A reunion
The holidays had just passed. Dulles International Airport was crowded. The Schlesinger children, Ryan, 8, Brynn, 5, and Avery, were hungry and grumpy. They had been waiting more than three hours.
Jana was moving slowly through Customs, unable to call Eric and warn him about the delay. She was anxious, having already used the seven-hour flight to prepare herself for meeting a child who was alive with a part of her.
When she finally emerged from her arrival gate, she saw five eager faces and a large, homemade welcome sign.
"I was excited, nervous, happy, everything - it was a complete mixture of feelings," Jana says, as the setting sun darkens the living room. "I was finally there."
"It was emotional and special and at the same time felt normal," Eric adds. Avery is curled up in his lap now, humming to herself and picking at the hem of her pink and yellow polka-dot dress.
"Avery warmed up to Jana faster than any stranger," Erin says. "She was quick." Then, after a pause, Erin says, "She loves her."
Jana knows the feeling.
"I love her already, she's like my little sister, or cousin, or something that belongs to me," she says.
After the three adults share their thoughts, there's a comfortable silence. Then Erin gets up from the couch and heads to Anne Arundel Community College, where she is getting her nursing degree - a desire ignited because of Avery's former dependency on nurses - and Avery begins to cry.
Eric raises his voice and continues talking. He reveals that Avery has been hospitalized more than 300 days, that she's been given anesthesia 70 times, that her first year of life cost more than $2 million. He talks about how having a sick child has changed his perspective and strengthened his marriage. But above everything else, he says Jana's willing sacrifice has altered the course of his family, of which she is now a member.
Janice Schlesinger, Eric's mother, who lived with the family and took care of Avery's siblings during her sickness, knows this perhaps more than anyone.
"I don't know what I believe in - kismet or faith - but she was meant to be part of Avery, and part of us now."
