We spent the morning together at the Bronx Zoo. When we first met up with her, Gabe was predictably very shy and buried his head into my shoulder. He doesn't warm to new people easily anyway and I think the added pressure that this was a very important person, made him even more shy. Mi Yeon was such a good sport, even though I knew all she wanted to do was pick him up and squeeze as hard as she could. We started to look at some animals and that helped him warm up. Mi Yeon is smart and good with kids so she started to play hide and seek with rocks...that game speaks no language. The two of them ended up spending a lot of time hanging out under a tree playing with rocks and acorns. Whenever I mention Mi Yeon or see a picture of her now, he always says "we played with acorns." We really didn't care if we saw one animal, all she (and Dave and I) wanted was for her to just BE with him. I was so proud that he warmed up and really had fun with her.
Before we made the trip, we talked a lot about who Mi Yeon is and what the visit was about. I'm so glad we prepared him that Mi Yeon would be going back to Korea and the 3 of us were going back to Chicago. Towards the end of the day he kept saying "Mi Yeon, back to Korea." He wasn't saying it in an anxious way but a reassuring way. Around 2pm, Dave wisely said that he was going to fall asleep and she should start to say good bye to him. We headed to the exit, exchanged some gifts and had a very teary goodbye.
The take away feeling for Dave and I was the undeniable, unrelenting, true love that she has for our son. I can't fully describe the overwhelming sense of pride, luck and love that we felt that so many people love our son and will always be in his life. In all my years, I will never adequately be able to thank Mi Yeon and her family for giving our son the great start in life that he will reap the benefits of his entire life. We are so blessed to have them in our lives and as our family in Korea. We can't wait to for Gabe to be reunited with Mrs Park (his foster mother) when we travel back to Korea to bring Levi home!
