Special Gifts

There are gifts to be had in almost every life situation.  Although I deeply wish that my youngest girls could have avoided the turmoil and trauma of their early years, somehow they have become who they are today through all of their life experiences.  I want to embrace all of who they are and help them turn those stumbling blocks of their earlier years into stepping stones to deeper and richer understandings and life today.  We all have no alternative but to go forward, using all of our life for good now and in the future.

One of the gifts of spending many years in a full foster home with many babies is that our girls have had lots of exposure to different children and have learned how to care for babies.  Our three youngest spent the last two days with their foster family, helping to care for their younger kids to try to give their foster parents a couple of days of relative rest.  The girls are gifted in caring for little kids and relating to them.  They learned amazing skills of baby care and compassion from the years spent with their very wonderful foster mom.  For a couple of days they have helped play with an assortment of younger children, spending hours outside and watching out for their younger foster siblings.  It was a win-win situation.  The younger kids had a wonderful few days of play, our children got to learn responsibility and also lots of fun play too, and their foster parents had a bit of a break as all the kids entertained one another!  The girls are growing in compassion and understanding for other children as well.  They have known so many other children from situations like their own which has helped them reflect and process some of their own challenging feelings.

Spending time with their foster family brings a multitude of emotions back to our kids.  We will have lots of processing time and long hugs in the next few days.  There will be subtle dysregulation that  I know is from the emotions emerging from this time.  We will talk and process and hug with constant reassurance of our love.  This time away was a part of the children fully living life with people who we all love and respect.   Together, we will help them to not fear the mixed emotions that emerge, always using the challenges for those positive areas of growth and deeper understanding of themselves and others.

The Village

It does take a village to raise a child!  In our often isolated culture where everyone is working long hours to make ends meet it is often difficult to connect with others who will have the time and desire to get to know us and our children.  I have always wanted to make connections with others, but have felt insecure building those important relationships.  In the midst of my own full life, those connections have sometimes seemed to me to be impossible.  I have prayed for significant relationships for myself and my children.  Over the years I have been delightfully surprised in the answers to those rather unbelieving prayers. People have approached me and wanted to get to know our kids.  Sometimes the children make their own connections with wonderful people who then become family friends.  Our girls have spent several days this summer with an incredible woman who initially met them in the Sunday School at our very large church. Somehow she never really connected with me until several months after beginning a relationship with the girls.  She has now become a close friend and significant support for us all.  I am delighting that my children have brought me a new friend!  In turn, I know that the girls have been a blessing to her.  She has always wanted a daughter and sees the answer to her own prayers in our girls.  They love her and delight in her care for them.  She sees beyond some of their behaviours to their kind hearts within.  Even before knowing me well, she took some time off work and asked me if she could take the girls on some day trips.  Thank you, my friend, for offering your loving and caring self to us all as a most wonderful gift.

Part of my own journey has been about balancing both the giving and receiving in life.  I have always felt that it is more important to give than to receive, and have stubbornly blasted ahead determined to give as much as I can.  In attempting to give, I never had time to see the offerings of the gifts of others. I ignored the gift of receiving and did not cultivate that important skill of receptivity and humility.  To be always the giver can, at its extreme, be a place of arrogant control.  At times I have taken on the position of  what a friend calls,"CEO of the universe."  I still want to be a giver, but also want to sit back and let God be God, being receptive and observant to the many gifts that others offer.  Those gifts come in varied and unique packages, sometimes almost like the trick wrapping that so delights my kids.   I am learning to delight in the receiving from many places, including from our children and those others who are those we are attempting to give to.  Sometimes, in fact, the giving is richer for the receiving.

Connections of all sorts in the village of our lives.  We all so need and desire those connections, but do not always notice and receive their gift.  I get concerned that my children have a meaningful and supportive village in the future, but I want to increasingly trust in the goodness and care of God and others.  Thank you to so many friends for the miracles of connection in both giving and receiving in love and gentleness.  For all of us, may we be still.  Receive and feel the warm sun on your face, like those many gifts given each day.

