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| 2002 |
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| 2013 ~ 11 year adoption anniversary |
Joy Joy Joy. Sometimes I let life circumstances suck it out of me. I get heavy-hearted and cynical and just.so.down.on.the.world.
I can unequivocally say that the number one remedy for my waning joy is these kids.
Last Wednesday when I went to the museum with them, it was because I KNEW I needed to step away from a troubling situation we've been facing. I knew that I needed to experience child-like joy. Watching them play Prairie people in that museum was just what the doctor ordered. I wish I could chuck everything, and spend my whole life watching them play pretend in a museum. Forever happy. The end. (And, to quote my grandfather, "You may as well wish in one hand and #*$% in the other for all the good wishing will do you.)
Today, I'm feeling that weight again, feeling that joy-suck. Therefore, I am choosing to focus a few minutes on the special occasion we mark this week, the anniversary of Isaac and Hope's adoption. May it bring me (and maybe you) some joy.
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Eleven years ago today we landed at the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport with Isaac and Hope in our arms. The flight from Miami, Florida to MSP seemed endless. It was as if we were suspended in air, sucked into a time-warp, in a slow-motion movie. Never has a three hour flight taken that long. (The explosive diarrhea diapers and changing them in an airplane bathroom certainly played a role in the horrible turtle-paced ride in the sky.)
It reminds me of what Lydia says lately. We tell her, "Lydia, we are only going to be gone three hours." She replies, "Three hours?!?! That will take like 200 days." (Everything is 200 days to her.) Yes. The flight on October 30th, 2002, was a three hour and 200 day flight.
Landing in Minnesota with them in our arms, going down that escalator to the baggage claim area, seeing my parents faces, Britt and Paige, my sister, our friends, my cousin and aunt, Troy's family ... Every step of that afternoon is etched into my memory, which is saying something because my memory is truly sucktacular.
We had arrived in Florida with these two wonderful babies the day before. They were legally our son and daughter and granted citizenship upon arrival that afternoon of October 29th. We went to Wyndham Gardens Hotel in Miami and gave them warm baths and stared at them in awe until morning when we took them to MSP in their American flag T-shirts to meet their adoring extended family.
Their adoption has become the point at which our entire lives took a new direction. It is a pivotal moment in our marriage and our family. The wild journey we couldn't have planned or predicted began with this adoption.
Mesi Senye pou Ayiti ak timoun sa yo. (Thank you Lord for Haiti and these children. Amen.)
We are especially humbled by the growing relationships we have with Isaac and Hope & Phoebe's first families. Only a God of amazing and creative love and a God of restoration and healing could ever have provided us such a unique opportunity to know and love Isaac and Hope's first families.
I did not take what took place in 2002 for granted. I still don't. I never will. Our lives changed dramatically because of these two Haitian children and we are so grateful.
