Dear Rose,

I’m pretty sure you have no idea that today is a special day, but indeed, it is your fourth birthday. Your dad and I were hoping with all our hearts to have you home by now, but alas, we still wait. You’re still in an orphanage. We’re still here in Tennessee.

I want you to know that though we’ve never met, I have studied your picture, watched glimpses of you in videos, straining to know the littlest details about you. I know your sassy scowl that you pull off in most pictures, but I’ve had a glimpse of your perfect chubby-cheeked double-dimpled smile for just a half a second, and it melts my heart. That’s how I picture you: happy, eager, lively, beautiful. I know the hypopigmented spot on the left side of your chin. I know the texture of your hair, and already have a “hair whisperer” identified to teach me what in the world my pale hands will do with it. I know that you have spunk. I know that you love your brother. And I know that you now know what we look like too.

I know that your first four years have not been the happy years that many children have. But I promise that we’ll do everything we can to gain back the years of happy childhood that you’ve lost. The presents from today will have to be unwrapped later. We’ll have to save the hugs and kisses for now. Your friends will celebrate with you in a couple of months.

So for today, the only gift I can give you is prayers that your Heavenly Father will give you the gift of a wonderful day where you have plenty of food, all the water you want to drink, clothes to wear, and friends to laugh with.  And I hope He will grant you the gift of eager anticipation for the new life that waits for you here in our home.

Love,

Mom