One Year Has Now Passed: A Letter to Moses

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I will carry you with me always.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I love you so dearly.

I. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but there was a moment when I seriously considered adopting you.

One night when you were asleep at the hospital and I was at home, I sat at my computer, fiddling, trying to get the internet to work in long enough spurts that I could send a picture of you to the people who know me best, saying these words that so convey my youth, my love for you, and my selfishness: “legit question: should i drop out of school to stay here and adopt a 5 year old malnourished and abused little boy? because he’s adorable like this and such a genius and i’m still not sure he’s going to live but he only trusts me and i can’t leave him. soooo college dropout and mom at 21?”

And they told me no, told me I had to stay in school, told me I wouldn’t be any better for you than your former, abusive parents if I were to be your twenty-one year old, diploma-less mother, told me I had to think of you, not of me, told me I had to think of what was really best. And I knew they were right, knew that was the answer all along, knew it was never even possible to begin with. But I still sobbed for thirty minutes in the boiling hot shower, trying to think of ways I could be honest with anger, hurting them the same way the truths they were telling were hurting me.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I so wanted to be your mama.

II. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but it rips holes into my soul to think of what suffering has been inflicted on your young, little self and what pain might still exist for you in the future of this broken system.

Your father returned, showing up at the hospital one day and demanding that you be discharged so that he could take you back home. He had been away, working, and was angered to discover you, his son, had been taken away from him. On that day, I felt my heart was an open wound. I couldn’t breathe. I questioned my strength, Moses. I was confused and unsure how to keep showing up through the pain and suffering every day.

Again I faced my computer screen, a possession so needed not for its fancy apple label or for its fast processing or for its slim metal frame but because when I am away, it holds my family, family who I can write these words to as thick tears threaten to choke the breath from my throat, forcing my mouth open and my lungs to gasp: “y’all can rest assured: no worries about me being a college drop out 21 year old mother… discovered today that moses’s (my little boy) father “persuaded”/bribed the child officer to give him back custody, so once he’s finally better and ready to leave the hospital, he’ll go back to the dad and step-mother who nearly killed him. and there’s no way to fight it. sometimes this place rips holes in my soul.”

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but never have I experienced such pain as this day, when I realized I was going to lose you.

III. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but you have taught me so much of patience, of giving one’s self, of showing up, of love, of compassion, of happiness.

Your father showed up again and again, not listening when we urged him to think of what was best, urged him to let you go, Moses. And then, suddenly, your father disappeared again, and we had some small rekindling of hope that you would be able to have the life we so wanted for you, Moses. We were all convinced, still convinced, that if you were to return home with your father, the abuse and neglect would continue, you would again become malnourished, you would continue to go without treatment for your AIDS, and you would soon die. And Moses, when we asked you if you wanted to go with your father, you always said ‘no.’

And then I looked at you, sitting there at the small, round wooden table in that purple plastic chair made for someone your size, making color-coded patterns out of the plastic, primary colored pieces as if you were my son who had inherited my Type A perfectionism. You had just smiled for the first time since the police found you locked away in your house, starving, beaten, and alone. And what a beautiful, courageous smile you had, Moses. I looked at you, and I was terrified, and I knew that all I could control was who I was going to be for you in that moment, knew I had to stay through this groundlessness not for me but for you, knew that all I could do was give as much love to you as existed within me, in whatever time that remained.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I have never loved as I loved you.

IV. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but not being able to say to you, “we’ll see each other tomorrow,” on that Wednesday afternoon broke my heart.

Five days before I left Kenya and two days before Kev-O died, before any of us had arrived at the hospital for the morning, your father took you from the hospital, Moses.

