This is Love

We all have a story about love

The first time we felt it

and almost all of us revert

to a first kiss

or a distant smile from across a cafeteria

when time stands still as we try and gather our thoughts

and courage

to make the boldest move

we could imagine in that moment.

But some of us remember a different kind of love

felt for the first time

too late in life to imagine

but better than not feeling it at all.

I, like too many others, had no one at one point.

My first conscious moment

sometime around 3 years of age

was sun shining

in my beady little eyes

alone with a dozen other kids

in an orphanage playground

too young to be miserable.

I remember a lot from that time

knowing something wasn't normal

but not enough to understand

what it was.

Kids will be kids

no matter who is watching them.

and I remember kid things,

nothing overly traumatic

just a big building housing

a bunch of lost souls

waiting to be found.

There came a sunny day

when the caretaker

called me in to the shared closet

dropped a green polo shirt

and corduroy overall shorts

on me

and marched me out the front.

I walked down the stairs towards

the front gates

children playing around me

seeing first the bright green

Eurovan

then 4 people

two who could communicate with me in my tongue

and two

probably more nervous than excited

who seemed more familiar than

anyone before

even though this was the first time

my eyes had seen them.

The adoption process did not show

children prospective parents

like they show the parents

their options in children,

I honestly do not recall

if I was told anything in advance at all.

But I do recall a feeling of comfort

that could only be described as home.

Time did not stop nor stall

but for the for once seemed

like it had caught up

to where it was always meant to be.

We walked to the river

across the street

as they tried to communicate with me

hot wheels and other small offerings

passed to me

compassion and empathy

stored in a little change purse

shaped like a shark.

I was full of everything but doubt.

There was a break-in period

before the commitment of traveling a world away

that felt like a vacation.

I had not seen much outside of where I was raised

even now my memories of there do not stretch

far past the gates.

So to see Red Square

and the sprawling streets of Moscow

was a wonder to such a small child.

My parents still like to remind me

the headache I was on the plane ride From Moscow

to JFK

and honestly it's barely a memory now

but that car ride from Missoula

will always be vivid.

Dark as it was I remember

the mountains

lining the roads,

the turn off at The Jolly Packrat

the long straight stretch through the farm lands

a house nestled on the hill far off.

My uncle at the wheel

guiding our way up to it.

Teenage girls there to greet us

in the moonlight with hugs and ice cream.

This is home,

who knew it was on the other side of the world just waiting

this family

a mother and father, 2 sisters

and me the brother,

and without a day of doubt

this is love.