Dear Aaron

24 July 2007

Dear Aaron

I was seven when you were born in Los Angeles, 18 years ago today. You were in the hospital for a few weeks before we got you; you were a drug baby and had several medical issues to be sorted out before you could come to our foster home. You were premature, your kidney had failed, and you had a crack addiction. When we brought you home, you were so small! We had to keep you on an apnoea monitor, especially at night. It was these wire sensors in a long strip that velcroed around your chest. I remember waking up at night several times to the high-pitched scream of your monitor alert. I was so afraid you’d die.

I honestly don’t remember a whole lot about when you were a newborn. You were fragile, so I don’t expect I got to hold you very much since I was so small myself. But then you got older and healthier. You started toddling around. I remember coming back from Astro Camp in second grade and going straight to the hospital to see you after the surgery to correct the skeletal problem in your skull. Your head was all wrapped up in bandages, but you walked to me across the room. I was so glad to see you!!

You loved Patches, our pet cat, and she tolerated you amazingly well. By the time you were two, you’d learned to pet her gently. I think she secretly came to love you.

You were always our entertainment on deputation trips to churches; we’d ask you to make different animal noises. “Aaron, what does a cow say?” You would moo, and we’d all crack up. That would make you laugh, so we’d all be laughing. On one trip, we went out to Baker’s Square for dinner, and someone got a lemon wedge in his iced tea. We gave the lemon wedge to you, and you sucked on it. Oh, the face you made!! We laughed so hard I remember my sides hurt. That just encouraged you, so you sucked on the wedge again, and we all kept laughing. You were the star of the show!

Our favourite game at dinnertime was to knock on the underside of the table with one hand and pretend to knock on our heads with the other hand. It made it seem like our heads were hollow. And when you would knock on your head to make the same sound, sometimes we’d knock on the table, and you’d giggle. But other times we wouldn’t, and we laughed at the surprised look on your face. Where was the noise you wanted? You were so cute.

And then 16 years ago, we said goodbye to you at your mom’s apartment. You were crying. We were crying. We heard later from a church friend who was able to visit you occasionally that whenever you heard an airplane fly overhead, you would point to it, and say, “Mommy! Daddy!” You’d been told that we went on an airplane to Africa.

We got to see you three years later. You had changed so much, grown up in some ways. We visited you at Easter, and it broke my heart to see your mom’s apartment, to see you there. The place reeked of cigarette smoke.

And today you’re 18 years old. You can buy cigarettes. You can join the army. You’re a legal adult. If you got arrested, you wouldn’t be tried in a juvenile court. Where are you? Are you safe? Healthy? Happy? What do you like to do? Are you a basketball player? American football? Soccer? Do you run track? Did you finish high school? What are your plans, your hopes, your dreams for the future? Do you have a girlfriend? Maybe you even have a child. I’m so full of questions, Aaron, and they’re questions that will never be answered.

I have always wondered about you. I have loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, and I will love you until the day I die. You were the first baby I ever loved, and in the two years we had you, I grew to truly adore you as my baby brother. Our skin may be a different colour, but you’re still my brother. Wherever you are, I wish you a happy birthday, and I lift you up to my Jesus, my God, for He is a loving shepherd and will care for you though I cannot. His arms are tender and loving, and He is God of the downtrodden and brokenhearted. I cannot see you, but He can, and I will trust you to His care.

I remain forever yours.