Snowflakes

                                             13 years ago today

Yao hand held Ivan’s tightly, he took deep and labored breaths to try and ease the coursing pain that was going through him. He had just given birth to their first child, and was now delivering their second.

“You’re almost done…” The doctor said. Yao screamed and swore in his native tongue, as he pushed. His screams where then matched with a higher pitched wail.

“It’s a girl!” The doctor said happily. He held up the tiny infant.

 Both girls were washed and got their umbilical cords cut before each daughter was placed in either Yao or Ivan’s arms.

Ivan looked down and saw the sweet and innocent faces of his daughters. He felt a tugging in his chest and warm liquid began to fall from his eyes. He was crying.

Yao and Ivan’s families had been watching from the door. They watched as the newly found family held their daughters. Shockingly, Belarus was the first to bring herself to cry, followed by Ukraine and soon enough both families were shedding tears of joy.

“They look like me.” Was all Ivan could bring himself to say.

Yao softly laughed, he had also been crying. He reached into a brown paper bag that he had brought with him to the hospital. He took out a hand made Panda bear, and set it next to the squirming little girl. Ivan also reached into the bag, his sister had made a scarf almost exactly like his except on one end, a tiny Panda bear holding a sunflower was stitched into the fabric. He wrapped it around the other daughter. It fit like a blanket around her, needless to say it was adorable.

 Yao fell back on the bed; exhausted. As he felt himself give way from the exhaustion, the last thing he saw were the both of his daughters being taken away.

                                                                                 *

                                                                        Present day

 Two young girls lay in newly fallen snow with their fingers intertwined. They watched as the tiny little puffballs they were so familiar with, descended from the sky. The wind nipping and biting at them through their thin sun dresses clearly not the appropriate weather attire. The girls however, didn’t mind or notice the frigid cold. They just watched as the little bits of fluffy crystals fell from the sky; enchanted.

“Girls! Girls!” Yelled a voice semi familiar to the twins.

Simultaneously, both sat up and looked in the direction of where the voice hollered. It was their recent foster mother. She looked frustrated (and a little bit funny) in her bright pink winter-coat, her freckled cheeks bright red from the wind. She signaled for the two to get into the house. Sighing they stood and calmly walked over to the red-headed women.

“Look at you two!” She yelled.

“You’re dressed in nothing, but light summer gowns in the midst of a snow storm. Do you want to get ammonia?” She scolded. The girls shrugged.

“Not to mention you have an interview with a potential couple in an hour!” She continued.

The girls just looked back to the women, not much of what she said really mattered to them. They had been bounced from foster home to foster home all over the country for as long as they could remember. They had been interviewed and questioned from over a thousand couples, none of them even bothering to get to know them.