I hope you don’t mind.
At the beginning of China Care’s benefit show last night, they showed a video (made by Felix!) that explained China Care’s mission, vision, and works. In this video, there’s a beautiful scene (starts at 4:51 of http://vimeo.com/37435780 if you want to see it) where a man is at an airport waiting for his wife to arrive with their newly adopted daughter. He’s anxiously waiting with flowers and a teddy bear in his hands, constantly scanning the crowd, when all of a sudden, he sees them.
The look of pure joy and uncontrolled adoration on his face when he sees his daughter is one that’ll be ingrained in my mind forever. As dramatic as it may sound, it’s a look that seriously made me think, “man. that right there…that’s love. and that’s the good stuff that life is all about.” I couldn’t get over how much love seemed to endlessly emanate from him as he knelt down and hugged his daughter. My eyes started to slowly shed tears—reluctant tears that I tried to quickly wipe away while pretending to casually yawn so that Jeff Wu, who was sitting to my right, wouldn’t think I was soft or anything. It’s always embarrassing to cry in public, but I digress.
Basically, my convictions about how everyone should seriously consider adopting kids were reaffirmed. It never really made sense to me how some people can simply say, “oh yeah, I’d never want to adopt” and leave it at that without thinking beyond themselves. The way I see it is, if you have the resources, you should at least consider adoption, and if you discover that you actually have a heart for it, why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to give hope and life to a child?
Later on that night, a guy named Josh Klaus performed Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, and then talked about how much he would love to one day sing that song to someone special. For some strange reason, instead of relating that song to a girl, I started thinking about the dad in that video and how those lyrics must have been exactly how he felt when he embraced his precious daughter.
I hope you don’t mind…I hope you don’t mind…that I put down in words…how wonderful life is now you’re in the world.
wonderful. adoption. everyone should at least think about it.
