“Mrs. Sullivan, are you sitting down?”
This was how she started the phone call, the cadence of her words forever seared into my memory. I rushed for a pencil and paper and she began to tell me about the little boy who would be my son.
“He has apple cheeks, just like you.” she said.
And just like that we were no longer two, but three. We were a family. Our son was on the other side of the world but now he was real, no longer an idea, or a hope or dream, but a real baby with apple cheeks waiting for us in Korea. It was bliss, a moment of the purest sort of joy.
I don’t know what it is like when you conceive a child, whether you remember the person who gave you your first ultrasound, whether their face and their words are forever etched in your memory. I don’t know if you remember the person who holds your baby up in the delivery room and shows him to you for the first time. I do know that when you adopt you remember those words, the tone of voice, where you were and what you were doing and who gave you the news.
“I have the most beautiful baby boy in the world for you.”
Cecelia K. Park, director of Love the Children adoption agency, was the woman who made us parents on that chilly evening when we were on our way out the door, when we almost didn’t stop to go back and answer the phone. She was the woman whose phone call less than two years later started in the same way, “Mrs. Sullivan, are you sitting down?” when she called to tell us about our daughter. I will never forget her words or the way her voice smiled, as if she had the very best secret in the world and she was about to share it with us. I will never forget her kindness when she met our children later on, or the way she held them as if they were her own grandbabies. I will never forget the phone call she had us make to her when our babies were newly arrived, during which she took the time to teach us how to tell them I love you and You’re a beautiful baby, and how she told them not to be scared because we were their new omma and appah. I will never forget how she made each of us feel that we were getting the best kid in the world; she knew that we were because she knew and believed that each baby placed was special and perfect. She knew, too, that we were lucky, lucky parents and we are, all of us.
Ms. Park died in her sleep last night, a profound loss for all of the families she created, all of the people she touched with her kindness and her smiling voice. The news weighs heavily on our hearts and we cannot quite imagine a world without Cecelia’s presence in it. We will surely miss her beautiful soul.
Cecelia, he really is the most beautiful boy in the world, and she is the most beautiful girl. Thank you for letting me be their mom. We will never forget you.
