An Unexpected Valentine

I’ve been holding off posting this blog because it relates to a very personal area of my life. I almost clicked erase a hundred times but couldn’t bring myself to completely trash my thoughts. Then I realized Valentine’s Day would be the perfect time to show my love for an important person in my life.

Two Saturdays ago a letter showed up out of the blue. A bona fide (although computer typed) letter with a cute heart drawn in blue ink beside the name. The only people that send me notes (other than birthday or Christmas cards) are Christy and Uncle Tommy. (Note to friends: don’t spoil the surprise and tell me you appreciate their letters too because I’d like to think I’m the special one.)

This was the best kind…a 6×9 bubble mailer. Sophie was puzzled that there was no return name, just an address and two letter state abbreviation she couldn’t recall. When I told her who it was from, we played tug-of-war over who got to open it.

It was a letter from her birth mom. Instantly I was back to the day we arrived at a hospital in Kansas with empty arms…only to leave full. I was in close contact with her birth mom before and after Sophia was born until suddenly, a couple of years later, the letters stopped. I experienced a brief pause and told myself, “This is how it needs to be.”

Receiving this letter after so long an absence brought many thoughts to the surface. I was tentative at first, then surprised at how I giddy with excitement I became when I saw Sophie’s eyes light up. This is how it needs to be, I told myself. And instead of feeling threatened, I was suddenly aware of how indebted I feel toward her birth mom. Like I’d name a town after her if I could. Okay, maybe a street in a really cool town. Nonetheless, I want to scream out, “I love this girl!!!!!!” just like in the commercial, in hopes she can hear five states away. Such an intense love for a girl I barely know.

When the pictures from the envelope spilled onto the table, I knew what caught Sophie’s attention—the nose? The eyes? Maybe the lips? Hair color? Of all the gifts I’m able to provide, there are some things money can’t buy and I am at peace with that.

Sophie scrambled upstairs to read the note. She cranked out Coldplay while reading a letter that was addressed to me. Eventually I made my way upstairs to have a read.

“Are you sure about this? Doesn’t it make you feel odd, bringing her into your life?” you ask.

Absolutely not.

Without this girl who gave birth to my daughter, I would have missed out on my gift. It’s that simple. Nothing will ever change what Sophie and I are to each other: no letter, no meeting in years to come, no knowledge of or lack thereof. A love story that began over 13 years ago will entangle our lives forever. This is exactly how it was meant to be!

I studied the note—a mixture of sweet and kindness, revelation/happiness/silly, all tied together with a bow of gratitude. We noticed many similarities and Sophie and I laughed at the top of our lungs because we realized where this-and-that came from. The glasses and braces I remember when I met her are gone; the high school girl who graduated with my child in her belly has become a woman. Now she smiles from the picture, with her husband at their wedding, and arm and arm with her sisters.

Our hearts are full.

I really can’t think of what to say next; why am I even penning something so personal? Maybe because writing is one way I can offer an ounce of gratitude, and maybe because I hope she will read this one day. And maybe because I’m feeling so much love today and I want to share it. And why not? I’ve thanked people for gifts of money, friendship, casseroles and flowers. While I’ve never really thanked someone for life, this is me trying. And midst this extremely feeble attempt, I somehow pray that birth moms everywhere know how much they are loved for the gifts only they could give.

Wouldn’t it be great if you put into words something that makes your heart happy today? Maybe it’s thanking someone for their huge act of kindness, or maybe it’s simply telling them how you appreciated their small gesture of concern when you needed it most.

Your words are powerful. Certainly more powerful than any box of chocolates you may think of buying. So here’s to celebrating love, and happiness, and gifts that come in forms we least expect.

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I have so much more to share on the gift of adoption in the future! I have more friends than I can count who have amazing stories of how their families came to be. Each one is different, unique to their situation. For Regi and me, our children’s stories are entirely separate as well. I do not intend to say that if you aren’t in touch with your child’s birth mom your story is less. Pure and simple: Kids need families and families need kids! And adoption is a gift that chose us and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I originally started writing this blog in honor of some friends who celebrated the finalization of their adoption last Friday. How beautiful to witness first hand a new branch sprout on their family tree! Last year if you had told them they were going to become parents, they would have called you crazy. But God had something greater than they could ever dream and now a precious 12-year-old daughter shares their name. I have no doubt that she was born to complete their family. She’s like the unread P.S. on the letter of their lives. Perhaps these friends will understand most the place in my heart where this blog comes from.