Those first five years!

The other day our psychologist made a passing comment about the effect of early trauma in the lives of our children.  She said that trauma in those first five years can take at least twenty-five years to work through!  I must say I was encouraged by her comment, ignoring the "at least" and gaining hope that maybe in twenty-five years my kids will have come to some levels of healing!  Whew... maybe by the time they are thirty....!  Of course life is full of so many surprises and twists and turns.  Defining lives lived and healing as "successful" or not is all relative and dependent on our life values and perspectives.  I once heard a speaker assert that if only we can clean out the debris in the lives of our children, all can be "well." Her comment did not ring true to me in light of the complicated life- long issues of our children, and unfortunately I missed a good deal of the rest of her talk as I fumed over what I felt were false promises held out.  Nevertheless, old patterns can be changed, people do grow and heal, and brains do make more connections.  I must not forget to have hope in the daily grind of life with kids from places of trauma!

As I made arrangements for ongoing therapy for a couple of my kids today I was reminded again that our society does not recognize the need for help for emotional well-being in the same way as for our medical concerns. Often medication is the first and only stop for the emotional pain and dysregulation of our children.  Therapy is seen as costly and time-consuming and an optional extra that may or may not "work" and should be reserved for the most difficult problems.   Sometimes when those more obvious problems do occur, therapeutic intervention is too late.  Watch out for those little signs of emotional concern in your kids.  I do believe that all children need other adults to be there for them.  Often for children who have not had to walk through the turmoil of trauma those adults do not need to be professional counsellors, but I firmly believe that for our children who have undergone the significant trauma of adoption, professional help is a vital life line.  The reality is that adoption alone is a monumental trauma.  Most of our kids have many other levels of trauma as well.  Our children often come to us as complicated and  hurting souls.  They desperately need a person skilled in the effect of trauma to stand with them over the years and in the different ages and stages of their lives.  Mothers and fathers are often too close and wrapped up in the impact of secondary trauma to be able to handle the emotional challenges single-handedly.  Therapists can bring hope and healing to our children and ourselves.  It may not be fast and immediate, but it can be very effective!

We introduced counsellors into the lives of our children by adoption in their early years.   Of course the timing varied for each of the children, but we started by seeking help for ourselves even before we adopted.  The children did not meet the therapists in those early days, but just as we introduced our physician in the first year, so we introduced our family psychologist as the "feelings" doctor.   The children have not had therapy consistently, but during different stages have had differing degrees of contact.  We have had some significant issues emerge, but because the children already had a relationship with the therapist, we were able to access effective help immediately when it was needed.   It is easier to start a relationship with a therapist when the children are young and before the issues are overwhelming.  Because of that early relationship of trust, our children now freely ask to see their therapist and look forward to the skilled care, listening and love that they deeply associate with her.  Therapy has been expensive and  time-consuming, but emotional needs are not easy to navigate in either our children or ourselves!  Adoption brings its own huge complexities for us all.  We have all needed the support and insights and intervention of skilled therapeutic professionals.  Do not wait to get help!  It is easy to ignore those early signs of emotional challenges in both ourselves and our kids.  I have been surprised that therapy has given us all huge unexpected hope and growth.  Find a therapist skilled in issues of children, trauma, and adoption.  I know those people are rare.  We drive over an hour each way for one of our children's psychologist.  For some, telephone consultations may be the only option.  I cannot stress enough how important it has been for us as parents and for our children to have specialized emotional intervention through this journey.  It is not wise to go on this adoption adventure alone!  Take the risk and find a therapist you and your children like and trust.   Start with yourself, even if you think you may not need the help.  You may be surprised.  Adoption is a long distance endeavour that I honestly could not have continued if I did not have a skilled psychologist caring for both me and my children.  You will need many layers of help from many people, but just as you have a medical doctor, go for it and start developing a relationship with a person skilled in the challenges of emotional health.  I wish you wisdom and success in finding just the right person to be your emotional guide through the dangerous and rugged terrain of those adoption mountains.  Who knows, that person may also help you in the unexpected and hidden challenges of your own self.  Adoption started my journey with a psychologist, but over the years my own heart and life has been transformed and personal healing has emerged through the gift of that relationship.  I now wish that I had accessed therapeutic help for myself years ago.  Take that leap into the unknown even when others tell you it is excessive and unnecessary.  I am so thankful I did.

