The Stories Jenny Held (5)

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Jenny

Sarah thinks I'm 'kind of' real. I'll take it - I feel real enough. I know she needs a friend. She goes to school each day and then comes home and plays - but there aren't really kids to play with. She's tried the kid in our village a few houses down, but she is constantly doing homework. There was no way they could play together. She rides her bike up and down the driveway and her hair whips her face. Sometimes she sings as loud as she can while she rides. Such a strange girl. I'm glad I have red hair like hers so she can feel less alone.

Sarah says whatever she thinks sometimes. Others find this amusing - usually the adults. Thankfully, Cathy is usually around and is very protective of her little sister. Sometimes I think the Great Maker of All Things, made Cathy just for Sarah, because she needed a big sister.

Sarah

As a young child I had learned how babies normally enter the world – or at least which general location they emerge from.  So I once loudly proclaimed to our guests (as we drove past the hospital where I was born) that I had the good sense to be born via c-section, because I certainly had not wanted to land in a toilet. At least in my 6 year-old brain that made perfect sense.  As I reflect on the entirety of my life, I wonder if not wanting to emerge has become somewhat of a metaphor for the rest of my journey – preferring warmth, safety, isolation and unconsciousness to entering fully human society and dealing with the exhaustion of people! Of course it isn’t people that are exhausting, per se, rather, it is the rejection and judgment that often comes with being in close contact with people that is exhausting.  As I navigate my adult world, and the milieu of humanity that I encounter, I realize I there are wonderful, accepting, non-judgemental people out there, with whom I can find affinity, connection and even friendship.  

My parents had so longed for children and were told by many medical consultants that it was simply impossible to conceive.  Though the grief and pain of nine years of infertility stung them deeply, they were able to pursue the adoption of my older (more common-sense) sister, Cathy, in an orphanage nearby.  It only made sense to get a Chinese baby girl as my parents were serving as missionaries in Hong Kong.  Thankfully for the rest of us, it widened the gene-pool of our family so our firing synapses had some blessed-other raw material to bounce off of.  I like to think of Cathy as the glue that held our family together.

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