It is midterm break at the universities, and it is a great joy to have an older son back home. It is good timing as life around here is returning to a place of stable equilibrium for now. Son's return gives me an added impetus to let go of the edges of trauma and to fully enjoy his presence. Tomorrow he and I are going out for the day to visit another daughter and to investigate the new shark exhibit at the aquarium.
It is not easy to be a sibling of children from difficult places. From his new vantage point of living away from home, biological son and I have returned in conversation to discuss some of the challenges that adopting four younger siblings brought for him. His tender heart has suffered and been pushed to the extremes of love through it all. Those years were difficult. I have places of guilt in my own heart that I was not able to be there for him in all the ways that could have been if we had not adopted. While holding and respecting the pain, returning son has no regrets. He is ultimately thankful for his younger siblings and the deep richness of pain, turmoil, and joy and love that this journey has brought. His psychology courses at university taken while at a distance from home have both validated and enlightened his own experience. A wise storyteller at heart, he keeps us all laughing with his stories and studies learned these last months.
We did adopt. We are sharing our lives in ways that are often difficult. We all do have regrets and worries and "what ifs." Our love has been stretched and challenged and our family forever changed. All of this is life. God is deep in the midst of it all with more love waiting and flowing from deep springs in the hard rock places. Together son and I are glad that this is our journey. Tomorrow will come soon and we will have a day of returning joy, just the two of us.
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