Saying Goodbye

Our agency combines dossiers into travel groups that are typically 10-15 familes. Often those groups are combined meaning your family travels in a group of 25-35 families. It is crazy, but you have the honor of watching many families born on your trip and often end up forming close bonds with many of those families.

Today, we spent the day remembering a member of our extended China Family. One of the Dads who traveled with us on La Nina's trip died of a brain tumor last month, 10 days shy of the 3rd anniversary of receiving his daughter. Today was his memorial service and it was a sad day for us.

We remember T. as a happy, chatty, witty man; proud of his family, his new daughter, his homegrown son at home and his lovely wife. They were some of the people who spent the entire 3 weeks with us in China and one of the few Northern California families from our first travel group. We have seen them many times since coming home from China and have always really enjoyed their company. La Nina and his daughter seemed to hit it off and often spend dinners playing under the tables together. I bet 3 years ago they would have never imagined this would be the next chapter in the books of their lives.

The funny thing about adoption trips is you spend very little time talking about your "real" lives. In fact, you don't really get to know each other until you get home and start going to reunions. I felt like I got to know T. for the first time today. We heard his childhood friends, a work colleage and a family member speak of him, his life and many misadventures. It offered us a glimpse of his life that we never knew.

We knew him as E.'s Dad. One of the Dads who was vying for computers in the China Hotel's Sports Bar at the same time we were. I can still picture his friendly wave letting us know he was done and it was our turn. He always had a smile on his face and an anecdote close at hand during Happy Hour in Max's room. But my clearest memory is of the smile on his face the night he and his wife left China with their daughter and headed home to see their son. They so missed J.

And now he is gone. He leaves a broken hearted, but very capable wife to raise two kids as a single Mom. He leaves 2 kids, aged 9 and almost 4, to learn about him through family and friends. We hope that when E. starts to ask questions about her Dad, we can be there and tell her the story of her Daddy's joy when she was first in his arms, because that is the part of the story that we know best. We will miss you T. and wish you peace on your journey.