Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Let me tell you about how an orphan that changed my life......

"Warner Bros. new horror movie Orphan proclaims that it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own. Let me tell you about how an orphan changed my life..."

After years of hoping for a child of my own I was blessed to be moved towards adoption. All the fears of being a Mother to “someone else’s child” surfaced. Oddly enough, once I signed the papers with the adoption agency and was notified that I was on the waiting list, I realized then that I was a Mother. A Mother to a child in a distant land, far away across the ocean. Immediately the Motherly instinct kicked in and I was worried. Who is feeding her? Who is watching over her? Is she crying and is anyone going to comfort her? The wait was agony. I had no idea what she looked like, what she smelled like, the sound of her cry or giggle. The only connection I had was to look at the moon at night and know that she could look at the very same moon. To know that God must be watching over her.


When the time came, when my name was called, and she was placed in my arms for the first time, it was if I had known her my whole life. She WAS the child I had always dreamt of. She WAS my own. Maybe not of my flesh and not of my bone, but certainly my own. The fact that I was afraid to Mother “someone else’s” child is so strange to me now. She is my child. As a matter of fact the likeness between her and I is scary. And the life inside her is awe inspiring. She taught me that I could open my eyes and my heart to an older, special needs orphan.


That child is my Son. A little boy whose pictures came with those haunting vacant eyes that the older orphans all have. He has grown so much and love and joy flows from him freely now. My life has truly changed forever. People often tell me that my children are so lucky. I think I am the lucky one.