I have no idea. I never have.

Today I found myself wandering a store trying so desperately to efficiently choose a birthday gift for my son, who turns 4 on Saturday. It has been six months since I've heard from his adopting parents and two years since I've seen him. It's hard enough to look at toys without fighting back daydreams of my son playing with them, but there I was, erratically picking up toy after toy, this time trying to see him play with it. Would he love it? Would he even like it? Rather, would he like it for more than twenty minutes? I pick up two tool sets based on a past photo I've seen of him playing in a construction hard hat, pretending to use a screwdriver. It's the one that warms my heart so much because his birthfather and I were home renovation contractors when we got pregnant... he was pretending to be like his father and he didn't even know it. Then I abruptly threw the two play tool sets back onto the shelf because I feared that his adoptive parents may read into it and think I'm encouraging him to be more like us, and walked away. I find more cool, boyish toys and pick them up only to turn them over and think maybe they're too advanced for his age, and then again he is advanced for his age. But that thought only spirals me down memory lane to the last day I saw him, just after his second birthday, when he wowed me with his ability to speak in full sentences already, and then my eyes filled with tears and I'd snap back to the present moment where I was trying not to lose it in front of the store clerk grudgingly restocking the shelves. I try to sniffle silently, and blink away the warm saline clouding my vision of the innumerable choices stacked along the aisle, and pick up the first toy I touched just to seem like I had a clue as to what I was doing in that store.

My stomach growled so I decided to take a break and walk over to the candy aisle to peruse the chocolate, hoping its natural concoction of endorphins would alleviate some of my emotion. It wasn't even a minute later when I was disgusted by the amount of toxic, neon-colored junk they call "candy" and sulked back over to the matchbox cars and puzzles, glancing one more time at the cute play tool belt before realizing, even if his parents didn't read into it like I feared, I was making the decision based on a year-old photo of him. What if he's grown out of "fixing" and "building" things? Was it just a phase that has already passed? How many other phases or interests has he developed and lost? I have no idea what he likes to do: I never have. So how am I supposed to shop for his special day when I'm clueless as to what's special to him? I emigrate from the toys to the children's books, and settle on two. Again, deciding on a Mickey Mouse adventure book based on a photo they sent last summer of Ryder absolutely ecstatic about getting Mickey's autograph at Disney World.

These little pieces of evidence of his life are more than precious to me, but still entirely impossible to survive on. Our "open" adoption was meant to be more than the occasional photo: it was promised to be inclusive, and I am far from "included" in his life. So as I wrap up and ambiguously label his gifts "From: Anne," my heart breaks that I cannot tell him these books are from his Mama and that I would do anything to be able to give them directly to him. One more birthday comes and goes and I know less and less about my son: less about what he loves, about what he wants, or does, or feels. If I had to decipher his life based on the photographed evidence that is rarely bestowed on my inbox, I would deduce that my son is never fed, read to, or even held; and I know that's not true. It would just be nice to see it.