Crying

Saturday, Oct. 24th

She sat, at the table, sobbing, her head buried in her arms, her scrawny shoulders heaving. It was the kind of heart crushing sob you might hear after an unexpected loss, but then, there is no measure for her accumulative losses. For Faven, the losses are unspeakable, not because there are no words, but because there are not enough English words or Amharic listeners. Though we can share the language of love, excitement, fear, sadness, frustration and anger through sounds and body gestures, we cannot yet communicate our daily needs or understand the intricacies of living together in harmony.

Today, the sobs have been precipitated by me asking her to come for lunch and then placing a small spoonful of 'western' food on her plate, amidst the traditional Ethiopian injera and w'et. She sobbed, she paced, she yelled "Mawm, NO", and she threw herself face down on the couch while I faced off against my inner 'perfect-parent'. The one who thinks she has control over her children; the one who thinks children need to know who is in charge; the one who desperately wants to meet all the needs of her children all of the time and the one who sees the anguish and unhappiness of her children as some inadequacy in herself.

On this day, I placed my perfect-parent critic on the back shelf of my brain; I removed the offending food from her plate, and she happily sat down and ate with us and smiled and laughed the rest of the day. "What was that all about?", I later asked myself - "I can't even imagine", was all I could come up with. And the realization that I do not need to know the source of every emotion or solve every problem has saved me through the ensuing days.