All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [169]
Where Neelam was all gentle responsibility, her baby sister was all attitude. She told me she wanted to be a human rights lawyer when she grew up, to help poor people. I had no doubt she would be qualified, cut out for it, capable to the max. The question was, of course, could she make it out of the slum first? Girls like Neelam and Komal were exactly the kids who were trafficked. Easily, so easily, a man in the neighborhood with financial pressures of his own could invite them for a snack and whisk them to a brothel. Easily, a male relative could show up and say they were his “responsibility,” and because he himself was poor beyond poor or he came from a state where child marriage was still common, he could sell them to a pimp, arrange a marriage for the dowry money, dispose of them.
In talking about our dreams, Neelam said all she wanted was to make others happy. Life had taught her, so young, that that was her purpose. But I encouraged her to read, to play, to talk to an imaginary friend, to find something, anything, that could be just hers inside of herself. I explained that unless she built up a sense of her own self, she would have nothing to actually give the others she clearly loved so much. It was not lost on me, even then, that I was in a way talking to my younger self, offering her the lessons it had taken me so many years to learn.
At the end of our visit, the girls looked at each other expectantly and then asked me to bring them home with me to America, saying they wanted to live with me. I realized they had planned this moment. They had coordinated their request, maybe they had even rehearsed it a few times prior to my arrival. I imagined my own sister and me as little girls, collaborating in an effort to have our way about something.
I was having a flurry of fiercely competing thoughts. I wanted to say “yes” although I knew it was not practical. I could not adopt them simply because in this moment I did not want to endure the pain of seeing their faces fall when I denied them their birthright, a childhood free from hunger and want, a guaranteed education—things I obviously could provide. But what about the real complexities of international adoption? Indian bureaucracy? My husband? Did I have the right in this instant to say “yes” simply because they had asked, when I couldn’t guarantee it would be allowed, and I would be making a huge unilateral decision within my marriage?
In fact, I believe that I did have the right to say yes. Just as I, as a little girl, had had the right to hear “yes” when I begged a variety of adults to adopt me, to take custody of me, to give me safe harbor away from a life that included terrible abuse. But those adults, even grandparents who cherished me, had said “no.” And now, so did I. In that moment, as I quietly turned down two vulnerable girls, I became the kind of adult I had sworn I would never be: a practical person constrained by “reality” who says no to little girls in pain, grief, and need, children who would go hungry and be unprotected when I walked out the door. It gutted me.
Although I could not give them the “yes” they deserved to hear, I gave Neelam and Komal hugs, kisses, strokes, words of positive encouragement and reassurance as I thanked them for the very special day. “I can promise you that I will never forget you,” I told them. “I will always pray for you. And I will do my part to be sure that girls like you can be educated, and empowered, and realize your dreams.” With one on either side, they escorted me through their labyrinthine neighborhood back to my car. By the time we reached it, Komal, the sassy one, was tired of me. I was tired of me, too, my lame answers, the futility of my speeches to girls like these.
That night, I sat alone in my room to contemplate what I could do for the young, vulnerable girls I had met: what was realistic financially, how I could best help, how much/how many of them I could take on. My intention was to increase my conscious contact with the God of my understanding, praying for direction.