Hope

Today was Keira's 8-month Birthday.  Isn't she something?  Her eyes are these massive dark soulful little numbers that mesmerize me.  She's lived a life most people only hear about...or dread...or fear.  Abandoned.  Left behind.  Twice over.  

But look at her!  So resilient, so wonderful and beautiful and full of life and hope.  I know she has hope, because each day she gets up and she smiles for me. 

When we were in China I would sing her to sleep each night, or try to anyway.  I would sing...

Smile though your heart is aching

Smile even though it's breaking

when there are clouds in the sky

you'll get by

If you smile through your pain and sorrow

Smile...and maybe tomorrow

You'll see the sun come shining through for you...

on and on and on...over and over...trying to comfort her.  Trying to give her hope for tomorrow.  Hoping that she could feel her tomorrows in my arms...knowing that she was having a hard time feeling the next ten minutes in my presence alone.

But actually, all this talk of adjusting...of pain...of heartache is only partially about sweet Keira.  Though her pain was sharp and apparent from the first moment we saw her.  She has been fighting towards joy since the time we met.  Though truthfully, not as apparent to me as it is now that we are home and settling.

Keira's loss will be felt for years to come - there is no doubt in my mind.  But at this tender age, her ability to recall all of the days leading up to this are surely limited.   She knows the moment.  Warmth, hunger, physical comfort...and interaction.  Sweet interaction.    And for this moment, (and many more to come) her needs are being met, and she is more and more at home in our arms every day.  Smiling, laughing, coo-ing and snuggling.  Putting aside, for a little while anyway, her deep loss - if not for any other reason than her young age. 

Instead, most of what I'm referencing here is about the pain, loss, heartache...and hope...of her new mother.

All of this preparing to write out what transpired - it's my heart that I wish to open up.

I hope to be able to express, from a very truthful and deep place, how very raw our trip left both of us feeling.  I hope to be able to reach others.  

To shed truth and light for my part.

Again, not the story of a trip - but the journey of a heart.  

Keira is doing wonderfully day by day...

I'm anxious to share my thoughts with each of you - and I feel like the words are beginning to come to me.

It will be bittersweet to finally share them.  Bitter because they are hard to re-live.  Sweet because joy comes in the morning...and she really is a Joy.

Finding Peace

Maybe you're just wondering what's taking so long

What is there to say that's taking so long to say it? maybe you wonder

The truth is, you could click a hundred other blogs and read about a trip to Chin@

You could do that right now

Invariably they would tell a similar experience

A plane ride, a hotel or maybe four

exotic food or not, a crib in the room waiting

site-seeing and pictures

the excitement

the blur of emotion

That Moment

all the paperwork after

the bonding

the fatigue, being ready to come home, and the plane ride

the jet-lag and all that it entails and the new life that continues on and starts over

And I could do that too

I could

It's similar in a blurry kind of way, I guess

If you squint and stand behind the line

You could read it that way

I could read it that way

I'd like to read it that way, actually

I'd like to write it that way and leave it alone

but I can't

I've tried

I just can't

it's not truth

it's not me

it's not her

after four years...no, more than that

the telling deserves better

in this situation

because I think you know

you must at this point

that The Moment and the many after

have not been easy

have not been simple or peaceful or quiet

have not been lovely

if you're outside looking in, some of them have been

a few of them

and when she sleeps, it's as if they all have been

but that's not truth

and I want you to have the truth, actually

because it matters

it does

for you who are waiting

for you who are home already

for you who also feel it but have not verbalized it

for me

and for her

it matters

it's her story and it's worth telling

pain is not pretty

but there is beauty underneath it

it matters

and I promise to share it with you

I just need time


for me


and for her...

Peaking out behind the sadness is a little girl so lovely

so sweet ...

so charming...

so lovable ...

it takes my breath away...

Let Mommy love you, sweet girl 

You're safe now

You're safe

Grief Unwinding

 

Sorrow you can hold, however desolating, if nobody speaks to you.  If they speak, you break down.  

~Bede Jarrett

 

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates.  You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.  

~Samuel Johnson 

 Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.  

~William Shakespeare

Grief is itself a medicine.  

~William Cowper, Charity

Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists.  

~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943

 

Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect.  The wisest know nothing.  

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love.  ~Jareb Teague

We're counting on it...