Returning Home

SURELY NOTHING is more comforting than returning home following an adoption. Martha was at the airport awaiting our arrival, but mostly awaiting her first chance to meet Emily. She kept the house warm during some very cold weather, and she even worked to figure out why men came unexpectedly one day to start digging up the front lawn (turns out our water meter was at the wrong height, so the work was warranted -- just not exactly something a house-sitter likes to see!).

We flew less than an hour from Guangzhou to Hong Kong (we taxied in Hong Kong longer than we flew!), 11 1/2 hours from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and 5 1/2 hours from San Francisco to Washington Dulles. We sat in Economy Plus and finally slept on the San Francisco to Dulles leg of our itinerary. In San Francisco, upon landing, the flight attendant announced that the flight contained 8 of America's newest citizens, then called out each by name for applause. This was a special experience. And at immigration in San Francisco, we experienced the unique thrill of passing through the "New Immigrant" line as Emily passed inspection and received her visa stamp than allowed her to enter the country and, far more importantly, become a full-fledged American citizen at that very moment.

Returning home enables the establishment of routines, boundaries, and "normalcy," something we could not accomplish while on the road in Chinese hotels. It also enabled us to settle into our new role as parents of two Chinese girls, a privilege and a blessing we hardly deserve but thank God for every day. And while Emily seemed to struggle harder against settling into her routine than Sydney had upon her return, over the weeks that followed we all figured out what our family life was all about.

And we embarked on our Hocutt journey of parenthood and childhood here in the United States, working to borrow the best of all the cultures that make up our mutual life experiences -- Chinese culture, Southern American culture, and Middle Eastern culture. We are a post-modern family, and we wouldn't and couldn't have it any other way!