The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

One year ago today I held my daughter for the first time. Caretakers at the orphanage brought her into the room and Gretchen and I stood up to take her. I had trouble walking across the room to her. I'd seen her in a couple of pictures, but that was it. It was so strange to see her right there in front of me. She looked just like her picture, but a picture is such a static thing. This little girl was a girl full of emotion and thoughts and expression. The caretakers gave the Queen Bee to Gretchen and promptly left the room, and that little girl did not like that one bit. She was so shy and scared. I felt so bad for her. She was so intimidated and insecure that she wouldn't even make eye contact with us. She was a little bit scared of our touch.

When I first saw her, I was so afraid. I was afraid to hold her, afraid that I'd drop her. I was afraid that I would be a horrible father and ruin everything for her. I was afraid that she'd resent that she's adopted. I was afraid that she'd never love me as much as I love her.

Despite her obvious discomfort with the situation, she let me hold her. She let me hug and kiss her. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

That week, we got to spend an hour and a half to two hours with her in the morning and again in the afternoon (except one day when we went sightseeing in the morning). It seemed like such a short bit of time to us, but for the Queen Bee is was quite a lot to deal with, I think. She'd eventually warm up to us just slightly. She'd laugh and listen to music with us. She even play a little bit with us. Not much, but all those things would come soon enough.