3rd part of the story

Here is the third and the final part of the story ... :))



The heat of Addis Ababa is unbearable, nothing like the early June heat of North Carolina. There are no wide, shady oak trees here to hide under and definitely no blow up swimming pools to buy on sale at Wal-Mart.

Arriving at the agency after searching over an hour for the agency representative at the airport and barely knowing even the smallest Ethiopian phrases, they are told they can see Naomi in about ten minutes when her afternoon nap ends.

The 1971 Ford 15 passenger van that brought them here was an eye opening adventure as they drove through the place little Naomi knew as home. Through her eyes they saw the many crowded shacks built by materials pieced together, multicolored. The streets were crudely paved in sporadic places, the makeshift sidewalks pure dust. Ethiopians traveled passed the orphanage van, which stopped to wait for the mixed herd of livestock to cross, their bikes truly considered second hand items in the western world. The Jacksons stared in wonder at this place their daughter has known for the two and a half years of her existence. They had seen this in National Geographic; the kind of place they knew existed but never thought of people calling it home.

While they wait for Naomi to wake up, Nicholas decides to peruse the pictures stuck on the single bulletin board above the reception desk where piles of papers were stacked upon stacks of more papers.

How familiar those look, Nicholas says to himself, wincing at the remembrance of lengthy nights spent carefully noting each part of his and his wife’s background, both physical and genealogical, and their economic situation. Then came the wait – the exaggerated wait that raised everyone’s doubts, including his sixty year old father’s.

That’s what those info-commercials are for, son. Sponsors in the developed countries will feed her and give her an education. What more can a kid like that ask for?

“She can ask for more than this,” Nicholas mumbles under his breath as he has taken in his surroundings of the Addis Ababa orphanage. He looks at the pictures of the children, decorated with stray pieces of blue and purple construction paper in shapes of stars – crooked stars, three and nine pointed stars that he guesses the children themselves had made.

There she is, Nicholas is surprised when he locates his little girl in a picture. His brow creases and his eyes focus on the picture as he notices a little boy about the same age as she, seated beside her when she was only about a year and a half old it seemed.

Who is this kid? He looks just like Naomi…

“Mr. Jackson, you have found her in a picture I see,” says and smiles a very round, but beautiful Ethiopian woman called Hadhi, one of the main caregivers at the Faith, Hope and Love Agency.

“Yes, I have. Naomi is very beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Ah, Naomi, is it?” Hadhi questions, “A very fitting name, Mr. Jackson. Yes, she is very beautiful little girl.”

“Uh, Hadhi, who is this little boy right here, sitting beside her in this picture?”

“That is Nasli,” Hadhi simply answers.

“They look like they are good friends. And this little fellow really favors Naomi,” Nicholas partly states, partly asks.

“Yes, Nasli is Aam- I mean Naomi’s brother. Their mother brought them here together. They’re twins; Naomi is just smaller than he is. Most people think she is his younger sister, but I’m almost sure she was firstborn. She is a leader… yes, she is…”

“Where is he?” Nicholas asks, suddenly beyond confusion.

Stephanie and their daughters come up behind Nicholas, his wife caressing his arm with a twinkle of hope in her eyes as if to say we’re finally here… Naomi’s here… with us… she doesn’t have to wish anymore.

Nicholas gives an affectionate smile in response and mouths to his wife, I love you.
“Look, Steph, here’s a picture of Naomi,” Nicholas points to the one a little off center of the middle of the bulletin board.

“It’s Nomi,” cries little Emma, her eyes and smile lighting up her face as her mother picks her up and places her on her hip to be closer to the picture, her little pointer finger placing a kiss from her lips on Naomi’s face, just as she had begged to do every afternoon before her nap.

Their fingers now intertwined with faith, Nicholas inquires more about this stranger in the picture, “Hadhi, his name is Nasli, you said?”

“Yes, Nasli.”

Nicholas looks to his wife, pausing for a moment, encountering a perplexing, questioning look from her.