M is for Mother

A friend of mine is waiting to be a mother by adoption.  She descriptively defines her state these days as being in otherhood.   When that "M" just does not emerge to bring a level of completion to motherhood, the pain can be searing.   I have been pondering my friend's words, not wanting to generalize or diminish the specifics of that state for her now, but also feeling companionship with her in the reality of that other place.  Maybe for some the place of otherhood has never been a part of their story, but I think it does capture well a reality that has been a part of many of our lives.

Certainly, our children by adoption know deep in the very core of their being what it means to be "other."  That "m" for mother may be added to their lives one day, but it will not necessarily take away the challenging reality of their feelings of being different and "other" at their heart.  One of my daughters talks frequently about how she has always watched her friends taking for granted the belonging in their birth families.  Even now after years of belonging in our family, she still watches.  In many ways she is still different and other, even in the reality of being adopted.  She now has a mother, but nothing can take away the pain of those years of aloneness.  Her reality involves grief and loss and in truth,  the sense of being "other" is deeply ingrained in her being.

The specific ways that people can echo the feelings of being different and other are diverse and varied.  The feeling is real.  I am not sure that even that elusive "M" will take away the feeling and the pain.  For me, I want to acknowledge and treasure this "other" part of my story.  It is that part that propelled me toward adoption in the first place.  It is that part that now helps me to stand with my children and let them live and embrace the incompleteness that is a part of life.  We are all others.   I cannot pretend to understand the specific pain of either my friend or my children.  Because of my own story I can join them in living life fully as a unique and special other.  It is at the root of what it means for me to now be a mother.

Actively Involved

As a parent, I do not just keep thoughts of involvement with my children as ideas in my mind.  Similarly in all my interactions with others,  not all the plans and hopes in my dreams come to reality, but certainly some do.  One of the joys of life is experiences shared together.  I am delighting in holiday time by the sea with our youngest four.  The pace of life here leaves time for games of "Sorry", "Pick Up Sticks" and even some fast paced spoon card game that is just too intense for me.  Mornings are spent wandering the low tide beaches discovering those  fascinating creations normally hidden in the seas depths.  We all read together and swim and wander along the beach chatting with others and dropping in on our neighbours.

I am reflecting that often my time with God is purely an exercise in my mind.  Indeed God takes up thought and prayer time.  I do believe that He loves each of us beyond all measure.  Often my relationship with Him stops there.  Life can involve active interaction with the God of the Universe,  affectionately known by many as "The Universe."   Listen to those inner promptings of your heart.  Step out and act on them.  Be still and receive love and care from our Creator.  Wait and see what blessings come.  Develop eyes to see and ears to hear not just in your mind but the fullness of your being.    May we share those God or Universe moments with one another.  Recognize them.  Interact with them and have them be part of the fullness of life.  Life has so many dimensions: emotional, physical, mental and spiritual!  We read of others who speak of personal relationship with God.  Go further to notice those moments of experience in your own life. Write about them.  Include them in the internal story of your life.  Most of us do not recognize God in the everyday experiences.  I want to take time and grow in this experience of life with God.  Practice and jump in to the love and involved interest of God for you with all of your being.

Up on the Mantelpiece

Many of our family treasures are proudly displayed on the mantelpiece over our fireplace.  While some things come and go, others stay put.  The brass clock stays steady, faithfully ticking away over the years.  A solid Inuit carving, smooth and carefully crafted, serves as a place where those transient cards come to be propped up during times of celebration.  Shells and special pieces of driftwood come and go and give variety and beauty.

