I have been keeping up with all my blogs, there have been some great posts. It helps immensely knowing that I am not alone in feeling such loss and sadness from adoption, although it is sad to know that there are others out there who also feel this way.
I'm really having a hard time getting my thoughts to slow down enough to write a sensible post, so I'm going to share from some of the posts that have touched me this week.
I was happy to see that she had a new post this week.
...adoption grief is pretty much always that one final thing that threatens to topple everything else over into a total pile of disaster. You know what I'm getting at... You've been there. There are all of life's little (or big) stresses and we go from here to there putting out fires and problem solving and just living life in the moment doing the best that we can with what we have. Then BAM! A trigger. It may be an innocent comment, a malicious remark, being introduced to someone with the same name as the person you've lost, a photo, an article, a program on tv, a smell... And it takes you back to the reality of the grief that you hide from everyone else, every day, in the most secret place of your heart.
I've learned that the loss of my first daughter is something that is so big, so painful, so out of this world unnatural to my "mother's heart" that if I stare at it square in the face, I am so overcome with debilitating grief that I'm down for the count. My house goes to pot, it saps my physical energy and I start to feel very sick and lethargic, I have weird, unexplainable pains, I am not as patient with my kids or my husband, and I withdraw from the good and healthy things in my life. I cancel plans with good friends. I'm bad at returning emails or phone calls. I miss regularly scheduled commitments like Bible study, homeschool co-op or choir practice. I procrastinate with bill paying. :( I eat what is easier rather than what is healthier. In other words, it is VERY unhealthy for not only me, but everyone else who depends on me if I try to face the behemoth adoption, it's stereotypes, myths and misdeeds. Do you know how utterly exhausting it is to be in an environment (the community of other Christians) where the most horrible way you have been wronged in your LIFE is something that everyone else sees as wonderful?
I am going to join in the annual tradition she writes about.
On Christmas Eve this year, each of these women will light a candle at 6:00 PM and burn it until midnight, thus having candles lit around the world on Christmas Eve Night. The candle will remember the members who are searching for their child and light the way for the possible reunion. For those who are reunited, it will burn to strengthen the tie that was forged between the biological members of the triad. And, for those who have been rejected by the fruit of their womb, it will offer hope for a change of heart and a better future.
Lorraine has some beautiful words regarding search and reunion.
Whether you are an adoptee or a first mother, open up your heart to the love that someone wants to give you. She or he will not be a "perfect" person, but he or she is the right person for you. And to those who have been rejected, I can only say that rejection is part of your Tao, your path, and you need to be brave and call upon that courage to move around, over, and beyond the rejection, and find empathy in your heart for the person you seek who cannot summon their own courage within.
There is no "right" time to do a search, or "right" time to make the call that completes a reunion, or mends a broken one and heals it. There is only time, and each day we have less of it. Each of us only have so much time, and none of us know how much that is, and it is hurrying by like a horseman in the night.
I have only shared parts of their posts, click on the links to read more of their wonderful words.
Good post, Susie. I love when someone else expresses something that I too am feeling.
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