Tearing Up the Scary

The first time Eli forgot his lunchbox I didn’t realize it until it was almost too late. I got to school just as the second graders were marching towards a smell that, in my opinion, was anything but appetizing. Imagine a wave of relief sweeping over a face. My boy looked at me through tears. “She said I had to buy my lunch. And that I had to eat it.”

I got that hen and her chick feeling, ready to peck away at the teacher who would be so mean as to tell my son he had to do anything, let alone eat that mess.

I never knew my son was quite so obedient!

It was a few months ago on a Sunday after I routinely asked Eli how Kid’s Chapel went that I was in the chicken coop all over again. He promptly said, with disdain written across his freckled nose, “They told us to think of the one thing that scared us the most. Then they made us draw it!”

Before allowing him to finish, I decided that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. My feathers started to ruffle. This is church…a place where we should not have to discuss what makes us uncomfortable. I asked him to continue so that I knew exactly who I’d be giving a piece of my mind to.

“What did you draw?”

“Ch…” He hesitated, because he won’t say the word that scares him the most. “Ch…”

Somewhere along the way, and at someone’s house who will go unnamed to protect their innocently guilty self, he was on YouTube and found the movie trailer of that sick-o doll that comes to life and kills people. I can’t say or even type the name because it has been struck from our family’s vocabulary.

Just know that since stumbling on that horror, he has obsessed over it. If we pass the movie section at Target and he sees it on the shelf, he goes around it, hands covering his face. We banished everything with eyes from his room: teddy bears, nutcrackers, even a mirror. For months we dealt patiently with him at bedtime. No matter the prayers offered, he was not convinced that God cared because his pleas for this evil to leave his mind would not go away. Regi and I took turns laying down with him and singing happy songs as he drifted to sleep. We left lights on. He would sneak into his sister’s room and sleep with her. He would moan down from the upstairs railing saying that within fifteen seconds of closing his eyes he would have a terrible dream. Nighttime was a nightmare for us all.

It even culminated with him dragging his comforter and pillows into the hallway and sleeping for a couple of weeks. Night after night he lay between the wall and stair railing, bundled like a babushka in his blanket to protect him from the bad lurking around him.

About a week after he was forced to draw his deepest fear, I took some clothes to his room. His comforter lay in a crumpled mess on the floor. It struck me as odd because it was never that far from him at night.

Later he said, “Guess what, Mom? I didn’t sleep with my comforter around me last night. I don’t have to anymore. And You Know Who doesn’t bother me anymore!” Remember that swell of relief I mentioned? Now it came across my face.

That dreaded day in Kids Chapel something more happened. And after I untangled my tail feathers, Eli told me the rest of the story.

“What happened after you drew this terrible picture of …” I asked.

“There was this light that they [the leaders] shone on everything we drew. Then they held up all the pictures of our fears and ripped them to pieces. They shouted and we sang some songs and they said I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Jesus is bigger than my fears.”

I’ll be honest. After he told me what happened, I shrugged it off as a cute-little-act done in cute-little-children’s-church. I mean, if my prayers hadn’t worked by now, he could never grasp the significance of shredding his fears into tiny little pieces. Don’t most parents drop their kids off in class with the simple hope that they’ll make a friend and put their quarter in the offering so they can call it a day? You mean my big God shows up in little kids’ church?

While I’d like to say that Eli’s fears flew the coop the same night he drew that picture, it took a little time. It had to so that my grubby little fingerprints were nowhere to be seen on his miracle.

When we try to make everything so perfect and unnerving for our kids, we interfere with God’s desire to show them who He is. Our vain attempts to smooth the rough waters called life means they don’t get to experience Him as Protector, Healer, Provider and Savior for themselves! Eli needed to see the life altering effect that happened when he faced that creepy little doll through the mighty power of a mighty God by tearing his fear to pieces himself.  I’d rather my kids face life with a few battle scars because they’ve learned how to fight than show up to battle without a single skill.

In conclusion…well, I really don’t how to conclude. This was intended to be a post on why I’m thankful for the Pastor Bill’s and Pastor Ian’s, the Brittany’s and the Amy’s, and all the others that call my kids by their name. Who pray for them. Who make them feel welcome every time they arrive. Who make church fun. And relevant. Who care enough to provide their lives as an example week after week. Who put up with chatty teenage girls who’d rather talk than pray. And who understand enough to show these kids that the same God who cares about mortgages and heart conditions is the same God who cares about boogeymen and midterms.

But truly this post is about what I’ve learned from my own children…again. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some pictures of my own to draw. And a lot of tearing up to do.