11.26.2003

Stuck In Amber

Seymour and I just had a long conversation with my mom about the Sienna situation. As Seymour said, it is odd beyond words to be discussing our potential future as the adoptive parents of a little girl we've never met and who lives a thousand miles away. But again, no one else is stepping up to advocate for her. All relatives who live closer are locked in a holding pattern of denial or hand-washing.

My mom was relating a conversation she'd had with one such relative, who basically threw up her hands and declared it to be "too late to do anything about it." By which she meant way too difficult and fucking complicated and brutal and nasty. Might as well let Sienna rot, in other words--intervening means effort and tenacity and possibly long-term heartbreak.

And then there's the straight-jacketed feeling one gets while sitting around in a comfortable middle-class living room, discussing the very real possibility that the girl in question is being abused at that very moment. That nightmarish feeling of not being able to run, not being able to move when you need to attack, when you need to take action NOW, but are being held back by the worry of whipping up a storm too quickly, tipping off her mom and caregivers, and having them set the girl against you months before you're able to fully intervene.

I hereby invoke some beneficent deity to wrap Sienna in a protective cloud until we can rally all the lawyers and PI's and witnesses we need to make sure her life get re-routed, so that we can make sure she is safe. It drives me crazy to know that our efforts will, by the very nature of the legal system, drag interminably.

Please don't let her rot. We'll be there as soon as we can.

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