Help Her Believe

On Sunday, I went by a RedBox** Kiosk and chose a few movies. I picked movies that just seemed to interest me. The first movie was Blue Crush 2, a movie about young girls surfing. Little did I know that the movie would mirror Caragan's life. The young girl, around 18, had lost her Mom to cancer at age 5. Caragan and I cried watching it together as the girl went to her Mom's homeland to visit all the best surfing beaches her Mom wanted to take her to as she was growing up. Her Mom passed away before they got to visit them together. As destiny (because you would never make me believe otherwise) would have it, the second movie was Mao's Last Dance. The Chinese boy was chosen to goto to dance school. WoW! Caragan was also chosen from her orphanage to goto dance school too. The little boy hated it and would cry himself to sleep. Caragan hated dance school too and even ran away at one point. That last point is really scary to me, and a whole other blog in itself. YIKES!! SCARY!! SCARY!! The boy grows up and comes to America to dance, struggles with knowing English and learning western ways. The movies was a big reminder of where we have been together and how far we have come in the last two years (almost).

This beautiful young daughter of mine has already 'lived' more in her short life than many of us will ever live in our whole lives. She was reminded of her biological parents loss with the death of her great grandmother recently. As she broke down at the graveside...although I know she loved her grandmother so much...I knew that as she sobbed against her Uncle Rob that she was grieving her bio MOM and DAD's deaths as well. She has a support system now, which helps her tremendously to work through it. We had many opportunities to talk about the deaths of her bio parents through the funeral process. I was so proud of Caragan as she took charge and asked to paint MaMa Ber's fingernails. She proudly announced...'that's my job'. She is such a perfectionist, we knew she'd do it well. She did too!! How many young girls would touch a dead person or even want to do such a last gesture for a Grandmother that she only knew a short time? MaMa Ber loved her like she did us all, of course. My DAUGHTER did that, and I couldn't think of any way she could honor her memory better. I hope she will always have such a heart for other's. This child of mine is such an amazing, compassionate soul. She is hard on herself and I strive to help her see all the good in herself.

Lately, we are bogged down in her high school studies...and honestly she doesn't know how she will make it. She is very sure she will not pass her year end test to pass her grade. She is a wiz in Math, but struggles in studying because she never HAD to do homework or study in China. I can't help but think that's because girls' education isn't valued at all there. We are trying hard to help her develop good study habits. When I say hard, I mean she and her Daddy are spending hours upon hours in the evenings to do one subject lots of times...so that she can begin to grasp all the English she needs to learn the material. Sometimes all those efforts still means she doesn't make the mark. It's really disheartening to her to try so hard, spend so much time in preparation and to still not do well. Of course, her Dad and I believe in her and KNOW that if the material was in Chinese, she would pass the tests with ease. That's not exactly an option though. We are exploring some options, ways to translate in the classroom and also textbooks in Chinese. We will do whatever it takes to help our daughter succeed and goto college. Getting her to believe in herself and remember how very far she's already come is another story altogether. I wouldn't be as far along if you had sent me to China...I can assure you.