christmastime

We went to see Mikey's Vietnamese family yesterday for Christmas (Mikey's half Vietnamese, half Ukrainian... which is probably why he just looks Native American). It was great in so many ways - they have this incredibly high energy and just wrap up Micah in their effusive blanket of love. And they cook like there's no tomorrow - their duck and pork and lettuce-wrapped rolls! Mmm, mmm.

They adore Micah. They get down on their knees - all of them - and play with him and cuddle with him and kiss him and just love him. He's a pride for his Great-Grandma on that side.

But you know. There is a lot of prejudice still with not being full Vietnamese. Mikey went through some of that - actually, a lot of that. And after living in Asia for 10 years, I know there is even more prejudice towards disability there then there is here. Aborting a disabled fetus would just be good sense, no big tug-of-emotional-war over it. That is, if you know about the disability. If you don't, then you just deal with it as best you can.

I felt a wave of sadness when I was watching his family play with Micah yesterday. They love Micah despite the fact that he's not full Vietnamese, and a big part of that is that Micah is so very easy to love - he's beautiful, smart, funny - all of these things that we'd like to see ourselves being. I wonder what it'll be like if Moxie's not all those things. And not just with his family - with mine too.

I talked about it with Mikey after we left and he said he'd been thinking the same thing when we were there, and it does. Make him sad too, that is. He said that it'll be all okay because we'll provide our little Rainbow Tiger Moxie-girl all the love she'll need if she's got Ds.

I hope we'll be able to. And I hope that we'll be able to help his family love and accept her and claim her as their own, just as they do with Micah.