Visiting Hours

Excited, I hop into the auto rickshaw waiting outside. I am going to visit my kids. I am starting to become more familiar with the road to their house from mine. The rickshaw driver speeds and swerves through bustling traffic, the constant honking of horns and zooming motorcycles trying to cut ahead. I sit in the center of the seat, peacefully amidst it all, while still taking it all in. I steadily watch the sidelines of the busy road I am on- women bartering for their fruits and vegetables, men crowded around the food stand for a snack or an afternoon cup of chai, children giggling as they walk home from school. This sight has become familiar to me. “This is the world my kids live in. How different it is from the one I’ve lived in for 23 years”, I think to myself. My vibrant ride to the orphanage causes me to fall in love with India a little bit more. I fall more in love with the country where my kids were born, the country they’ve grown up in, the only country they’ve ever known, their home. 

I arrive. I walk towards the doorway, a little nervous to enter as I usually am. I slip my shoes off, step inside, and look for the secretary so I can ask for permission to go back and visit with the children. I remind her that I am with Sarah’s Covenant Homes and I will be taking the group with HIV soon. She smiles and gives me the “ok” to go back and see them.

I walk down the long, dark, narrow hallway. I look over at room after room I pass by on my way, each filled with small seas of children. Unlike walking through a school and seeing small groups of children in many different rooms, I cannot help but think that this is much different. This is not a sweet orphanage you read about in your church bulletin with butterflies and bible verses painted on the walls. This is an institution, operated by a government. This is where India holds their abandoned children. This is where I see the stark difference between SCH and a government institution.

I get to my kids room. There they are- all huddled up together on the floor sleeping. I am told it’s their nap time. Slowly, they begin to wake up, rubbing their sleepy eyes awake. I reach for a few of the toys tucked away on top of one of the cabinets. The kids perk up and scuffle their feet quickly across the floor to eagerly receive the toys that rarely get taken down from the shelves by someone tall enough. All of a sudden, I look around the room and they are happily playing. Content. Simple. Innocent. 

We spend the next hour on the floor. We read books. We play pretend with the tea cup and pot. We giggle about the monkey that makes funny noises when you push a button on his belly. They play with my hair. We smile at each other when we can’t find the words to say in each other’s language. I escape. And for a moment, I pretend that this is us together in our own living room, in our own home.

Then I hear the shuffling of more little feet around me. I look up and see a line of children from another room at the doorway. They’re all holding onto the shoulders of the one in front of them as they walk down the hallway. I stare as the line continues to pass from one end of the doorway to the other, one child after the next.

After the line finishes passing, I look around the room, amidst all that is going on around me, my kids grabbing my face for my attention and showing me the pictures in the books they are reading. Their need for my attention becomes greater as I get distracted with the sudden realization of my surroundings. The grey walls, the tiny window in the corner that is fogged over with bars on it, the humble straw matt on the floor where they all curl up together and sleep every night look back at me. 

“My kids live here”, the voice inside of my head speaks bluntly

“This is their life”, it continues

“This is all they’ve ever known”, and on it goes

“How have they possibly gone on this way?”, the words pounding in my head

I understand. Some kids have slept on the streets their whole lives. Some kids have been forced under much worse conditions. Some people suffer greater. It’s always worse for another isn’t it?

But those are my kids in there.

A shift happens when something becomes yours. When all of a sudden, you have a responsibility to care for something with everything inside of you because you know that’s what they deserve. And no matter what it is, or how many of them there are, when they’re yours, you’ll stake your life on protecting it.  

My babies.

And while they do not know what they are missing out on in a childhood and they do not know another life outside of the four walls of that small, windowless room in a hallway full of rooms just like it… I do. I do know the richness and fullness of life. I know the beauty of childhood because I experienced it growing up. I know what it is to run outside in green grass and climb trees and play hopscotch in the driveway with my friends. I know what it was to have tea parties with my mommy and have my daddy tuck me into bed at night. I know what it feels like to be woken up late at night by my mom kissing me on the forehead and I know the sweet embarrassment of hearing her yell in front of all my friends at school, “I love you Natalie Grace!” I knew security. I knew nurture. I knew a family.

Why me?

Why not them instead?

Beauty and gloom.

The spirit of a child and something tainted.

Joy and despair.

All represented before me as I watch my children naively and happily play with their toys in what seems to me to be one of the darkest, most depressing places I’ve ever been.

This is the not the way it was supposed to be.

All of a sudden, they are lining up at the door. Time for dinner. Which means time for me to go. I wave goodbye. I blow a kiss. I say, “I’ll be back soon.”

I get back in the rickshaw to go home. I sit square in the center of that seat again with the busyness of the streets still at play in full. This time, I feel numb to it all. The enthusiasm in my face is gone. I’m discouraged. Beaten down by the pain of this world. Angry at the inequality of their lives and mine. Burdened in a whole new way. With no flinch in my face and no evidence of emotion besides the tears on my cheeks, I cry the way back home.

Right before I left Seattle to come to India my sister wrote me a card of farewell and encouragement. I will never forget the words she wrote because they repeated themselves back to me in my moment of defeat in the rickshaw today.

“Don’t ever stop fighting for beauty- because you know what it is, you see it, and it matters to you. Even if (and especially when) its weight feels like it’s crushing you, don’t forget that it’s the only battle worth having”.

And so I’ll get back up, dust myself off and continue to fight.