Saving Little Sister

Saving Little Sister

My mother is an avid reader.  When she visits I always order some Chinese books for her, and she currently is in the middle of reading “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”. In the novel, a physician gives away the second of newborn twins - a daughter with Down’s syndrome.  This stirs a memory within my mother and she tells me a story I had never before heard:

I was 15 years old and war and drought were taking a toll on our village.  The ground was so hard  and dry that cracks were showing in the once fertile soil.  Food and money were scarce.  I couldn’t remember the last time that my stomach was full.

My mother was surprised by a pregnancy.  She already had me, her one daughter, and I was surrounded by an older and younger brother.  When her 4^th child was born it was a little girl.   “So many mouths to feed!” exclaimed my mother. 

I overheard her talking to father and grandmother one night shortly after the birth of my new sister.  “We can’t keep her.  We barely scrape by now.”  The discussion ensued with no solutions produced.  “We need to give her away.  There’s an American church in town who will take the child.” 

I had heard that newborns occasionally were left at the church for the Americans.  The babies were cared for and adopted out overseas.  But this was my sister!

“You can’t give her away!”  I burst into the conversation, tearful and full of dread.  “Give her to me!  I can take care of her!”

“You know nothing of caring for babies.”  But I was persistent, crying, wailing, throwing a major tantrum.  This went on for several hours when finally grandmother ordered that we were to keep my sister, just to quiet me.  

I remember my mother was older then, and little sister was always hungry due to the sparseness of my mother’s breast milk.  My mother taught me to cook porridge and to skim the top of the gravy into a bowl.  “This is the most nutritious part of the porridge,” explained my mother, while feeding it to little sister.  This was one of many lessons that I learned about childcare, lessons that would greatly benefit me 6 years later when my first child was born in America.