今朝朝食を終えておもちゃの棚の整理をしていると、バスのミニカーが出てきました。
息子が施設から持ってきて寝る時もいつも肌身離さず持ち歩いたものです。白いルーフにボディは黄のかっこいい車。ドアも開きます。でも最近は遊んでいないようでした。

妻と私は顔を見合わせました。「これまだいる？」と妻が聞くと、「もういらない。捨てる。」と息子はあっさりというのです。驚きました。このバスは、長い間彼が2歳まで育った乳児院の象徴だったのですから。

「アツ」または「アチュ」。僕たちの間では未だに本名ではなくこう呼ばれたがります。子どもに恵まれなかった僕たちがすがるように戸を叩いた児童相談所の紹介で出逢いました。はじめはうまくいきませんでした。最初の２週間で疲れ果て、元の施設に預かってもらったり、半年過ぎても感情の制御ができず、黄色いバスにあたったこともありました。

保育園に行っている間に児童相談所に２人で出かけて、福祉士さんと面談したのを今でも覚えています。福祉士さんはノートを閉じて話を聞いていましたが、ついにそのノートは開かれませんでした。言葉よりもその所作で僕たちの悩みが特別なものではなく、不変のものなのだと悟りました。

それから少しずつ心は開かれ、本当の親子だと思える瞬間が増えてきました。できることなら、アチュが2歳の時に戻って可愛がり直したいと、妻は時々口にします。

でも、複雑な感情と戸惑いに正面から向き合ってきたからこそここまで辿り着けたとも思うのです。周囲のたくさんの皆さんの手を借りながら。そんな親でアチュ、勘弁ね。

黄色いバスはまだ捨てていません。もうすぐアチュは帰ってきます。もう一度聞いてみようかなあ。でも．．．．あとは自然に任せるとしましょう。

When I sorted out toys on shelf this morning after breakfast, a miniature bus came out. That was the toy our son brought in with him to our family from the infant-facility. He always carriied it around with him and stuck to it even during his sleep time. It's  a cool yellow-body vehicle with white roof-top. Even the door opens up......Somehow he didn't seem to play with it lately.

When my wife asked our son.."Do you still need it?" ..the answer was kind of emotionless ..."I don't care any more...why don't you trash it"..With this surprise, I and my wife looked each other face to face because it was like his totempole or symbol of the infant-facility in which he was brought up and stayed for quite sometime until he became two years old.

He was called either "Atsu" or "Achu" at the facility. He still likes to be called this way among us at home rather than his real name.  When we were not blessed with a child, we felt like catching a straw desparately and knocked on the door of a child-welfare consultation center. We met him there. Things didn't go well first between us. We were so tired for the first two weeks, and there was time that we had to ask for a temporary custody of him at the same facility he came from. After half a year, we still couldn't inhibit our emotion well. We even picked at the yellow toy bus.

We reminisce the time we went to the child-welfare consultation center to see a certified welfare care-giver while our son was attending his nursery school. She was listening to our side of story with her note book closed. Actually it was never opened up while we were sitting there.Through the way she expressed and behaved, we could somehow comprehend that our worries were not specific, but rather universal.

Since then, our heart started to open up gradually, and we noticed that numbers of time in which we were able to feel/share our true parent-to-child relationship with him have increased. My wife occasionally says that, if it were possible, she wishes she would like to go back to the time Achu was 2 years old and love him again by redoing the things she would have done better then.

To tell you the truth, we are confident that we could come all the way to this point since we tried earnestly to face the matter of complex emotions and perplexities....needless to say with the help of many people surrounding us...Achu, please give your powerless parents an extenuation!

Well, we have to tell you  that we've been stuck with the yellow bus which wasn't trashed yet. Achu's soon coming home any time, We'll ask him again if he needs it or not....After all, regardless of the outcome, we'll let God handle the rest.