Chapter 41

After four whirlwind excursions on that first day, it was time for dinner. Bruce and I were clueless where we were heading from one destination to the next. We just got in the white van as we were led. I didn’t know if we were going to a restaurant or to Lia’s house, but I couldn’t think of any other options. 

We picked up Maia along the way. Maia, a cousin, was an English teacher at the University. Maia and I had corresponded on Messenger several times, when we wanted to make sure our message was correctly translated, and didn’t trust online translating tools. We had even spoken on the phone. I already felt that Maia was a friend, and was excited to meet her in person.

We drove an hour, mostly through rush hour traffic that came to a standstill at times on a two-lane road that ran alongside a popular park. Families unpacked cars for lakeside picnics as children wandered into the slug-like traffic. 

Misha didn’t like slow cars in front of him. I would hear him occasionally offer advice to the other drivers. I know he was telling them to “go.” How often had I witnessed Roma offering similar counsel to other drivers, even if, like now, there was no place “to go.”  

The Ranch was bustling with cars pulling in and people walking up the welcoming wide steps to the big covered front porch. I wondered if the Ranch was a restaurant or maybe a resort, with its large estate, huge swimming pool and vast, panoramic views of the mountains.  Then I noticed the people were bringing food and greeting one another with hugs and kisses. This, we were told was Georgio and Marina’s home. All these visitors were family members, some who had driven considerable distances, gathering at the Ranch, to meet us. It was a humbling realization. We were the guests of honor. The love and generosity of these people–Roma’s first family–overwhelmed my exhausted senses.

There were lots of introductions. Georgio was a cousin, and he and his wife, Marina, were the owners of the Ranch. Marina was a dentist by day, but also very talented with decorating and making the Ranch her project for the past twenty years. We toured the spacious home and beautiful grounds. It was a wedding venue, and a bed and breakfast. Georgio, who spoke English, invited us back to stay there when we brought the whole family next time.

I was glad to learn that Zaur, or Zauri, as his cousins affectionately called him, would be there with his wife. Zaur begun messaging me in English early in 2015, shortly after we found the family. Over messenger, he shared family photos and gratitude that we had given his cousin’s son a good life. I was excited to meet him in person. I recognized him as he climbed the steps to the porch with a dozen red roses. My tears, always close to the surface, spilled over as he offered me the roses and a big hug.  I excitedly started chatting with him. He held up his hand to stop me. “Sorry Debbie, only leetle English,” he said apologetically.  Apparently he had always translated his messages before sending them to me. Kind Zaur had sent me birthday, happy Fourth of July, Happy Election day–God Bless America, and Merry Christmas greetings throughout the year. And messages of sympathy when we were all devastated as a united family after Roma . . . ran ahead to Heaven.

I had once wondered if anyone would resent us for taking their cousin Igor’s son. No one in attendance that evening had ever met Roma, but this family who gathered to greet us this beautiful Sunday evening in June was well acquainted with and dearly loved Roma’s father.

A few older cousins, as we were introduced, apologized for not knowing the trouble Igor’s family was facing across the northern border in Russia in the early years of the new millennium. Before social media and cell phones, families didn’t have instant access to one another. Igor’s father, Romani, was the only family member to leave Georgia to go to Russia in search of a job. It seemed to have been the undoing of his connection to his close-knit Georgian family. When Lia learned the children, Liana and Roma, had been taken to an orphanage, she tried to help from Georgia, offering them a home. Lia was flatly denied access to her own family members, even though she had the desire and the means to help them. To complicate matters, Georgians were not permitted to cross the Russian border. While still attempting to find a way to help, Roma was suddenly gone, as our adoption seemed to have been fast tracked for reasons we didn’t know.

Of course we knew nothing of this extended family who sat around this table on this June evening. And they knew nothing of us. Would anyone resent us, as Americans, a country who represented the enemy throughout the Soviet years, who had taken their cousin’s son away, just as family members were attempting to save him. The reversal of that scenario  I can almost imagine: What if a former Soviet had come and adopted a family member away from us who we were desperately trying to save. It scares me to think of what negative feelings I still might harbor.

