In six hours we will finally meet Sarah...wow!  I really thought this day would never come.  I am so incredibly excited and yet a little sad at the same time.  There are going to be a lot of firsts today but there are also a lot of lasts.  This is the last day of easy street parenting for us.  Parenting is never easy but in reality, we have two children who are pretty easy.  They are our biological children, they have been with me since conception.  No one has harmed them or abused them.  They speak English.  They know the rules of our house.  They love us and they know we love them...no question.  And there are only two of them.  I can hold one by each hand.  Those days are over.  Sarah has had a tough life so far.  She doesn't know who we are or what we may do to her.  She has no idea that we will love her unconditionally forever.  She won't even understand us when we speak to her.  All the sights, smells and tastes of our house will be foreign to her.  Her life is about to be completely and totally rocked.

But this is what she is gaining...what WE are gaining.  This is Ruthie's interpretation of today.  There is a lot of love in this picture.  This may not be what today ends up looking like but hopefully sometime down the road, it is what our family will look like (with Bryan in the picture of course.)  There is a lot of love in this picture and a lot of love in our family.  

If you have a minute this evening, or if you are awake at 1 AM (which is 1PM in China), say a little prayer for us.  We could use it.

Born From Loss (It's Friday...Sunday's comin')

This day sucks.  Quite frankly this day of the year always sucks for me.  Which is a really selfish way of saying that this day sucks for me because it sucks for my husband and I hate to see him sad.  Ten years ago today my husband lost his best friend.  Ok, let's be honest, not his best friend, his girlfriend.  And let's be even more honest to say not just his girlfriend but the woman he thought he would marry.  They had made plans, were waiting until she graduated and they had all their grad school plans firmed up and then it would happen...except it didn't...because she died...ten years ago today.  

Even though we are ridiculously happy together this day always leaves him a little blue and leaves me a little confused.  After all, if he is happy with me, how can he mourn the loss of another woman?  I've never been able to understand it, that is until this year.   

This year we are waiting on pins and needles to be told that we can come to China and pick up this darling little girl but we would not be on this journey had we not experienced two gut wrenching losses within about 6 months of each other.  I am holding neither a 10 month old nor a 3 month old but I am ecstatic to soon be holding an 8 year old.  This has been an eye opening journey about the state of the world, about parenting, about adoption, and about expanding our capacity to love.  I wouldn't give it up for anything yet we wouldn't even be on this journey were it not for our losses.  

Our little Sarah has experienced unspeakable loss.  She has lost her family, her identity, her first foster family and she is about to lose her second.  She will be gaining a forever family but not before she loses everything she knows.  She will lose her friends, her cuisine, her culture.  We plan to preserve these things where we can but let's face it, we will still be a bunch of white people trying to do Chinese holidays, culture and cuisine some justice.  

I get really uncomfortable when people talk about fate, soul mates and God always meaning for us (Bobby and I, or Sarah and our family) to be together.  You see, that implies a whole lot of things that I just don't think God is responsible for.  If Bobby and I are soul mates then what was Katherine?  A bump in the road, a girl who was meant to die?  I doubt that very seriously.  And what about Sarah?  Did God intend for mother to leave her by the side of the road?  Is that why He created her?  Of course not.  

I know that at some point she will ask questions about why her parents couldn't keep her and why God let that happen.  She will question why people say that we were meant to be a family.  She will not understand how she can mourn for her birth mother and her foster mother and still love us.  Even more than that, Bryan and Ruthie will question this, just like I have questioned Bobby year after year on March 1st.  I think that because of the origins of our family I will have an answer for them.

"I don't know."  I will tell her.  "I don't know why your mother left you.  I don't know why my babies died.  What I do know is that I love you.  I know that God brought us together and made something right and joyful out of something so wrong and so sad."

Our family is one born from loss.  Like so many metaphors that are out there:  the phoenix rising from the ashes, the rainbow after the storm.  

One of my favorite priests years ago gave a Good Friday homily in which he talked about what that Friday must have been like for the apostles.  How horrible it was for them because they did not know.  They did not know that in two days Sunday would come and everything would be turned around.  He talked about how we each have our Fridays, the days in which it seems no good will ever find us.  We have to remember about Sunday.  We have to look around and say to ourselves...it's Friday...Sunday's comin'.  I said that to myself as I lay on a table last April.  That day was my Friday but Sarah is my Sunday.  This day 10 years ago was Bobby's Friday but we, his family, are his Sunday.  A family born of loss but oh, what a beautiful family it is.  

Try to remember that when you are in a bad place, when you feel discouraged or hopeless, if you let Him,  our Lord will bring joy from your pain, beauty from your loss.  It's Friday...Sunday's comin'.