Last night I was determined to learn the song Chandelier by Sia. My daughter knows practically every song on Spotify and Pandora but I have limited her options to only Pandora since I can monitor and use parental controls. But there is something about Sia’s song that made me want to learn it. Maybe it was the High notes that she sings in the chorus and seems to carry on till the awkward bridge, or maybe it is just what the song is about.

As I was learning the song (because a complicated song takes time and you have to break it up into small sections and repeat those sections over and over again) I noticed that her addiction to alcohol is like my addiction to finding out when my daughter’s adoption will be final. I’ve been hanging on for so long and just doing things to occupy myself (along with crying).

It is essential that while you are waiting (if the kids are with you), you live your life as if this is where you are going to be for the rest of it. I broke down a few days ago and after hearing that my passport won’t be ready for “six” months, and the adoption is not final, that I am pretty doomed. At times I feel that everything I set out to do has not positively come to fruition.

The other little detail I noticed about Sia’s song is that I so desperately want and need to learn the Creole language. So as I was breaking apart Sia’s interesting song, and actually learned the entire thing….I realized that it truly is possible….anything, within reason is possible.

I left you guys last time with my desperation to prove to them that I, despite my lack of an English accent, and American body language, and education, and intelligence, and may I add, beauty (all things that Haitians generally are not used to hearing or being a part of-from the mindset of its neighbor), I truly am Haitian. I had to come up with something that would prove it. It was not enough to have my adoption papers, my birth certificate and my passport all with me. It was not enough to be black, with the sponge-bob-square pants hair in every crevice of my body. It was not enough to have a booklet branded with the symbols of Haiti’s accomplishments and lack there of, it was not enough to be able to speak a few words. In the eyes of the Haitian immigration people at the boarder, I had…..yes…..I had stolen this Haitian passport and applied a German last name to the end of my “actual” name.

I would not kid you…you can’t make up a story like this….I was under speculation because my last name was NOT Haitian, oh no it was not. It also was not American, nor Canadian. It was indeed German and it means Royal Armorer. So how does a so-called Haitian maintain a Haitian passport, but has a German last name. Well, she must have stolen it.

The man helping me through this whole ordeal looked at me with a super serious face (most Haitians are confused with being completely angry and about to attack because our faces show our present feelings right at that moment….there is no pretending in Haiti) and asked me if I had stolen the passport. At this point, my eyes began to tear up….again. “No, I did not steal this passport…I was never given a US passport. My parents are American but neglected to take the right steps to make sure I was in “good” hands. Their mission work took precedence over my protection.”

“Well mam,” (yes, he called me mam….so polite of him). “The officers believe that this is not your passport.” At this point I angrily cursed my adoptive parents….I was so upset with them, after years and years of struggle, not being able to travel as much as I would have liked to, being questioned at every border when wanting to visit a friend and being forever labeled as a member of “that country” I vowed that my daughter WOULD NOT go through what I have gone through…yes, ALL of my life.

“You can’t get in” the officer told my friend. “Mwe pa kapab entre?” I repeated in my limited Creole. He raised his eyebrows and said……..