But the effect is monstrous, because a document that lists only the hard parts of a person, and none of the joy, none of the humor, none of the particular light that makes them who they are, is not a description of that person at all.

It is a description of a problem.

And when twenty families read a file like that and made their decisions, they were not deciding about Maya.

They were deciding about a problem the file had constructed in her name, a paper shadow that had almost nothing to do with the actual laughing, stubborn, collar-grabbing child.

They said no to the shadow.

The tragedy is that they never once got to meet the girl.