Madeline

Madeline.

I thought I couldn’t love you. My heart was wrapped around my Niu Niu girl, and I couldn’t imagine ever feeling the same way about another sponsor girl again. Like she was at your age, you have a fragile heart condition and live in Samaritan’s House. Your name even starts with Ma-, just like hers at PHF, Margaret. Even with all those similarities, though, you weren’t her. I wanted to love you like Niu Niu, but it just wasn’t the same.

But then came your first birthday. Dutifully I emailed PHF to get your sizes. That was my first mistake. As I read the numbers they sent me...22 inches from shoulder to waist, teeny three-inch feet, size three-month clothes at 12 months old...I felt my heart crack. I started loving you because you needed me.

I went to Target and bought out the whole baby department. Mistake number two. As I strolled the aisles and added more and more pink and green polka-dot outfits to the collection draped over my arms, the bond between us grew stronger. Picking out clothes specifically for you made me love you as a real person, someone who would actually be wearing these things I sent across the ocean.

I waited weeks for the email that came in my inbox this morning. Pictures of you, with the onesies, sleeper, and socks that were my birthday gift to you. When I saw you again today, I realized that I loved you now not just as a needy little girl, but simply for who you are...every bit of you. You’re different than Niu Niu...distinctly and wonderfully made in your own right...and I know now that loving you doesn’t mean changing the love that I had and still have for her, just as she didn’t replace Taylor before her. I wasn’t expecting this love, I didn’t think I would feel it for you so soon after little Niu Niu stopped being my sponsor “baby,” but it’s there in my heart, undeniably. Just like Taylor and Niu Niu, you have taken over your own little corner of my heart, never, I think, to let go.

Happy Birthday, sweet one. I love you.