He Hears Your Distant Cheers
A Letter to My Son’s Mother as He Graduates from High School
Dear Amara*,
Tomorrow, our son will graduate from high school. You and I wondered if we would see this day, albeit for different reasons.
Your reason is valid. As I write this, I’m unsure of your well-being or whereabouts, especially since 2019’s civil unrest in your region. When I last visited you in 2016, I traveled for many hours on an intercity bus, then a minibus, then a private car to a village in the Sidama Region of Ethiopia.
I think of that day often. Do you? My stomach churned with uncertainty and giddiness as I bumped along. We hadn’t communicated since we first met several years before when I came to Addis Ababa to pick up Yared from the orphanage.
We both know he was no orphan, then or now, yet legally he was declared an orphan when you surrendered his care to the authorities. Your husband, you told me, contracted typhoid fever from unclean water and died when Yared was just a baby. This left you destitute, unable to work or own land, unable to provide for your child. Laws are sometimes confusing things.
I imagine the depth of that walk as you dropped him at your Ministry of Women, Children, and Youth Affairs council office, knowing you would likely never see him again. You wanted to give him a chance to live, even at great personal sacrifice. Was he wrapped against your back, his head bobbing, babbling, clueless to the magnitude of that moment? The weightless walk home must have been brutal.
Did your empty scarf drag in the sand with each step?
Several months later, on a borrowed porch alongside your siblings and father, your somber wound was still fresh. Yet, you welcomed me with gratitude and optimism. Your love and trust filled me, fueled me. The torch of motherhood you passed to me is a mantle I have carried in your honor every day since. The words his grandfather spoke–translated first to Amharic and then to Sidaama–sank deep into my heart:
We wish him to grow up spiritually and academically, to be a good person and to think of others and be a believer in God. May God be with you in all that you do.
Please know we are trying. God has been with us.
Eight years later, I visited you on your father’s farm. Dressed in a hot pink skirt, bright green jacket, and a blue head wrap, you looked beautiful, radiant–and exactly like my son. As you came towards me past the enset and pineapples, air rushed out of me.
While I stood, frozen in time, under a tree in that peaceful setting surrounded by new family and villagers, I watched you walk towards me. With no words, you opened your arms and welcomed me into a soul-deep embrace that can only be described as otherworldly.
Instantly, all differences dissolved and we melded spirit to spirit, joint mothers of a single son. Intense love, joy, gratitude, kinship, and spirit surged through me. Even the tears that freely flowed couldn’t communicate the depth of that mother-to-mother embrace.
We spent the next few hours taking pictures, laughing, and asking each other questions through double translation. I showed you photos of Yared, then ten years old, and you savored every word I shared about him. There was much love and happiness among us.
You told me your family had owned that land for generations and grew enset plants, pineapple, and other crops. We entered the small, concrete home next to the tukul for added privacy, and we had what became a sacred conversation as we shared family stories. I never wanted to leave.
I looked past your shoulder and noticed the wall in the very room where you birthed him. Next to posters of military leaders, a calendar, and a hair salon advertisement, I saw pictures of Yared, pictures of my family taped up. They were faded, tattered, but prominently displayed. You must have requested them from the council where we submitted our annual reports. Those prints on the wall spoke volumes of your love for him.
If I could glimpse into eternity, I imagine it will feel much like what I felt that day. We will be embraced by family we instantly recognize, be welcomed in, and connect spirit-to-spirit. We will see our earthside photos hung on the walls of heaven and know we were not forgotten.
Each year around Yared's birthday, we agreed to send the Ethiopian government updates on his well-being. They care about the long-term welfare of adoptees, even after ceasing international adoptions in 2019. I answer questions about his health, academic performance, family relationships, and personality. I attach 5 colored photos, labeled on the back with his full birth name, current name, date of birth, date of adoption, and age. Now that he is 18, we will submit his final report.
Can you believe that, 18? Where has the time gone? When we picked him up from the orphanage just before his second birthday, he was good-natured, quick to laugh, and had a smile that lit up his entire face. He couldn’t speak but that didn’t stop him from talking, his chatter filling the house day and night.
How I wish you could see him now! He’s strong in body and spirit. His older brother and sister and younger sister adore him. He is the kindest friend, still quick to make someone laugh, and houses a compassionate heart beyond his years. Yared is a thinker, an avid reader, and fills notes with business ideas and gym routines. His faith in God, planted by you and cultivated by us, grows deeper daily. Though he has lived in many countries and attended nine schools, he stands on solid ground.
The complexities around adoption, race, and cultural identity are real, and many are vocal with strong opinions. He is not immune, nor are we, from all of that and more. But, we feel love and gratitude for our family unit and all that we share together.
When I showed you a picture of him in school, you asked me what grade he was in.
“Fourth,” I said, and all of you cheered, elated that he had made it that far.
My friend Wendy turned to me and whispered, “Wait till they see that he’s graduated from college!”
He has a journey still ahead to graduate from college, and a few times I admit I wondered if he’d make it through high school intact. I’ve uttered long prayers into late nights, worrying, wondering. My reasons were valid too.
I’m sure I’ve failed him many times in this struggle of motherhood. Yet, I continue to show up and try again.
I carry the torch you handed me with grace and appreciation. I cherish the gift of your son. Thank you. There’s so much you’ve missed in his 18 years that I wish I could somehow share with you.
You would be so proud of him! I certainly am. He has weathered shifting weather patterns of friends, multiple international moves, uncertainty, disappointment, loss, and love. He’s come out on top, with strong character, integrity of spirit, and a smile that still lights up the room. He has a plan for his future–with some spaces and question marks–but punctuated with conviction in all the right places.
His royal blue gown and mortarboard rest askew on a chair nearby, begging to be ironed before his graduation rehearsal. The gold rope and 2024 tassel hang on the back of the chair until they are put in place to swing with his gait.
When his full name is called, he will walk across the gymnasium floor and leave K-12 behind forever, his smile and future bright. Roughly four million U.S. high school seniors make that same walk this year. Parents, administrators, teachers, coaches, and younger siblings cheer as graduates move tassels from right to left. With diploma covers under arms and caps thrown in the air, all celebrate this momentous accomplishment.
We will yell wildly, standing like maniacs in a crowd of friends and parents. I will no doubt cry.
Sadly, Yared hasn’t seen you since the day you dropped him at the council many years ago. Someday we hope that will happen.
Until then, please trust that he will hear–and feel deeply–your cheers, a distant but familiar sound. I’ll save you a seat.
Gretel Patch has mothered across continents and cultures for nearly 20 years. She is writing her first book, a piece of memoir that curates the hard and beautiful of creating ordinary homes in extraordinary places to inspire others to find renewed meaning in their own journeys. She and her husband are the parents of four resilient and globally compassionate souls.
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*her name has been changed to honor her privacy
Parts of this story were adapted from an article I wrote in 2021:
Patch, Gretel Backman. “Known” The Collective, Wanderers In A Strange Land, vol. 7, Fall 2021, pp. 62–65.
