Jeff: Nastiya's Visit to California

Let’s go back to the airport, but three weeks prior the start of this narrative. We were at the airport at about 11PM waiting for a group of children to come through security. We had received a picture of Anastasiya (Nastiya) that was taken at the orphanage in Ukraine. We expected a pretty averaged-sized girl. As the group of 8 tightly-clustered children came walking towards us, we recognized Nastiya’s face – but on a tiny little wisp of a girl. I exaggerate – she is quite well proportioned for her size, but she was definitely a lot smaller than we expected. She was also exhausted. We got down on the floor with her and a woman who had volunteered to act as a translator. After a few questions about do you like this food or that food, do you like swimming (most of the answers were either a no or a noncommittal response – I think Nastiya was so tired she thought we were asking if she wanted any of these things right now), we were ready to head for home. Nastiya took one second to walk back to Lena, point at us, have a brief discussion and get a hug from Lena (four years older), and we were off!

Lots of details of the next three weeks. I’ll just tell a couple stories of my own regarding that time. Some of the time, I was traveling for work as usual. But I did have time to get to know Nastiya and really appreciate her spirit. Here was a 10 year old girl in a house with people she had basically just met. Who didn’t speak the same language. Thousands of miles from her home. She did get tired, and she did get discouraged from time to time, but overall she was ready, willing, and able to tackle whatever was coming next.

One of the things that was coming next, six days after she arrived, was Connor’s birthday party. Nastiya helped us get ready, and I remember playing with her during this. I was trying to tease her a bit, and she finally “sent” me to my room – she made it very clear that I was to go upstairs. For the next hour or so, I tried to get released – I would call her name, and honestly I have no idea what she called in response, but it sure sounded like “stop it! Stay there!” She got the upper hand in teasing me!

Another morning, Nastiya slept in longer than the rest of the family. When she came out of her bedroom yawning, I said “dobre otro” and stretched out my arms for a hug. Nastiya walked towards me with a smile and her arms stretched out, but at the last second she turned, walked right past me and gave Connor a hug!

The card game was the one of the best evenings. Sue and I could not for the life of us figure out the rules, but Nastiya continued to try to teach us – in Russian, of course! It got quite animated at times, what with us not following the rules, and Nastiya being very clear about what the rules were. I’m going to ask her about that in a couple months

Nastiya had just spent three weeks with us. There is no question that she is a missing member of our family. We did our darnedest to keep a positive attitude as we took her to the airport on the last day. But the house sure did feel a bit lonely when we got home.