Light at the End of a Dark Tunnel.
I believe that you should need to experience dark times in order to appreciate love. Before I was adopted, I always imagined what love must be like. However, I never believed or hoped that one day I would be able to feel it.
It started when I was dropped off at an orphanage in Russia. I was probably only a year old, but I remember the first orphanage like it was yesterday. My memories are a little foggy, but I can remember the orphanage and how I bonded with a friend right away. Because the visits from potential parents were frequent, my hopes kept rising that I would be picked. The life at the orphanage wasn’t as hard as you might think, but it was lonesome and strict. The only people that came to visit us were the Americans or Italians trying to adopt the older kids. Sometimes hope would rise up deep within me trying to surface, trying to break free, but when I wasn’t chosen, it sank deeper than it had before. I wasn’t adopted, in fact, I was never even looked at when it came to my “adoption age”; they had said that I was too young for them to take care of.
Love had abandoned me and I couldn’t find it again. To them, we were like toys that little children got to pick and take home. Love didn’t surround us all like one might think. When it came to God, I stopped believing in him because I couldn’t seem to get a better life. Thus, I stopped believing that one day, a person is going to come and adopt me and allow me to become a member of their family. I stopped believing in a happy life where I could be loved.
Every month, a child was left at a door with a note saying, “please take care of him or her”. This is how our miserable life had begun. Our parents had just dropped us off at an orphanage and left us there to grow up. I still remember that one friend who was like my older brother. His name was Егорbl, and he was the closest thing that I had to a family. My love and hope began to surface again and I was happier. I was...