Yetnayet

Overwhelming.

That is the only way I know to describe the experience of meeting William's birth mother. Her name is Yetnayet (pronounced yet-night), which means "far away." We traveled by van about three hours outside of Addis Ababa to spend just a few short minutes with her at the orphanage in William's hometown of Asela.

Our conversation with Yetnayet happened through the help of a translator. Understanding was difficult at best. Really, the dialogue was quite anticlimactic. We already knew why she had relinquished William, so we just asked her some simple questions about him. We also gave her a photo album of our family that Karen had made. She was reserved and didn't have any special words for us to share with William one day. Even though she was a very strong woman, I am certain the whole process was just as overwhelming for her as it was for us.

I recently read a book by Miroslav Volf. He is a Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School. Mr. Volf and his wife adopted a young boy who they named Nathanael. In his book, Free of Charge, he discussed his image of birth mothers before and after the adoption of their son. This is what he said before the adoption, "My image of mothers who relinquished their children for adoption, though not as bad as that of the fathers involved, was not exactly positive either. I could not shake the feeling that there was something deficient in such an act. The taint of abandonment marred it, an abandonment that could be understandable and was certainly tragic, but abandonment nonetheless. To give one's child to another, it had seemed to me, was to fail in the most proper duty of a parent: to love no matter what."

Following the adoption of his son, Mr. Volf received a letter from the birth mother in which she wrote these words to him, "It is hard to know that you have a child in the world, far away from you." In another letter she had written for Nathanael to read when he grows up, she wrote, "I did it for you," she wrote repeatedly, adding, "Some day you will understand."

The love of Nathanael's birth mother had transformed Mr. Volf's understanding. He concluded this about her, "She loved him for his own sake, and therefore she would rather have suffered his absence if he flourished than to have enjoyed his presence if he languished; her sorrow over his avoidable languishing would overshadow her delight in his presence. For a lover, it is more blessed to give than to receive, even when giving pierces the lover's heart. My image of birth mothers has changed: "She who does not care quite enough" has become "she who selflessly gives."

I am thankful for Nathanael's birth mother. She has given me words for every birth mother in her position. I think if Yetnayet had been able to share her heart with us that day, she would have also said, "It is hard to know that you have a child in the world, far away from you." Yetnayet means "far away." Indeed, she is far away from William, but not because she did not care quite enough, but because she selflessly gave.