The days are slowly shrinking. 
The light of the sun is a thing to be treasured. 
The subtle ease into spring’s warmth and radiance creates longing.
But, for now, we wait. Time moves slowly in the waiting. 

The fleeting glimpse of a peaceful snow brings a warm feeling.
But, the fresh blanket is soon hidden beneath
                           the black, dirty residue after cars, people and life
                                                                                              have tainted its purity.

I have been contemplating my first few months on this earth as an intercountry adoptee.
Scripture tells me I was born a sinner,
but I cannot deny the innocence I carried with me
              from my birth mother’s womb
                                                         to the delivery room. 

I was received by the hands of strangers 
rather than the arms of the woman who carried me for nine months. 
Most likely there was no skin-to-skin contact between mother and daughter. 
Like a snowflake, I fell and landed at the mercy of whoever or whatever was there to catch me.
I laid in my nursery crib in the orphanage alone. 
A proud mother wasn’t watching me,
in awe of my innocent beauty. 
She wasn’t gazing at my features, 
assigning my similarities to either my birth father or herself.

She was somewhere else.

The orphanage worker bottle-fed me. She changed me. 
A different worker probably bathed me. She had done this before—it wasn’t special. 
She wasn’t playfully nervous like a first-time mother. 
She had seen the snow fall before. 
She did what she had to do to clean it up.

I wasn’t a thing to be enjoyed.
I wasn’t gazed upon.
I wasn’t something to be watched.
I wasn’t someone’s first snow.
I wasn’t.

I was quickly trampled on. 
My inner being was packed down 
by unfamiliar sounds, smells, and presence of strangers.
My young innocence melted,
the purity of my recent birth became stained with 
the trauma and loss of being separated from her.

When my babies were born, I watched them continuously,
the way I’d admire a peaceful snowfall from the kitchen window. 

I studied them.
       I watched where the next snowflake would land.       
       I would go outside for a closer look, bracing myself for the cool air and cold sprinkles landing on my face.
I would pick up my daughter and try to smile at her, hoping she would recognize me.
           I would lay down in the snow and pick it up to form a snowball.
I would spread joy to others, sharing pictures and welcoming visits with my newborn. 
We would laugh, smile, and coo with the baby.

But what happens to a fresh blanket of snow in a desolate place when it isn’t gazed upon,
             like deep in the woods,
                          or on a high mountaintop?
             It still lays quietly and it still covers beautifully.

But no one is there to admire it. 

No one is there rushing to put on boots, hats, mittens, and coats to experience it.
No one is there to mourn its loss, 
                          to wish it wouldn’t melt,
                                         or miss the way it decorated the pine trees. 
No one to grumble when dirt from the asphalt roads accumulates on top of it.

My newborn self dissolved,
the first snow of winter melted. 
Innocence and purity have come and gone.