International adoption involved heaps of paperwork, home visits and a long wait. But as the saying goes, a drop of water can penetrate stone, and after six years, we finally received our referral, which meant we had the Chinese government’s official approval to adopt the child they matched us with.
Before receiving documents from the social workers at our adoption agency, I was told only my daughter’s age and shown two small photographs. I hurried to complete the additional paperwork and do whatever was necessary to reach her as quickly as possible.
Sharing her photos with my older children, I laughed with joy. Dressed in a thick quilted onesie, she looked like a delectably round puff pastry.
“I love her!” my youngest son cried. Learning they shared a birthday made it even more special.
Her umbilical cord was still attached when she had arrived at Poyang County Social Welfare Institute in the rural southeastern Chinese province of Jiangxi. She had spent much of her first year there in a crib. On a November day in Nanchang, the provincial capital, my beautiful daughter was presented to me like a gift wrapped in layers. She had just turned one.
When I held her for the first time, she rested her head on my shoulder and nestled against me. Profound peace settled over me. To me, it felt like we belonged.
Unwrapped, her roundness proved to be a facade. Beneath layers of puffy clothing, she looked malnourished. Her tiny legs hung like a rag doll’s. When I sat her up, she flopped over like a wilted flower in need of water and sunlight.
But she quickly grew stronger; in the first couple of weeks while we were still in China, she reached milestones at a pace I couldn’t believe, moving from sitting to crawling, then standing, and finally taking her first steps, blooming like a time-lapse rose.
After hectic days spent in traffic, surrounded by concrete and steel, we stopped at People’s Park in Nanchang. With its lake, flowers and trees, it was a refuge — a place where life slowed down. And it was exactly what I had been craving: a chance to savour each moment with my new daughter.
Holding her amid chrysanthemums and golden ginkgo trees, breathing in the fresh air was pure joy. Couples young and old danced on emerald grass and people practised tai chi. In a stone courtyard, we watched as a woman dipped a brush the size of a small broom into water to paint calligraphy onto the cement. It’s a public art form called dishu, and you can often find people practising it in Chinese parks. With feather-light strokes, the woman scripted delicate Chinese characters along the concrete walkways, each quick, elegant stroke skimming the ground like a bird’s wing. Each word gradually evaporated.
Boats paddled across sun-dappled water. As we crossed a bridge, women patted my little one, wished us well.
Soon we headed home to Edmonton.
That spring, my daughter and I wandered through Hawrelak Park. Canada geese marched across the tall grass near the pond. An elderly woman approached, chatting excitedly and murmuring words I didn’t understand. Captivated, my daughter listened to the language she had left behind.
Adoption brings joy, but also loss and unanswered questions. Of all the layers she arrived with, some can’t be peeled away.
Edmonton is a vibrant, diverse city, and an ideal place for her to grow up. We lined up local experiences for her: the John Janzen Nature Centre, the Royal Alberta Museum, Telus World of Science and the Valley Zoo. She participated in rock climbing, dance, art and city camps, experiences sometimes fleeting, sometimes abiding. Now a high school student, she continues to pursue art and dance. Watching her grow into a talented, kind and beautiful young woman is a great privilege.
Capturing fleeting moments can feel like chasing butterflies. But then I remember holding my daughter in that park in Nanchang, watching someone write with water on stone — an ephemeral art. Impermanence didn’t diminish my gratitude. It deepened my pleasure in witnessing it.
Moments with my daughter are like that: written in water, flowing drop by drop into a love that carves stone.
This article appears in the September 2026 issue of Edify
