I am spending a lot of my time thinking of L’s other mother.  Tomorrow is L’s birthday.  If the information we have is correct (and I have some reason to believe to at least some of it may be accurate) two years ago, L’s mother was spending her last day (or days?) with L. 

In my mind, I can walk backward through L’s life before us.  I have seen enough pictures of the inside of her orphanage and of the ayis to imagine some of her day-to-day life.  I can imagine her there at 9 months, at 6 months, at 3 months.  I can imagine her as the teeny, tiny newborn she was when she was brought there.   I can imagine the moments when she was found (if the finding location we were given was accurate).  I have seen these places, touched the ground there, breathed the air. 

But it is almost as if that moment of being found (if indeed L was found, which we do not know for sure), was the like the Big Bang.  My imagination can’t go any farther.  What happened in the seconds before?  The minutes before?  The hours before? 

What was that person thinking when he or she walked away from L that day?  Did her mother have a chance to look at her?  To say hello and goodbye?  Are her parents younger than me?  Was L their first child?  Were they married? In love?  In trouble? 

While I know logically that there is a person who gave birth to L who is most likely alive, it is like she is a ghost.  My mind doesn’t want to believe she exists and I can not think of her as a concrete, real person.  I can’t really imagine the person who would look at my lovely little L and not see that she is the most special and most wonderful girl in the world.  Did she know and leave her anyway?  Who is this person?  How could she make that choice?  Did she have a choice? 

I think of that day 2 years ago, when L was safe and warm with her mother.  Then, only a short time later she was left alone, set adrift to find her own future without a family.  My heart breaks for that baby who is now my L. 

My mind can’t resolve the conflicted feelings I have about L’s mother.  Part of me is angry that she left L alone in the world.  I think about what it would take for me to make that decision.  In my privileged position, I can’t imagine anything short of my own death or a serious threat of physical harm of to my children that could make me make that choice.  But it is easy to say that in the life I am living now–without laws or finances or social stigmas influencing my perspective.  And rationally, I know that my life and L’s mother’s life are worlds apart but I can’t help but feel angry sometimes.

When I am not thinking with my mother-heart (feeling protective of L), I just feel heartbroken for this woman.  There are too many variables for me to know why she couldn’t keep L.  I can not imagine her life or who she is.  The only thing I know about her is that she is L’s mother.  She is a mother without her child.  I can’t imagine many things that could be more painful. 

Is she thinking about L today?  Is L’s mother wondering about L the way I wonder about her?  Does her imagination try to make sense of L’s life after that Big Bang moment the way I try to make sense of L’s life before? 

We will probably never know the answers to these questions.  I just wish she knew that L is happy and healthy and loved.