and took a framed picture off the wall… the only decoration hanging in their home. It was a collage of photographs of all the children they’d ever fostered. And he had a small chalkboard with the children’s names that hung beside the frame. On it he had written their names and the dates of their arrivals and departures.

With watery eyes, he told us, “I just want to know that they are OK and happy.”

In another corner of the room his wife pointed to a small clothesline strung between two windows.  On it hung several raggedy outfits.  Each was a memento from one of their previous foster children.  The red one belonged to a little girl who always loved the color red.  The white one with the holes was worn by a little boy who would suck his clothes when he first came to their home to comfort himself.  Their clothesline traced their memories and their love.  The orphanage representative visiting the family with us confided that whenever they have a child who seems hopeless and certain to die from lack of care, they bring him to this family.

In their simple homes with their meager resources and old-fashioned ways, these grandpas and grandmas nurse children back to health.  They’ve uncovered smiles and re-lit the spark in eyes; they’ve celebrated first steps and got up late with teething babies. In short, they’ve loved. And all along, they’ve braced themselves for painful goodbyes.  For those of you who have adopted children who had the opportunity to live in foster care, say an extra prayer of thanks for that family tonight… wherever they are and whoever they are, they loved a child they knew they would lose, and that’s more than most of us can do.