This I Believe

She was left on a stone table in a public park during the night.

China’s answer to a social safety net they do not have.

They left her because she is female.

They left her because she is blind.

Risking detection, they left her where they knew she’d be found–.

By the finders of the abandoned, the unloved.

These keepers of an ugly tradition, these angels of the lost.

The workers at the orphanage took her in and named her Wen Wei.

From the shadows of her unchosen world, she set in motion a ripple, insistent in its restlessness, tireless in its seeking

Alighting at last on a distant shore, searching for the source of its own energy, looking for the precise complement of the unseen void shaped exactly like the yearning of Wen Wei’s broken heart.

Our family heard the call. Four children already, but intent on making room for yet one more. We said: “We’re coming for you Wen Wei. Hold on”. But we could not hold her; We could not touch her. We could only wait. We could only bond with the picture of the sad girl posted on our refrigerator.

Years passed solemnly by. But at last, the summons came. Come to China it said, and claim your long-suffering child.

And We, the strangers, arrived. Taking her once again from the arms of the people she loved, without apology, without explanation. We came to give her love, to be her forever family. But Wen Wei was wise to the treacherous ways of adults; she knew that they could not be trusted. “This time”, she said, “you must earn my love”.

We brought her to her new home in the US. By day, Wen Wei was happy. But at night, when I would sit on her bed, holding her hand, waiting for sleep to come, then the tears would flow. Wen Wei’s heart could not heal itself.

An idea blossomed. Give her the gift of the muse. Teach the blind child to play music. And so began, the slow, arduous instruction. Shaping the fingers to the contorted neck of a violin. This shape means “A”‘; that one “C”. Over and over, she learned to feel the imaginary highway that the bow must travel. The task was hard; we gave up many times but, at last, the violin sang at Wen Wei’s command. She joined her brothers and sisters in musical harmony. Sound became spirit. The unspeakable sorrow that was Wen Wei’s most reliable companion, let her go.

And from these trials, beliefs I didn’t know I had, were forged. I believe in the courage and compassion of Wen Wei’s birth parents who gave her up so that she might have a better life. I believe that the fire of the human spirit burns brightly even in a tiny child, sustaining and ennobling her through the darkest of times. Most of all, I believe in the strange power of music to heal a broken heart and redeem a lost soul.