He attempts to explain the boy to his wife, “Naomi has a brother, a twin brother. His name is Nasli. There he is right there,” he says, pointing to the smiling toddler boy holding hands with Naomi in the backdrop of the orphanage play area and the completed seven piece Lion King puzzle proudly seated in his lap.

Letting it sink in, Stephanie stands motionless, thoughts reeling crazily in her head like never before. A brother? They have said nothing about him these eleven months we’ve known of her. Why? Why would they keep something like this hidden?

Nicholas inquires of Hadhi with a sense of urgency to know this boy, her brother. After thinking a moment, he touches Hadhi’s upper arm, asking, “How is he? Where is he staying; is he here in the same orphanage with Naomi?”

“Sometimes, but he spends most of his time at the clinic. The poor boy has a tumor on the only kidney he has left. He is very sick… the people at the clinic don’t except him to make it through the summer….”

But we have to try - for Naomi. She needs to know him as he was created to be, so close they have no secrets, Stephanie thinks to herself.

“Wow… such a little boy to have so many troubles….”says Nicholas.

“Yes, it is quite a sad situation for him here, but no one wants to take a sick child home. They all want a handsome, healthy baby that will cling to them the moment they meet them.”

“Why is this just now being said to us? We’ve never heard anything of Naomi having a twin. Why was this not in her papers?” asks Stephanie, finally getting up the courage to voice her thoughts.

“Because the boy was not expected to live even this long, but the few and sparse treatments he has received at the clinic have prolonged his life.”

He has to make it. He’s going to be okay. Naomi doesn’t need another blood family member lost to her forever. She already has two… or even more, Stephanie contemplates within herself, scared and partly embarrassed to voice her opinion on the matter.

Stephanie had always wanted twins, a boy and a girl, had always played around with the idea of struggling with two hungry babies at once. Maybe it was a distant dream, but it was hers nonetheless. And now it could become real, just like that.
Someone was created to be the mother of twins, right? she often asks herself when she finds the idea looked odd upon by close friends. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a woman longing to know the individuals that will be her children someday? If not, I can dream, can’t I?

She couldn’t take it any longer. It had to come out. She had to speak her mind. This was a human being they were talking about, not just couple of cattle a few herdsmen were bartering for. “How can we go about seeing him? Is he in Addis right now?” Stephanie rushes, knowing from the watery eyes of her husband in the quick glance that this is the right thing to do.

“Ma’am… I’m not exactly sure.” Suspecting the motive of the husband and wife, Hadhi adds as nicely as she knew possible, “I don’t know if he is even adoptable at this point. With all the risks involved, I’m not sure how long you’d have to wait for the okay on this one.”

Hadhi pauses a moment, rethinking her word choice as carefully as possible. “Mr. Jackson, Nasli is very sick. I’m not sure you and your wife know what you’re getting yourselves into here. Please, take some time and think over it. Don’t fuel your answer by the emotions welling up inside of here,” Hadhi said, placing her hand over her chest, “And again, even if he is adoptable, the wait would most likely be excruciating. Nothing is guaranteed to work out in cases like his.”

Looking into his wife’s eyes for confirmation of his thoughts, he receives her answer within seconds and answeres, “We don’t care how long it takes. We want him.”

“He needs his sister,” Nicholas adds.

“And Naomi needs him,” says Stephanie. “It doesn’t matter what problems he has, we want him.”

The three adults halt in their conversation when suddenly they hear coos from a young woman to a little girl a few steps behind her, one of the small girl’s hands in the young woman’s to encourage her along.

“Come… come along, Aamina…” the young woman leads her along, her head wrapped in native fashion, giving buoyancy to the little girl’s spirits, her eyes dancing from here to there checking things out.

Her eyes stand still when she recognizes strangers within her territory, the little girl rushing to wrap her arms about her caregiver’s legs, the young woman smiling in reassurance to the Jacksons.

Oh my goodness… it’s her. She’s here, Stephanie absentmindedly says to herself. This is magical. She is magical. Our little Naomi is here. I can’t believe she’s really here… with us. It’s not just her picture on the fridge anymore. It’s her, Stephanie joyfully weeps inside.

