Liars and Thieves

I know of two girls--teenagers now--who were stolen from their birthfamily in India and sold in adoption to a Christian couple here in the US. Lies were told--about their identities, their ages, their lives to that moment. The girls were threatened and intentionally disoriented--pummelled into frightened silence by the orphanage people--those great humanitarians, those selfless creatures who labor on behalf of needy children and hopeful westerners. The girls' lives, the birthfamily's lives, the adoptive family's lives, were all decimated. (To decimate means to destroy 10%--the extent of damage required to cause permanent and irreparable harm in a community. See how languge fails in this day and age.) The girls attempted suicide, reverted to infant state, broiled in a soup of rage and pain, would not--could not--love their adoptive family. Their story is unspeakable. Unbelievable. Somebody ought to be in jail. Of course, nobody is.

This week, one of the girls traveled to India with her adoptive father and was reunited with her mother. They were helped by a woman generally framed in demonic terms by the adoptive community--the same community that blamed the girls for their pain, blamed the adoptive parents for their anger, blamed anyone but the ones responsible. This woman is the only one I know who does this thankless, painful work in India--picking up the shattered pieces when everybody's done collecting their fat fees and moving bodies around like inventory. And she gets kicked in the back for her trouble.

If the heavens opened up and the long finger of God reached down for a moment to touch heads, Gita's would be on his list. A moment, here, to tell her that I think she's amazing.