He’d been asking me for two weeks if I would cry.

Public tears are not prevalent in Chinese culture, and, until he came to our home, I don’t think this sweet boy had ever seen someone cry for HIM.

But when he saw me break down in our kitchen two weeks ago and Miss Mackenzie explained to him in Chinese that I was crying because 1. I was a crazy American and 2. I would miss him, his eyes lit up. He wrapped his arms around me, and he gave me one of his newly discovered running-jump hugs.

And from that day forward, every night as I tucked this sweet boy into bed, after bedtime stories and prayers, he counted down the days until he would board an airplane and Ayi would cry.

“Ayi ku la?” he would ask as he grasped my face in his hands and examined my eyes for tears.

“Thursday,” I kept telling him. “Ayi will definitely cry on Thursday.”

And on Thursday, I just couldn’t stop.

Dear DJ’s forever family,

I have a confession to make: Over the last four weeks, I have fallen in love with your son. And not just in love – head over heels, passionately-madly-deeply, I’ve-been-swallowing-tears-every-time-adoption-songs-play-on-the-radio in love with this sweet boy who now grasps my face in his two hands and asks, “Ayi cry on Thursday?” as he stares into my eyes to check for the gleam of impending tears.

He is a gem, this future son of yours, and as I watch him sleep from across the hotel room (I watch, because this way-too-close farewell is keeping me from any chance of sleep myself), my heart breaks at the thought of saying goodbye to him in a few short hours.

These four weeks, they have flown by. It seems like only yesterday we were carrying our superhero’s flat figure around our town, praying for him and wondering about him, and now, we’re saying goodbye to the 3D version we have eaten with, played with and been amazed by for an entire month. There haven’t been enough hours in the day to observe and marvel at the ins and outs of this superhero, who never ceases to astound us with his flexibility, his adaptability and his LOVE. We feel like we are only BEGINNING this journey into understanding and appreciating this special, special boy.

The only reason we can let him go today with any peace at all is because we know that, in a few short months, YOUR sweet family will be picking up where we left off (and filling in all the gaps where we just completely and utterly FAILED!) and continuing this journey — until forever.

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