Adoptions and Thankfulness

The day after I had Asher, hormones arush and crazy, I realized the profound love of a mother and wept for, as my postpartum mind put it, "all the babies without mommies." I thought of orphans all over the world who were born into a world without a mother's love, without a mother's touch, without a mother's voice (do they feel so lost, I wondered, not hearing the voice they "knew" in the womb?). My head was in a rather pitiful place.

To this day, stories of adoptions as well as a baby passing away can easily make me cry. Yesterday, for instance, I cried at church when the pastor talked about visiting his adopted daughters grave (she passed away at 6 weeks due to trisomy 13), cried while reading a story in Wondertime about an adolescent, blind girl adopted from China and cried - oh, yes, still more - while reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" and the loss of Edgar's parents' baby (note that we had two days of overcast skies and rain in Colorado, highly unusual, and apparently not so good for my sense of happiness).

It is no surprise then, that on the happy occasion of our nephew's official adoption by his step dad that on entering the judges chambers and seeing a bookcase full of families adopting children from around the world that I teared up, and I teared up as the judge signed the final form making our nephew's adoption final. Such joy in seeing children happily united with a family - with a mommy and/or daddy. Such joy in seeing our nephew's dad officially recognized as his dad.

Explaining why we were going to see Jaden on the day of his adoption to Asher was interesting. I really didn't want to get into the biology of babies - yet how to explain that Jaden's stepdad was "becoming" his dad! When I told Asher something to this effect, he replied, "But Tio is already his dad." Wise words indeed. Sensing the joy of the moment, after Jaden received a certificate from the judge and an uncirculated quarter, Asher turned to Jaden with a big smile and hugged him. How did he know?

I woke up this morning with a small depression hangover from Sunday. The sun was just coming up - thank God! - as I drove to work, and I tried to work on being thankful for what I do have. Apparantly, practicing thankfulness can increase our happiness by something like 25% (whatever that means!). I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the blond heads of my two kids, and I felt thankful for them, for their place in my lives and for the unending joy I find in their lives. There is something unendingly mysterious - in the emotions and the journey - of parenthood.