In battle a soldier dies--
Just so his country will rise.
The joy of a baby is born;
A person succumbs as others mourn.
A random shooting occurred,
Nearby, a disease just cured,
Around the world a girl is bought,
While a couple ties the knot.
Just as life gives, it takes.
For every joy there befall aches,
But hold to hope my friend,
Jesus is coming; there will be an end.
From that point on, we fail to see Finn as a stormtrooper, a weapon of war. He’s not one of them, a nameless soldier taught to follow orders from birth. Instead, we see him grow as a character. By the end of the movie, we’re rooting for him. We witness a dramatic change; he goes from being known as FN-2187 to Finn, who helped save the Resistance.
Personally, I’ve noticed that my viewpoint changes when I know the person’s name. Suddenly, instead of looking at an army of stormtroopers and thinking that they are all inherently evil, we’re left wondering how many Finns are in that mass? How many people are like Finn, trapped behind a mask they have never been able to separate from themselves?
Just like in the Star Wars Universe, we have stormtroopers on this earth. However, these people don’t wear physical masks (COVID doesn’t count), but the mental masks we put over their faces.
I’m talking about the millions of orphans worldwide. I’m talking about the thousands of babies that get aborted each year. I’m talking about the millions of kids who are labeled with trauma or a learning disorder, and then, they are never given another regard.
Now, please picture me. Most of you, who are reading this, have at least an idea of who I am and have read some of what’s in my heart. Let’s go back back to an orphanage in Southern China in 2006. It’s more crowded than it should be. Wails of anguish and abandonment fill the empty spaces. Do you see all the children surrounding you? Now, look at me; do you see me there in the crib?
It’s easy to picture me because you, the reader, know me. But it’s harder to picture me in an orphanage, isn’t it? Because I’m not one of these nameless orphans, I’m Juliese Padgett, someone whose heart you have had the opportunity to see. I bet you can’t see me the same way you see those other kids in the orphanage. Wait, there were others?
How many of those kids around me had the potential to help other children like them? How many could have grown up and changed the world in their own special way? How many of them got that chance?
Does this change the way you picture them? It changes my perspective because those kids were my companions in the orphanage. We might not have had a personal relationship, but we were siblings in our own way. I might never be able to see their faces or have a personal relationship with them, but I know they are far from nameless.
The takeaway of this post is this: Don’t just picture the mass. Take time to see the reality: there are millions of individuals; each has a face, emotions, and a name. It's easy to see a statistic but harder to see a person. When we remove the masks that we have placed on specific groups of people, we change. And, with this new perspective, we are given the chance to love people, to be mentors, and to become family. But ultimately, this will never happen if we see these masses as nameless.
Something I’ve realized is that I always write her as a perfect character. And as I reflect more and more, in every situation I have ever written her in, she has never had a fault, or at least one which I didn’t control. Because of this, I have forgotten a fundamental truth: my mom is like every other person on this earth--flawed and deeply so.
Weird enough, I never realized I saw her in this light until I started to write my story. Usually, when shaping a character, I use elements and characteristics from someone who has impacted my life. If my characters were to look in the mirror, I know that their reflection would be a spitting image of me. And that is why a lot of times I do abandon my stories because more of myself comes out more than I am willing to share. Through my characters, I have the power to channel my perceptions, thoughts, and even my soul.
When I sat down to write my mother’s story, I found it more challenging than I anticipated. For the first time in my writing career (if you can call it as such), I didn’t feel like I could write this character from the parts of me that I had never shown to anyone. Why? Because this character isn’t supposed to be me. This character is my mom, and even though I am a part of her story, she holds different values and opinions than I do. I came to realize that in order to write her correctly, I had to take her out of the box I had made for her.
Even though I’m only pages into this, my perceptions have already changed. My mom is not a graceful heroine, she's not infallible, and she makes mistakes that should not be applauded. She’s young, has her skeletons in the closet, and does things that she regrets. It makes her so much more real to me, and at some moments, I can almost feel her pain, but that’s not the story I want to write. My story will be one of redemption. It will be the microphone for those voices who have never been heard over the roar of the crowds.
At the end of the day, I am aware that this is only a work of fiction, and only God, the ultimate author, can write our stories. However, I feel this is a story that He has given me for a purpose.
He gave me this story to show that perceptions can be narrow and that adoptees, in particular, can have twisted notions of their birth parents, which usually end up falling in one of two categories - good and bad. This may not apply to every adoptee or even any adoptee, but I choose to believe that while every person is flawed, everyone can have redemption.
And perhaps that’s what gives me the most closure. I know that if I never go to China, if I never meet my mom, if our paths never cross, both of us are going to be okay. She doesn’t need me for closure, and I don’t need her for closure. Wherever our stories go, I know we will both get our redemption stories.
