A changed life, is a choice...

his little finger started to play with my grandmothers ring which was on my index finger. his face crumbled up again in the similar pout and he pointed to my wedding finger. my heart began its familiar ache that had, for a time, been pushed into a corner from such a new place and experience. I watched as he took off my grandmothers ring and put it onto my ring finger. "No, No" i stated, perhaps too strongly..."it doesn't go there." I pulled it off quickly and placed it on my index finger again. again he pulled off the ring and placed it on my wedding finger. tears filled my eyes as I again pulled off the ring and despretly tried to keep my emotions in check with such a reminder. his gaze held mine as I placed my ring back on my index finger and stated softly, "i don't have a ring there anymore." my heart felt as if it would be ripped in two. How did he know? just days prior as i sat on my bed in my "makeshift" room at my parents home, I stared at a gorgeous ring. one that had meant many, many things to me. it held promises, now broken. it held memories, that even now filled my heart with warmth and then panic that it was gone. i knew i needed to accept the choice that had been made long before. one that i didn't get to be apart of. i didn't want to. an hour later, i pulled off the ring. placed it in its purple box and shut the lid. my hand felt naked. wrong. so i quickly took grandma Aly's ring that had brought me so much comfort in the past and placed on my index finger. better. not perfect. not what i wanted. but def. better...

now sitting here with my little charge, i almost felt out of body. as these thoughts rushed through my head, slowly he lifted my hand up and kissed my ring finger. tears now fell. he laced his fingers through my hand and continued to chat in swahili and push hands away from "His white friend". just then they called for all volunteers to load up. i didn't want to leave. i asked the older student again, "what is his name?" he smiled and said, "shaun." as i climbed into the van, and we began to drive off, one of the volunteers again said, "look Alycesun, isn't that your boy?" I looked out and amoung the sea of children there was my green coat little boy, my Shaun. He just stared. I started back. It was getting easier to hold his gaze. he began to run. his gaze not leaving mine. he leaped over open sewage, crawled hills of garbage, his pace keeping up with the moving van. as we came onto the main street(if you could call it that:) He stopped and waved. The end of my first day. the beginning of My Shaun.