Every day since you first collapsed, crying that you didn’t want to return home to your father, into the arms I wrapped around you, I would pick you up when it was time for you to return to your hospital bed for the night to sleep, and for I to return home, carry you through the door of Sally Test, turn right at the nurse’s station, then left at the first, partially enclosed room of the wards, then left again at the first crowd of cage-like cribs. There I would kiss your head as I lifted you up and over the metal bars and sit you down on the crinkled and cracked plastic of your worn bed. I would place my hand between the bars, rubbing your head, and say: utarudi kesho, nitarudi kesho, tutaonana kesho. You will return tomorrow, I will return tomorrow, we will see each other tomorrow. You would nod your head solemnly, then slowly lay down onto your side as I walked away until the next morning when I would return to your bedside, pick you up and over the metal bars, and bring you back to the center where we would remain, side by side, until the evening, when I would say: utarudi kesho, nitarudi kesho, tutaonana kesho. 

But on that Wednesday, as I carried you, turning right at the nurses station, then left, then left, then up and over, all I could do was kiss your head, swallow away the weeping, and say: ninapenda wewe, ninapenda wewe sana.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but walking away from you that day was one of the hardest movements I have ever made.

V. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I have never felt such pride as I have in watching you come back to life and seeing your awesome intelligence blossom.

You slowly nodded your head when I asked unataka chora? Do you want to draw? I placed the stubby, purple crayon into your clutching fingers, then held your hand with my own and traced slow, hazy lines onto the white paper. When it seemed you understood and I could feel your hand gaining strength underneath mine, I let go, watched as at first you sat, staring ahead, holding the crayon limp and unflinching. But then you began to deliberately move your hand across the page, up and down, making small zig-zags from left to right across the entire page. When you had filled nine pages with line after line, then seven more with small circle after circle, your eyes always focused in front of you, your hand straining to hold up the crayon, but always quietly nodding your head when I asked tena? I took a leap, proposing: unataka cheza na puzzle?

That night when you were sleeping in your hospital bed, Moses, and I went home, I returned to my family connection, telling them: shit shit shiiiit i’m in trouble. today, i teared up when he put a puzzle piece together. like actual tears of joy. fucking shit shitty shit, maybe my heart can’t take this job after all.”

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I carry a picture you drew with me everywhere I go.

VI. Dear Moses, you may not know it, but your wellbeing is bound up in mine, little child.

After your father took you away, you didn’t show up to your first AIDS clinic appointment to begin treatment and so when my brother asked me when I would see you again, Moses, I looked to the ceiling as the wet slowly seeped over my eyelashes, took three breathes before whispering: “I don’t think I ever will.”

But then one day, after I had returned to the US, I received a message on my computer, showing me how that screen still holds family even when I face it from the other side of the Atlantic, saying this: “I met moses with his father at the Ampath clinic. He looks fine and his dad told me that he was a fraid of bringing him to sallytest because he was scared of loosing him again, but he promised that he will make sure that he attends his clinics. I thought of sharing this information with you to make you feel better.I know he is your little friend and knowing he is fine would make u feel better.”

I read these words, over and over and over again, my lungs growing sharp, the air entering them growing icy, my mouth frozen between a smile and a sob. It was until that moment, Moses, that I let myself feel my worry. I was a mama, feeling simultaneous relief you were alive, and fear because that meant you still had the potential to die.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I will remember your shy and sincere smile for all of my days.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I will carry you with me always.

Dear Moses, you may not know it, but I love you so dearly.

—

One year has now passed since that day I walked away from you, and I now live my days far from you, Moses. But intentionally and fully, still and always, I walk them as your mama.

I miss you. I miss your giggle, I miss your bizarre organization skills, I miss the days when we sat under the tree and ate oranges together. Some days I wonder if you are alive, but every day I hold that strange and complex hope for you to, simply, be at peace.

Moses, never have I loved so fiercely as I loved and love you, and never have I loved the world so fiercely as I have since, in being my child, you taught me how.

Moses, on this day, I don’t know where or how you are, but I do know that after having lived the extraordinary honor of being a mama to you, I am now grateful to carry you, carry your joy and your resilience, carry the sincerity of your smile and the light of your little life, with me as I fiercely love this world, so that all whose paths may cross mine might be graced with some small sense of what it is to have loved and been loved by you.

You are at the center of what I am, of all that I do, and of the love I pour out to this world, living, always, as your mama.