Love 3x

I miss the roundness of Liam’s face. His new blue eyes, squid tongue rolling in and out of his lips, the light white grass on his head waiting for miracle grow. And I miss Yohanes’ sick fro, beautiful brown skin and joy in his white teeth forever exposed like an open gate – this small brownie of a boy who lived in an orphanage in Ethiopia for the first 6 months of his life and now 3 years old, laughs when his mom accidentally squirts a tangerine in his face. He loves life and even now I can see a light in him. He’s just so damn happy to be loved. And Bella who asks, amazingly for a 3 year old, if I’ll play “Sound of Music” with her – she’s Liesel and I’m Maria, a girls girl with a yellow umbrella spinning under a white ceiling – an imaginative, mannered, take your hands and dance kind of girl. And when I gave her a hug goodbye she plopped in my lap instead begging us not to go. We hardly know them, but they trust us to wash their hands, waiting for the water with a “you know what to do” look. They aren’t even MY family and I love them without question. Yohanes knows our names, but would rather say “Bebe, will you play wi me?”