A Daughter of India

A little over two weeks ago we matched with our four year old daughter in India. I got to see her face in pictures and watch her interact with her caregivers in videos and fall head over heels in love with her. She's my daughter. I have three daughters. It still doesn't sound quite right when I say it, but I feel it with every ounce of my being. She is my daughter. And while the emotions of the moment were dizzying and elating, the more time that passes, the more I feel her loss - the more I think about what it means that she is my daughter, and about how she came to be in my life, and about the loss she has endured to become a part of our family. And with all of that, come the thoughts of her mother.

I don't know anything about my daughter's mother. I don't know how old she is, what religion she practices, how many other children she's birthed. I don't know whether she thinks about our daughter with grief or hope or even at all. What I do know, or what I think I know, I gathered from one cryptic note on the side of a newborn baby girl's medical record from 2014: relinquished because too many girls. I can't tell you how many times I've read those words and how many struggles I've had in my own mind over what they mean - how many emotions I've felt from that simple phrase.

I'm ashamed now to admit that anger was the first one I felt. Anger at a mother who couldn't see the worth of her child simply because she wasn't a boy. Anger at a mother who willingly left her baby in the hands of a stranger. Anger at a mother who didn't fiercely protect her daughter in a culture of male dominance. Anger at her mother. And only her mother. A woman I have never met and will likely never meet. A woman who has occupied my thoughts on a daily basis and refuses to abandon me. A woman who has taught me more about myself and what my role as her daughter's mother will be. 

Relinquished because too many girls.

It doesn't make me angry anymore. It just makes me sad. But it doesn't have to mean that my daughter wasn't loved. It doesn't have to mean that she wasn't valued or prayed over or mourned for by her mother, or that her life should have no worth. It means that I can choose to see what I want from those words, and I can share those beliefs with my daughter as she grows up thousands of miles away from the mother who was forced to let her go. And this is what I see: My daughter has sisters who she'll likely never meet, but who will grow up with the belief that they are worth less than their brothers. My daughter's mother was likely from a small, poor village and didn't have the money to keep another girl for whom she couldn't afford a dowry. My daughter would likely have remained uneducated and married off at a young age while left to make the same decisions as her own mother when she had 'too many girls.' My daughter would not have been equipped to make an impact or enact change in a society where here voice would never be heard.

She'll be coming to America soon. Starting a new life in a home where she'll be loved and spoiled and educated and given a chance to do ANYTHING she can dream of. But she'll also carry a tremendous burden with her throughout her life, a burden that I hope to nurture into action when she's old enough to fully understand it. She is a daughter of India, and she will always have a responsibility to the people she will be leaving behind. She will be taught to love the mother who was forced to abandon her and to reach out to the sisters who will inherit their mother's lot in life. She will be encouraged to fight for change in a culture that pushed her out, so the girls who come behind her can grow up in a home and a country where they are valued. She will be expected to stand up for those who have no voice - whether in India or America or wherever she may go. Because she's not just my daughter. She's the daughter of a mother she'll never get to meet and of a country that I pray will be awaiting her return.

"Your children are not your children. They are lives longing for itself. They come here with their own destiny. Give them your love. They will find their own way."

-Satish Kumar