Wish You Happy Forever

by Jenny Bowen

  Maya’s new pediatrician told us that our daughter wouldn’t have lived another year untreated. A life saved for sure. The facial sores began to heal. Dead worms appeared in the diapers (that is a good thing!). Weight was gained. But even as we dutifully stashed Flagyl in ice cream and force-fed our little darling the foul-tasting stuff, we quietly worried.

  We celebrated the first steps, the first faint smiles, the first gluttonous pumpkin-suited Halloween—all milestones were accompanied by food—but Maya never seemed truly present. Even as she began to let me hold her and occasionally (briefly) rested easy in my arms, it was like she didn’t get that cuddling was a worthwhile activity. The only sign that something was going on in that lovely little head was the furrowed brow that had appeared the moment we met her and refused to fade. In fact, the worry lines seemed to deepen when I held her. We had snatched her away from her everything. All was lost.

  It seemed like our baby had never known love. She didn’t know what to do with it. But could she be taught? Could she learn what should come naturally? Could these strange new people teach her to experience and accept love?

  “Give it time,” I whispered to her. “We’ll find our way together.”

  I dearly hoped that was true. Was I mother enough to bring this hurt little being out of her shell?

  I hadn’t been exactly nurtured as a child. I came late in the post–Depression era marriage of two hard-working first-generation Americans who were entirely focused on making ends meet and saving for the rainy day that would likely come at any moment. My two sisters were born several years before me. I was not planned, and although it wasn’t said (well, only once in anger), I never felt particularly loved or even wanted. Of course, decent families would never think of abandoning their unwanted babies in the 1950s in California, USA. Certainly not. But I don’t remember being held or played with or talked to much. I wasn’t unhappy. It was just the way it was.

  When she wasn’t off at work, my mother was tired and impatient and, it seemed to me, impossible to please. She never spared the rod. My father came home from work and lost himself in sports scores and bowling and his weekly pinochle game with the boys. We never talked.

  When I looked at Maya . . . the utter aloneness of her . . . maybe I saw something of myself.

  TO KEEP MAYA with me every waking moment, I decided to edit my movie at home. A film editor and assistant, trim bins, and editing equipment soon consumed our living room and all other available space in the house. I plopped Maya on my lap and did my best to make up for all the cuddles and kisses she’d missed out on, while we reviewed shots over and over, assembled and reassembled scenes.

  Throughout that first winter, I tried to focus on both my babies—Maya and the movie. It was the best I could manage under the circumstances. Maya won hands down. While the editor cut, I sang silly songs and show tunes and lullabies and rocked and blew bubbles and fell in love. It probably wasn’t an ideal introduction to family life, but at least our little girl knew somebody was paying attention.

  Sometime around our first rough cut, as we replayed the opening courtroom scene for the thousandth time, Maya began to softly babble.

  “What’s she saying?” asked the editor.

  I leaned down.

  “Tewwa twoo . . . omigosh, she’s talking! Tewwa twoo . . . Tell the truth! She said, ‘Tell the truth’!”

  Okay, so it was dialogue from the movie, but my little girl was talking! I covered her little babbly face with kisses.

  July 1998

  Whenever we can, we like to do something special on the Fourth of July to celebrate Dick’s birthday (which falls on the fifth) without making too big a deal about it. Dick’s the kind of guy who slips out the back door if you offer him a singing-waiter birthday cake in public. But a year earlier on the fourth we’d flown to China to adopt Maya, so his entire birthday had been wiped out by the International Date Line. Time to make amends and have a party.

  Our house was full to bursting with a happy combination of film types and China adoption types. Conversations of every sort in every room. The mood felt upbeat, and why not? Our movie was done and in the hands of its distributor. That same distributor had offered to finance and distribute another independent film that I would write and direct. It was such a rare offer, I didn’t let myself even think about whether I wanted to be consumed like that again so soon, or whether, in my heart of hearts, I really believed that the world needed another little movie by Jenny Bowen that would likely come and go, not adding up to much. I should be grateful for the opportunity. I started a new script.

  We knew how lucky we were. We’d worked hard for the life we had. And, although we were yet again dreaming of and scheming about moving away from Los Angeles and back to our San Francisco roots (Chinese daughter, San Francisco—no-brainer), we were reasonably content. We were not thinking of turning our lives upside down again.

  We were in the kitchen, refilling food platters. I could hear children laughing and playing a noisy game in the garden. I looked out at them through the kitchen window.

  Somehow, through that kitchen glass, the world was a movie frame. Whatever was going on in the rooms of my house, beyond the edges of the frame, faded away. I could hear only the laughter of children.

  And as I watched a gaggle of three- and four-year-old girls skipping up a path, trying to go fast, faster, yet keeping the line, giddy with the effort . . . I saw Maya.

  She was positively radiant. Her cheeks red, her eyes bright. She was giggling so hard she could barely keep her balance. She called out and grabbed a friend’s hand. A friend! The girls collapsed on the grass in laughter.

  In that frame of light, I saw a child—my child—and she was okay.