But this tight-knit, big-hearted, and generous family, who so obviously shared my son’s precious DNA, didn’t resent that we were the reason Roma vanished in 2002. They approached us with warm hugs and kisses. The two sisters of Romani, Roma’s late paternal grandfather, repeated “Спасибо,” Spah-see-boh, over and over, “Thank you” When they weren’t close enough to hug and kiss us, they were sitting across the table during dinner, blowing us kisses, with the sweetest eyes of gratitude I have ever seen. Any trepidation I might have had instantly melted away in the presence of their warmth.

Cousins offered toasts again and again from pitchers brimming with homemade red wine all around the table covered with a feast of fresh fruit and vegetables and traditional Georgian food. They toasted, thanking God. They toasted us as wonderful parents. To the health and happiness of our other children. I lifted my glass to my dear sister Lia, for all she had done to organize our trip. Bruce thanked everyone for their generosity, as Maia translated. And in perfect English, Zauri, speaker of “leetle English” said, “To Debbie, the best Mother in the world,” as tears overflowed my eyes again and again, although my heart was overflowing with joy and gratitude. I told them our friends who knew Roma so well instructed us to find out where Roma got his big heart, wit, and personality. The cousins pointed to Zauri’s mother, as she blew kisses, and smiled a revealing glimpse of mischief.

 Our hearts were fuller than our stomachs.

After dinner when while others cleared away the dishes, I set between the two matriarchs of the family, showing pictures of Roma from my phone. They leaned in close, transfixed, oohing over the beautiful boy who reminding them of their nephew when he was little. Besides being naturally photogenic, Roma was also ever joyful. It had to give them peace that he had a happy life. They could have no doubt that he was dearly loved by his second family. There he was, cuddled with his great grandmother, there, playing ball, with a group of smiling friends. on the other end of the camera was obviously dotting parents, ready to capture every cute thing Roma did. They chatted in Georgian with each other over each picture of the handsome child who looked eerily familiar. All three of us wiped their eyes when the dishes were cleared and we were summoned into the house where it was apparent singing and dancing was about to begin. Then I could really see the dynamics of a family’s DNA in action.

While Georgio was fetching his guitar, and the family was gathering in a large comfortable room, Zaur, who knew only “leetle English” began to sing in perfect English, the Beatles’ “Girl.”  “Is there anybody going to listen to my story all about a girl who came to stay? She’s the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry. Still, you don’t regret a single day,” and then the rest of us chimed in, “Ah, girl. . . girl.” That got the singing and dancing started in earnest.

I watched this family. Their loving interactions. Their boldness and wit and generosity, and vitality–trademarks that were also hardwired into the young Sudszashvili cousin we had the privilege to raise. The body movements, the arms slung around buddies. The confidence. The love of fun and family. I am confident Roma would have fit right in. His DNA was scattered all through this space. His spirit was almost palpable.

I may regret till my dying day that I did not find this dear, loving, generous family earlier, to ease their distress about the safety and well-being of Igor’s “disappeared son.” Roma was one of their own. He was also mine. I could not have loved that boy more if I had given birth to him. But his DNA was theirs. Here we were joined with his family, bonded in a mysterious way that God had always intended.

Finding his lost family was an extremely emotional experience in the early months of 2015 for Roma, even at age twenty-one. Would he have been ready to dig up old wounds from early childhood? I’ll never know. But this most unlikely, dare I say miraculous connection now, on this mild summer evening, eighteen months after Roma left on his own adventure, laughing, crying, showing Roma’s pictures, telling Roma stories, singing and dancing with Roma’s blood relatives, God used to heal us all.

Over the past eighteen months I’m always talking to Roma. “Roma, are you okay?” I will ask. And I can always almost hear him say, “Sure Mom, I’m better than okay. And I’m so close.”  “Did you see all this tonight, Roma? You have a great first family. Aren’t we blessed?” “Yeah, Mom, they’re pretty great. Of course they would be, you know, being related to me.” I know that is what my never-humble son would say. And he would be right for all the right reasons.

Maybe knowing God has Roma, safe and sealed, helps me not be so devastated by his crushing absence. Losing Roma would be too much. But in fact, I haven’t lost Roma at all. Loving his first family helps me understand that Roma will always go on in a cosmic complexity about which I only have a hint. But I will gladly and thankfully take it. The grief isn’t so terrible now. Now I realize that I take Roma everywhere I go.

Thank you, God for this precious and extravagant gift. I will treasure this trip, and the lessons learned there, and the healing in my heart always.

I may not be able to share as many photos. and definitely no videos, if these chapters become a book, so enjoy these now.

Continue with Chapter 42