Photos for our trip to India

I just went digging through old photo albums looking for photos of my first sponsored child, Maria Pinky Tesra Kanji.  When we're in Kolkata in a few weeks, we'll be taking Maria and her family out to breakfast at the world-famous Flury's cafe and pastry shop.  The people at Children International (the sponsorship program I've been working with since 1986) are doing a feature article on my sponsorship journey in their spring 2011 newsletter.  Maria was 4 years old when I began sponsoring her in 1986.  Now I will meet little Moutushi, who just turned 6.  I began sponsoring her just a few months ago.  In between I've had four other sponsored kids, and I've managed to meet all of them at least once (often more than once).

The folks who work with Children International in Kolkata have just contacted Maria to interview her about our decades-old relationship, and the impact that being sponsored had on her life.  My summary of that impact is that the common saying is true: if you educate a boy, you educate a man, but if you educate a girl, you educate a family.  Maria is so proud of her girls, and her #1 priority at all times is their education.  The social service agency in Kolkata will also be filming my meeting with Moutushi, who will be brought into the city from her remote village for the occasion.  Usually I like to meet my kids where they live, but there just isn't time on this trip.  Since Peter will be with me, I didn't want to miss this chance for him to meet Moutushi too.

I'm bringing photos to India on my Blackberry this time instead of carrying a little album.  I thought it would be nice to scan in all the photos I have of Maria so that she and her husband and daughters can enjoy them during our breakfast.  This required going through dozens of photo albums page by page, pulling out photos that I'd carefully saved in chronological order.  Unfortunately, I've lost the very earliest ones, but I do have at least 8 or 9 still in my possession.

But oh oh oh ... the hundreds of photos of my sweet Peter as an infant, toddler and little boy.  Yes, I knew I had them, but who can remember all those times and places, events and people?  He was a beautiful, perfect, amazing little boy with a laughing face and glowing eyes.  I took so many photos of him until he was about 8.  Then the flow decreased because he was overcome with his bipolar disorder and refused to let me photograph him.  During the transitional years from 6-8, he looks so sad in all his photographs.  His eyes are shadowed.  His mental illness has stolen so much from him.  Seeing him so happy and stable now gives me so much joy.  I want to hold onto him forever, just the way he is.

I had to put the albums away.  Turning from one page to the next in a random album, sobs of terrible loss rose in my throat.  Bipolar disorder robbed my boy of happiness for so long.  Now time is stealing his days.