  Better than okay. She looked like someone who had known life only as it should be—a child who had been treasured from the moment she was born.

  “Honey, come see.”

  We watched her through the glass.

  “Look at our little girl,” Dick said.

  “Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Nothing to it.” He smiled.

  It was a miracle, this suddenly blossoming child. But a miracle that made perfect sense. Our girl knew, without doubt, that she was adored. It was that simple.

  “Why can’t we do that for the ones we can’t bring home?” I asked—and meant it.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. We’d been together a long time.

  When we talk about that day, he tells me I said something else after that. I don’t remember saying it—

  I know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.

  Part One

  Laowai

  (Foreigner)

  A way is made by walking it. A thing is so by calling it.

  ZHUANG ZI (369–286 BC)

  Chapter 1

  Clumsy Birds Have Need of Early Flight

  Summer 1998

  From the moment I saw Maya at the heart of that happy tangle of little girls outside my kitchen window, I felt absolutely compelled to act. I saw a solution, plain and simple. I couldn’t ignore it. I would find a way to bring a family’s love to children who had lost theirs. I’d bring Maya’s miracle to China.

  It’s true that I didn’t know anything about early childhood development. Or about China. Or about starting and running a nonprofit organization. On the other side of the world. Without any knowledge of the Chinese language. What I did know something about was dreaming stories. I’d been doing it all my life.

  When I was tiny, I made up stories with buttons from my mother’s sewing box, whole worlds of little button people. Then it was snail kingdoms in coffee cans in our foggy San Francisco backyard. At seven, I became a latchkey kid and quickly found my comfort and my dreams in library books. I checked out the eight allowed every Saturday; when finished with the pile, I read them again. The best hours of my childhood were spent in their embrace. And in time, the books inspired me to write my stories down.

  I learned to look forward
to a blank piece of paper. I could dream life just the way I wanted it. I was in control.

  That was the best part of making movies—the part that kept me going despite the hurdles and uncertainties of Hollywood—dreaming a story and somehow making it real. Even if the films I made never mattered that much to me in the end, even if they didn’t particularly give my life meaning, there was plenty to love about the process. I loved being challenged to use every skill I could muster from my meager bag of tricks.

  And filmmaking had given me a few new skills. Perseverance for sure. But also how to pitch my story to anyone who’d listen in hopes of raising funds and followers. How to imagine characters, then cast them. How to imagine places, then scout them. How to visualize the way a scene should play, then guide my actors through the world I’d concocted.

  I’d learned how to make something from nothing. Those babies in China had nothing. It seemed like a perfect fit.

  THE NAME CAME to me in an instant. I would call my organization Half the Sky—named for the old Chinese saying, “Women hold up half the sky.” Just what I dreamed for Maya’s little orphaned sisters: I would help them hold up the sky.

  I began to imagine the story, how it would play. I saw loving homes right inside orphanage walls—real homes designed to help young children heal and learn and trust. Places where, like our Maya, each child could know that her life matters to someone. We would find and train local women to look after foundlings as if they were their very own.

  I imagined an infant program where babies could form bonds from the start. A preschool program for little girls who had no parents to go home to at the end of the day. The programs themselves would need to feel safe like family, full of love and comfort.

  While I had no doubt that a world without orphanages would be a better world, I understood that China’s orphans were wards of the state. Somehow we’d have to do all this inside existing institutions. That meant we would have to find a way to become partners with the Chinese government.

  So I needed a pitch, a way to sell the story to China. Maya’s sudden awakening made sense—I knew it did—but I’d need the science to convince others, especially government officials.

  I found my science on the Internet; the words, stark and cold, came down to this:

  The months immediately after birth are critical for orderly brain maturation. During this “sensitive period,” the number of synapses—the connections that allow learning to happen—increase twenty-fold. An astounding 75 percent of human cognitive and emotional growth potential—the development of intelligence, personality, and emotional and social behavior—is finalized by age seven. Holding and touching a young child stimulates that child’s brain to release essential growth hormones. Without stimulation from or experience with the world, normal development cannot occur. Conversely, “noxious” experiences can cause harm to the developing brain.

  There it was. Our little miracle writ plain. Science says that our daughter’s transformation wasn’t a fluke but rather the result of stimulation of critical hormones and elimination of noxious experiences. And there was urgency, a time window during which children must be reached. So what more did I need to know?

  Well. About creating a nonprofit organization. About how to pay for one. About early childhood education. About China.

  Okay, I scored a perfect zero. I got down to work.

  CASTING WITH A wide net, I returned to the Internet, where I found adoptive parents who were preschool teachers and doctors and child psychologists. I questioned everyone. I queried adoption agencies and Chinese language professors and people who ran Chinese restaurants—my Sinosphere was admittedly limited in those days. There had to be somebody out there who could help me make the China connection I needed. Honestly, it never occurred to me that it might be foolhardy to dive into building a program in a distant country where I didn’t have a single acquaintance.