Though not specifically displayed on the mantel, each of our children are treasures to be appreciated and placed firmly in the heart of our family.  Painfully, I am aware that sometimes our children in this life may not be a constant in our lives.  Sometimes the tragedy of death takes them from us.  No less devastating, sometimes children decide to leave in anger, or mistakes made cause distances that never seem to be able to be bridged.  As I wrote yesterday about our children feeling increasingly secure as the waves of love are washed over them, I was aware that none of us have guarantees of that ongoing sense of belonging and love.  Sometimes those beautiful pieces of driftwood washed up high on the beach that we hope will stay forever do get washed away in the storms to continue their life journey on other shores.  Even chunks of rock on those sandstone beaches get broken off.

I have a mantelpiece in my heart that I cherish and admire whenever I want.   All my children and loved ones have a special place on that mantel.  No earthly or heavenly reality can remove them from that most special place in my heart.   No disappointments, failures or harsh words can touch this sanctuary.  I try not to bring my own guilt or pain there and instead come to my inner mantelpiece with deep love and prayer.

I can let go of guilt in my own sanctuary when I remember that I am firmly placed forever on God's mantel.  I believe we are all there, displayed with joy and care in God's heart, even when we ourselves do not know or even want His recognition.  Nothing can remove us from that place in His heart.  It is His place to hold and treasure the great wonder and love of each unique person of His creation.

Sometimes in life those special treasures we that thought were safe in our keeping are ripped away from us in any number of ways.  We all have people who we are deeply missing.

I am thankful for that central place in my own heart where I can honour and hold my special ones forever.  I have lasting security in the knowledge and experience that God has me and all these others on His mantel too, far from any harm and eternally treasured and held no matter what.

Sixty years and counting!

Congratulations to my dear Mum and Dad!  Today you begin your sixty-first year together as partners on this journey of life.  Thank you for your love and commitment to one another all these years.  I have noticed your constant faithful caring and thoughtfulness to each other through both good times and those more challenging times.  You have been steady and consistent and have done your best even when it has not been easy.  You have made allowances for areas of struggle in each other and have  selflessly supported one another.

Your love for each other has given deep foundations of security for many of us whose lives you touch.  You are an inspiration for me and for our children.  Your steady love for one another will continue to bear fruit over many generations.

By the sea we are always reminded of the impact of the waves.   It is the waves that smooth the sandstone and create beautiful and surprising creations over the years.  Waves wash up all those interesting delights along the shore.  Similarly, the steady love and commitment that you have for one another gives great gifts for eternity.

I know best those gifts that you have given to me and my family.  Often in my own relationships I think of your steady love for one another and take a few more deep breaths of forgiveness and start again.  As we celebrated yesterday, I thank you for your opening embrace for your four grandchildren by adoption.  Your steadiness has brought hope of the possibility of lasting relationships.  As the girls seek to rebuild their own lives, they truly have increasingly felt washed by the waves of your love on their shores.    Although they often have times of feeling like disconnected driftwood being aimlessly tossed around in the waves,  being welcomed into celebrations of faithfulness year after year brings memories shared and gives the security of strong and steady rock supporting them!  Their rocky beaches  are washed steadily by your faithful love and hospitality that gradually will give stability and hope for commitment and good things discovered.  I think they are increasingly knowing that the shape of their lives has incredible beauty even by virtue of its long journey and weathered and unique appearance.  They are beginning to feel like the treasures that they are, appreciated like the unique rocky formations on the beach and the delightful driftwood creations safely placed on the family mantel.  They are recognizing that they are special and indeed a part of this shoreline where they will be enjoyed and delighted in forever.

Not all of us will have sixty years together.  We all have the new start of today.  May we be faithful in love to those around us in the reality of right now, remembering that the love that we express today will, like the waves,  make their mark!  Today may we appreciate the unique beauty of one another, treasuring and accepting one another as you began in your care and commitment for one another those sixty years ago.  Thank you for this precious legacy of love, dear Mum and Dad!  For each day together we are thankful!