It's Not Always Easy

I ran across this blog last week.

www.jethatmaker.com/blog

Her post about "After the Airport" resonated very deeply with me. She is an incredible writer. Very honest and open and insightful about her family's adoption journey. I read it late in the evening, and when I went to bed that night I grabbed Meta out of his bed and put him into bed with me. I just wanted him close to me. My heart was heavy for him. And all he's been through.

So often when we tell our adoption story or we're out with Meta or even with family and friends who know him so well; the talk goes toward how blessed he is. What a miracle he is. How fortunate he was to be chosen, and moved into our family. I understand why the conversation often goes that way. Anyone who has seen photographs of 3rd world countries understands that his life now is far more comfortable than his life in Ethiopia. It's easy to imagine that a life with school and clothes and *good* food and a brother and sister and grandparents and aunts and uncles and a mom and a dad and craigs cruisers is so much more than his old life. He is blessed. He was chosen. And yet his life is not easy. It's not without pain. He has suffered enormous loss in his 5 short years. That's the part of his story that doesn't get talked about a lot.

My neice turns 3 this October. I watch her interact with her Mom and Dad. The love and trust she has for them is almost palpatable. For her Grandparents. For her life. She is trusting and dependant (even though she's getting more and more independent every day). She has routines. She has friends. She has food and places and things that she loves. Meta was a little older than her when he was relinquished to an orphanage. When everything in his world was turned upside down. When I imagine this happening to children I know and love, at that "not so young age"; my head won't let my heart even go there. I can not imagine. I don't want to. It would hurt too much to even consider. And yet that's exactly what happened to Meta.

It is good for me to remember. It causes me to pause when he's acting up and ask myself why. It gives me more patience. It helps me understand him just a little more. It gives me compassion for my son. I remind him often that we are his family forever. No matter what. Forever. And I pray that he believes me.

Adoption includes loss. It also includes lots and lots of blessings. But today, for whatever reason, my heart is thinking about the loss. And I think that's OK.