  I found something online based in Beijing called the Data User Service of China Population Information and Research Center. They had posted an enticing note (in English!):

  DUS is ready to serve you with raw data of population censuses and surveys in China, publications both in Chinese and in English, and all kinds of machine-readable data on floppy diskettes, tapes, and compact disks. Any time, any data, please contact DUS!

  What a find! I sent my urgent questions immediately:

  1. Approximately how many girls are currently in Chinese orphanages (welfare institutions)?

  2. How many are adopted by foreign families each year?

  3. How many orphanages are there in China?

  4. Approximately how many abandoned children are brought to the orphanages each year?

  5. Approximately how much money is spent per child for nutrition and care?

  6. Approximately how many orphanages provide any sort of structured program that includes stimulation and education?

  7. If there are any such programs, can you give us any data regarding teacher training, methodology, teaching materials, and class size?

  Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.

  I never heard a word in reply. And that was my first message from China on the subject.

  No matter. I was on a vision quest. I completely ignored the fact that just about everybody I shared my brainstorm with listened politely and then said some version of “Impossible.” “Can’t happen.” “The Chinese government will never let you do it.” “Why would you want to help China anyway? They throw their kids away.” “There are plenty of kids right here in the United States who need help. Do something in your own backyard.” There was no shortage of advice. I pressed on.

  I found, and followed to the letter, a do-it-yourself guide for setting up a California nonprofit corporation. I discovered that I needed a board of directors. Okay. Well then, I should start with an expert. I knew just the man.

  Every adoptive parent online knew Dr. Dana Johnson—a professor of pediatrics, director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota, adoptive father, and maybe the top internationally renowned authority on the unhappy effects of child institutionalization.

  I wrote. He called and talked to my answering machine. I called back and talked to his answering machine. He called again. (That’s how it was in those days.) When at last we talked, incredibly, Dr. Johnson agreed to join Half the Sky’s board of directors, even though it was still a figment of my imagination. I’m still not 100 percent sure why.

  With a bona fide expert in tow, I wooed some fellow adoptive parents who’d become good friends while awaiting our daughters. Four kindhearted couples—including Terri and Daniel, dear friends who’d adopted their daughter from Maya’s orphanage—agreed to join Dick, Dana, and me on the founding board. They joined us as friends and as caring new parents; I was the only one obsessed. None of us had any idea what we were getting into.

  Considering that we were entirely focused on China, our new board looked awfully Anglo. Some prominent Chinese were definitely in order to round out the cast, so I tried to contact every name I recognized listed on the Chinese American Committee of 100, including Yo-Yo Ma, I. M. Pei, Jerry Yang (the Yahoo guy), and Vera Wang. Only Stanley Ho, the brother of AIDS researcher and Time magazine’s 1996 Man of the Year David Ho, was kind enough to respond:

  Dear Jenny:

  On behalf of Dr. David Ho, thank you very much for your important letter and the opportunity to serve on the Board of Directors of Half the Sky. Your efforts are truly noble and we salute you and your new foundation for your courage and determination.

  Dr. Ho would like to consider joining the board, but is unable to make a commitment now. His schedule is quite overwhelming. How much time do you envision being required? Would you be happy with the lending of his name only? . . .

  Would I be happy? “Absolutely, that would be terrific!” I replied. But Mr. Ho never wrote back again.

  MOST IMPORTANT, I had to figure out how I was going to provide nurture, individual attention, and sti
mulation to large groups of abandoned, traumatized small children. Maya was one child and I was but one adoring mama operating on instincts that, thankfully, seemed to be working. Now I was envisioning rooms—maybe even multiple orphanages—full of thriving, cherished children. How could I take our little miracle to scale?

  I scoured the Internet again, hunting down all the child development theories of the moment and corresponding with perhaps a dozen proponents of different methodologies. Then I learned about the town of Reggio Emilia, Italy, and how it helped its community and its children recover from the devastation of war. In a book called The Hundred Languages of Children, I found Loris Malaguzzi:

  Six days after the end of the Second World War. It is the spring of 1945. . . . I hear that in a small village called Villa Cella, a few miles from the town of Reggio Emilia, people decided to build and run a school for young children. That idea seems incredible to me! I rush there on my bike and I discover that it is all quite true. I find women intent upon salvaging and washing pieces of brick. . . .

  “We will build the school on our own,” they say, “working at night and on Sundays. The land has been donated by a farmer; the bricks and beams will be salvaged from bombed houses, the sand will come from the river; the work will be volunteered by all of us.”

  “The rest will come,” they say to me.

  “I am a teacher,” I say.

  “Good,” they say. “If that is true, come work with us.”

  So Loris Malaguzzi, a young teacher from nearby Correggio, quit his job and became the father of the Reggio Emilia approach to early education. He understood from the start that to reach great numbers of children traumatized by war, he must find a way to be there for them one by one and all together. It was the opposite of what was believed in his day about the education of young children. “A simple, liberating thought came to our aid, namely that things about children and for children are only learned from children. We knew how this was true and at the same time not true. But we needed that assertion and guiding principle; it gave us strength and turned out to be an essential part of our collective wisdom.”