I'm just back from taking Xavier to the US to meet his grandparents, aunts and cousins, as well as lots of friends, with stops in England and Germany en route.
Over the course of our two weeks of travel, I get a dozen variations of the same question from smiling strangers: "Is he yours?"
I suppose there could be two dimensions to this question: 1) "Are you his father or are you somehow just watching him at the moment?" and 2) "Are you the biological father, or is he adopted?" I suppose Xavier is light enough that it is not impossible that he would be biologically mine, though obviously the more likely explanation is that we adopted him.
In that context, the easiest answer initially seems to be, "Yes, we adopted him." But the first time I use that one, it feels almost like I'm saying, "He's mine but not really mine."
So, for all subsequent inquiries, I simply say "Yes." Yes, he is mine. No qualifying phrases. He is mine.
A few weeks after Xavier is born, his mother mentions that we need to take him up to Witlaagte, in Mpumalanga province, to meet his family. She means family both living and passed.
Xavier and I get up early the following Saturday, pick up Ellen at her house, and drive up to Witlaagte together. We go first to her aunt's house and spend an hour or two with the family. Ellen introduces them to me and to the baby and then gets caught up on local news and gossip.
After we've been there a while, Ellen tells me it is time to go talk with the ancestors. We get in the car, along with her uncle, and drive over to the cemetery where her mother and grandmother (among other family members) are buried. It is a true rural cemetery, dusty and overgrown with brush but with the tombs still displaying the plastic flower bouquets that serve as telltale signs of an ongoing connection to the living.
Uncertain of my role, I initially stand by the car holding the baby while Ellen and her uncle walk towards the graves. Noticing that I am not with them, Ellen quickly motions me to come over. We kneel down first by her grandmother's grave and then by her mother's grave. At both, her uncle begins by pouring water from a small plastic bottle around the perimeter of the headstone. Then Ellen and her uncle both speak briefly.
Everything is in seSotho, so I have no idea what was being said. But on the way back Ellen provides an explanation that I somehow find both moving and humorous. "I just told them that if they see a white man with the baby, they must not worry. They must know that it is his father and that his father is taking care of him. So now they know who you are and there will not be any problems."
We would not finalize any of the legal paperwork for another couple of months, but for Ellen I think this is the moment when everything is final. The family knows. The ancestors know. Everything is now as it should be.
