The past week has felt like months. Waiting, Breath holding, suspended in time, heart potentially ready to shatter into oblivion at any time. Then you wake up.
I
Woke
Up.
You open your eyes. You come to the realization that there are people tip-toeing around you, also suspended in time waiting for you to breathe so that they themselves can fall to the ground in a million pieces.
Today was that day.
Innocuous.
Different yet The Same?
Or
So
I
Thought.
He hopped in the car. Happy. Until in a blink of an eye, he wasn’t. That’s how it is sometimes around here. There are no words for it. The emotions seem to start bubbling up from his toes, pulsating through his veins, and overtake his core until he begins to howl. An animalistic, mournful, raging scream that pierced every square inch of the van. At first he couldn’t voice what was wrong. He didn’t know.
Until
He
Did.
He wanted to go back.
To Taiwan.
He wanted to find solace in the arms of his birth mother.
The wailing grew louder.
He was crying for the mother that cocooned him within her womb for 8 months. For the woman in his dreams that he longs to know but may never meet.
It’s in these moments that I am jolted into reality.
Because
I
Forget. He feels my love deeply. But I am not her.
I did not give birth to him…and I also grieve, because I forget. I forget, I forget.
My heart is inextricably connected to this child, but I cannot change the fact that I was never there from the very beginning. His broken heart is not mine to heal.
I
Just....
Forget.
He’s desiring what I can never offer.
I can’t take away the pain.
That sorrow.
The grieving.
I pulled the car over onto a side dirt road.
I got out.We unbuckle. We cling to one another, his tears streaming down.
I affirmed him. Told him I loved him. Apologized for this broken world and inwardly for mothers that don’t have the ability to care for their sons.
He settled.
He calmed.
For now.
Adoption Awareness month. Hard truths. No glamour. No accolades. MESSY. So So MESSY. HIS mercy and grace. Brokenness, redemption, sorrow, love, pain and loss.
Empathy, Understanding, growth, change,
Lots of Jesus.
