My Sister

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Contributor at Our Paradoxology

When Selah Mae looks at her world she sees beauty. When she steps in to a new adventure, she dances. As she goes about her day, she sings a song. Selah sees promise, potential, and opportunity always within reach: and when it turns to gold in her hands, she is eager to share it. As a blog contributor, Selah invites you to see the world through her eyes: full of beauty, wonder, glory, and grace.

My Autobiography, PART 1

When I was 7 years old my family and I went to China. We went to adopt the cutest little girl named Tallulah who is now my sister. Tallulah was a 10-year-old Chinese girl with Down Syndrome. It’s not very common to travel across the world as a 7-year-old. It’s not common to travel across the world with a 7-year-old (and my brothers were only 5 and 10). But we did it anyway and we brought our grandma along as well. So off to China we went. It was a long flight. A very long flight. It felt like it went on forever. But finally, we made it to China. We first landed in Beijing, the capital of China. I don’t remember much about Beijing. All I remember is going to the Great Wall of China. Nothing about China was the way I thought it was going to be, but the Great Wall was pretty much exactly like I thought it was going to be. But better. It was so big, so high, and there were so many stairs. It was so cool. The wall was made of gray bricks and lots of stairs. It was so tilted that if we walked right side up it looked like we were leaning back. It was pretty special and a fun story to tell.

But Tallulah did not live in Beijing, she lived in an orphanage in Guangzhou. So, we took an overnight train to Guangzhou. We got three rooms. One room was with Grandma and I, one room with my mom and Jeremiah, and one room with my dad and Josiah. The rooms were small and not all that nice, but they were ok. After 23 hours we made it to Guangzhou.

The next day, we went to go meet Tallulah. When we saw her, the first thing she did was scream. She couldn’t stop crying and did not want to go home with us at all. She kept screaming “MOM!” “MOM!” and when they told her that our mom was her new mom she cried even more. It must have been so scary. She grew up in an orphanage (though she probably did not know it was an orphanage) and it was the only place she ever knew and called home. The people there were the only family she ever had. Then one day they took her away and gave her to some strangers and told her that she would never get to go home again. I mean, what if someone took you out of your home, gave you to some strangers, and said that you would never see your family again. That would be very scary. If only she knew then what she knows now.

After we brought her to our apartment, she kept grabbing her backpack wanting us to take her back to her family. Whenever we told her that we were her family she got upset and one of the only things that would cheer her up was a yogurt drink.

By the way, Tallulah does not speak Chinese or English. She sort of speaks her own language. She didn’t seem to have a problem understanding what we were saying, which was impressive. Still, she couldn’t say any words.

Two days after we got Tallulah it was my eighth birthday. It was fun because there was a time difference, so I kind of had two birthdays. One in America time, and one in China time. I don’t remember exactly what we did on my birthday but sometime around there we went to a really awesome zoo, and we had a lot of fun. It had one cool trolly ride where there were a bunch of animals without cages just walking around.

After we got Tallulah in Guangzhou, we went to Hong Kong. We took a bullet train to Hong Kong, and we went to Disneyland. This was my first time being to Disneyland that I can remember, and it was so fun. There were a lot of rides I was too scared to go on, but my favorite was the Iron Man Experience. It was a motion simulator ride, and it was so fun. I wish I could go on it again because it is one of my favorite rides I have ever been on. Tallulah was too scared to go on a lot of rides including that one so Mom or Dad had to stay out with Tallulah but that was ok. We still had a great time.

That was our trip to China. We went to the Great Wall, got Tallulah, I spent my birthday there, and now I have the best sister I ever could have wished for. Plus, now I have a bunch of stories to tell!