October 20, 1998

10/20/1998 – I was flying with my mom and sister from Frankfurt back to the Twin Cities. We had spent almost a week visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and brand new nephew in a small town outside of Frankfurt. I had really enjoyed seeing the German countryside, getting to know my sister-in-law’s family (who ROCK!!) and catching up with my brother and sister-in-law. Of course, my nephew was just cute as the dickens!

Of course, the part of the trip that I enjoyed the least was the flight. I have an almost crippling fear of flying. I am the white knucklest of white knuckle flyers. I hate the window seat — it reminds me that I’m up in the air and NOT driving the airplane.

But since the airplane was 2/3 empty, my mom insisted that I sit by one of the open window seats. After a long while, I gave in to her nagging. This was about the time we were approaching Greenland.

I suddenly had a very deep, very strong desire to take a lot of pictures of Greenland as we flew over. I had this feeling that some child would be very interested in my aerial pictures of glaciers, snow covered mountains, rivers, and dark brown land. I just assumed that the child who would be interested was one of my Sunday School kids, Peter — my favorite student.

So I whipped out my 35 mm and took a number of pictures from the window seat. When I got the film developed, the photos were very nice. Much better than you would imagine photos taken from a DC-10 window to be.

I very excitedly took the photos to church the next Sunday to show Peter and the rest of my class. They were not impressed. Boy, was that feeling I had flying over Greenland off base. I put my photos into my scrapbook and didn’t think much of them again.

We were in the middle of the adoption paper chase at this point. Our papers were sent to China in at the end of February 1999. On September 21st, 1999, we received word that Mao Xiao Ge would be ours.

Her birthdate, according to her papers from the orphanage, was October 20, 1998.

Some China adoptive parents talk about the red thread legend — Chinese folklore that the great love(s) of your life is tied to you with an invisible red thread. I don’t know if Sarah is tied to me with an invisible red thread. But I have to wonder if she was the child that was supposed to see those photos of Greenland.

Sarah thinks it’s cool that her family was scattered all across the world on the day she was born. Dada, Grandpa, Macalester, and Sydney were in Minnesota. Mama, Grandma, and Aunt Kay were in the air, traveling between Germany and Minnesota. Aunt Caroline, Uncle David, and Cousin Corey were in Germany. And she was in China.

She’s right. It is pretty cool.

Happy 7th birthday, Sarah!!!