Put on Your Sunglasses

I have this amazing friend who has been
walking
trudging along this adoption journey with us ... we accepted our referrals last September and October, we were submitted to court together, we flew together to Ethiopia, we survived court together, we passed court the same week, we were submitted to Embassy together, and now we've both cleared and are just weeks away from bringing home our children forever.

A while back she made a comment that still makes me giggle and sometimes really stop and think a while ... it may have been when we passed court ... she said, "Get your sunglasses, I see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Wise girl. I love her.

I tell ya, we signed with our agency in February 2010 and on August 24 we will stand before the United States Embassy and our adoption will be full and final in both Africa and the US. We will forever be changed in indescribable ways. In two weeks from this very moment, the sun will be rising in Addis and Atticus will wake up for the last time in an orphanage. He will wake for the last time in the same clothes he has worn for days prior, and slept in. He will wake for the last time without sheets and blankets and pillows. He will eat his last meal among his closest friends and "family" of nannies and playmates. He will anticipate our arrival and we will drive that bumpy road to the maroon gates and wait with anticipation ... the sort of anticipation that steals your breath, rocks your heart, and floods your eyes. We will scoop him up and praise God for his safekeeping and for the mountains He moved that brought us another 8,000 miles around the world to this one little person. Then we will usher him through yet another tumultuous and heartbreaking series of goodbyes. How much can one child grapple with and still trust? It breaks me. Already.

It will be a juxtaposition of emotions that I cannot fathom. Leaving all he knows ... friends, caregivers, sights, smells, foods, routine, home for us. Just us. How truly blessed are we to be hand-chosen by God to be entrusted with this child. In Atticus's weakest moments I pray that Jesus fills me with courage and wisdom to be the mama that Atticus needs, to be his safe harbor in yet one more storm within his five short years. His birth father touched my arm when we met and told me that Atticus loved his mama so much and that he misses her terribly. I could see how deeply she was loved and it bruised my core but at the same time filled me with this aspiration to make her proud as she watches me raise her little boy. He has lost in ways that no child should ever lose. His cautious eyes, the tilt of his head, and the way he holds his hands reveal sorrow that I treasure as my own now and that emboldens me to live my everyday helping him to heal.

I may just bring him his very own pair of sunglasses. There is a light at the end of this tunnel and even though the tunnel has been long, dark, and scary, he now has my hand to hold and somehow I will prove to him that I will never ever let go.

‎"By adopting a child and helping them reach their potential, they help us reach ours. An adopted child is not an unwanted child; to the contrary. He or she is a child who was searched for, prayed for, cried for, begged for; received by arms that ached, making empty hearts full. Love is meant to be shared."--Vickie Barber Henley