Haiti's Orphans

In my 20's I dreamed of adopting a little black baby. I already had a darling white baby fresh from my very own womb. She was perfect in every way and I had no compulsion to make another one. Why do that when the bright black eyes popping out of coffee brown faces on the front of Save the Children brochures radiated such joy, love and hope. I wanted to have and hold a baby that was already real, not to gestate one. This desire was a non-starting argument with my husband at the time and once I became a single-parent, a single child was plenty. So life moved me on and that ancient desire remained a dry seed in my overflowing clay pot of unfulfilled imaginings.

Today I watched Anderson Cooper report on the hundreds of thousands of pre- and post-earthquake orphans in Haiti and realized any dirt I might have to plant my lingering seed of hope to hold one of these precious children is infertile - barren even. These children, as aid organizers attest, belong in Haiti. Perhaps they don't have parents, but they do have hope and the aching soil of Haiti is their home. Sometimes parents are overrated.

They do need shelter,food, love and a decent shot at an education in ways to replant and replenish their homeland. These orphans are Haiti's hope. Haiti's future. I believe a greater lift to the orphans of Haiti is to fund provision for their collective well-being than to pluck them one-by-one from their calamity and settle them in suburban homes saturated in the culture of consumerism. Let them grow together, proud of their triumph amidst the ruin, and prepare them to transform the rubble into riches.

Imagine how many orphans could thrive in Haiti on the money spent to raise one upper-middle-class American kid. Imagine! Is not this a higher model? When we reinforce that the lucky ones get sent to America, even though well-meaning, we chip away at an orphan's pride of place and create the illusion that happiness is somewhere other than within the heart. Let's celebrate the joy of growing up surrounded by other children and cultivate programs that encourage loving places of permanence rather than waiting rooms. Too idealistic? Maybe. But those are seeds I may be able to actually plant and water. Seeds of hope sprouting in sparkling brown eyes.