Hadhi says something to the little girl in her native tongue, and the little girl mutters a quiet something back in answer.

“She says hello to her new family,” Hadhi says and smiles.

“Selam,” Nicholas and Stephanie quickly repeat the greeting to the little girl in her native tongue, Stephanie smiling both to her and inside herself too, for she had waited for this moment for years it seemed. She had played it over and over in her head what she and Nicholas would say to their new daughter upon first meeting her, but all of it had left her. Nothing could have prepared her for this moment, this priceless moment - although, this little girl’s beauty could easily be the silencing factor behind it all. Being able to say hello was one of the phrases she and her husband had been determined everyone in the family knew upon arrival, even the girls.

“Selam, Naomi,” Alexia nearly whispers, unsure of her new little sister’s countenance for them just yet.

Remembering exactly how her parents taught her to pronounce the word, Sophie triumphantly says, “Seh-Lammm,” simultaneously bending her five stiffened fingers up and down in welcome as she gave her new little sister a big smile.

Sophie then turns to Emma who is standing next to her and says, pointing to the little girl still several feet across the room from where they stand, “Look, there’s Nomi, Emma-boo. That’s your new ‘lil sister.”

When Emma still stands completely motionless, Sophie encourages her, “Come on, say hey. Don’tcha remember how, Emm –”

Nicholas interrupts his daughter, and picks up Emma who looks like she is about to cry. She was never one for strangers either.

“She’s very beautiful. Kohn joh? ” Stephanie asks the women.

Hadhi and the young woman nod their heads, smiling in approval.

Stephanie continues, kneeling down to face-to-face level with her new daughter, “Kohn joh,” she says to Naomi, who gives the faintest hint of that same contagious smile found in the pictures of the agency brochure.

“Ameseginalehu…” Naomi quickly whispers, her eyes looking up into Stephanie’s then hastily darting back to her small ebony fingers. Stephanie recognizes her answer as the Amharic word to give thanks.





The hum of the ’71 Ford as it rolls down the beaten down, dusty twenty two mile long path from the clinic back to the agency lulls Nasli to sleep. These two days they are having the chance to spend with him outside of the clinic, in the soothing atmosphere of toys and healthy children, are more magical than they can know at the time. He is magical just like his sister.

He lays curled on Alexia’s lap with a racking cough that won’t subside, coming and going every two to three minutes. And even though his soft, ebony skin it doesn’t glow particularly like his sister’s, it’s still beautiful. The driver of the van doesn’t say anything to them, but they know he must be on the verge of tears from hearing this young boy’s poor cries for relief.

He has the same magical eyes as Naomi, the same soft, light brown curls, too. But they don’t shine like hers. No, they plead for help.

Still, he’s magical in everyway.

His little voice keeps asking for his sister. He wants Aamina, because ironically she makes him feel safe. She’s his security blanket like her name entails.

But she’s also beautiful and gentle, too.

Naomi is in her mother’s lap, her head resting on her shoulder, stray tears slowly drying and a lost whimper shaking her little body as Stephanie rubs her back in a circular motion to calm her. The journey has taken its toll on everyone, but especially the youngest ones. But she knows there is a difference in the tiredness everyone else feels compared with the complete exhaustion this little boy begs to be released from.

But all that will change. We’re going to get you the best doctor available, my little treasure.

“Mom, what are we going to call my little brother?” Alexia thoughtfully asks, excited beyond words that he had taken very quickly to her when they met his sweet little face at the clinic.

“Before we knew that we were getting Naomi,” Stephanie begins, biting her lip and pausing to keep the hot, stinging tears at bay, “we had picked out the name Boaz for a boy.”
“It mea- ,” she tries, her voice choking as the tears release, “It means ‘strength’.”

Softly caressing his hairline, Alexia whispers to her new little brother, “Boaz, you are your name – strength. We’re going to get you help, little buddy, I promise. Just keep hanging on…”