We spent yesterday fishing on small ponds at the Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center. If you have never visited, you will know that it is a beautiful preserve that features multiple ponds for fishing, hunting spaces, and other activities for families, which in our case includes birding. In the silence of Saturday that rests between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we spent the day outside in the glory of creation fishing and barely got a nibble.
It is our luck to struggle to catch any fish. In multiple family outings, we have reeled in fewer than five fish. My superstitious self, I did play baseball for twelve after all, thinks it might be me. Other dads take their families fishing and have a great time hauling in the catch. Maybe it is the bait; maybe it is the constant commotion that is our family of six; maybe the fish know when we arrive and agree to leave our hooks alone. I consoled myself yesterday by noting that no one else appeared to be bringing much in the way of dinner either.
And yet, we spent time as a family out of the house and doing something we love. This past week has been full of uncertainty and emotional pain. Grief touched our home during holy week, and we headed into Maundy Thursday with as much of a sense of suffering and abandonment as any previous holy week. We have made it through to Easter morning, but we are forever on this side of resurrection. The silence of Saturday reminds us that even though we live on this side of Easter we live in-between something that has come and something that is still to come. On Saturday, we waited patiently for fish that never took the bait. We'll continue fishing, waiting.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Nights into Days
One year ago yesterday, I posted on this blog that our adoption process had been finalized, and I noted more about my own adoption and why we adopted than anything about our child. There were, and still are, reasons for that choice. Adopting an infant is slightly easier than an seven year old who had only been away from her birthmother for one year. Considering the birthmother and stepfather live in our town and we had to terminate parental rights, our concern for public consumption about details concerning the child forced me to be careful with what I said. For other reasons, that concern continues to play an important role in what I share. But we do celebrate the child's arrival in our home and, beginning one year ago, as part of our family.
On the day we finalized the adoption, her birthmother did not come to court. We were braced for a fight, and every time the door to the court room creaked we jumped a little. But after waiting forty-five minutes, the judge began the proceedings. We were disappointed she did not come because it mattered to us that she show some fight for the child. Sadly, she has disappointed many people in her life, including herself.
From that day forward, we have celebrated a birthday and Christmas, and soon Easter, as a family. Every day, however, we have worried about what would happen to the birthmother. We had prepared ourselves for the day we had to tell our child that the birthmother had died, given both her poor decisions and her lifestyle. Although we had talked about what that day might look like or how we would inform our child, nothing prepared us for last Friday afternoon when we received a message to contact someone who knew the birthmother as soon as possible. Within seconds I was on the phone and informed that she had died that morning.
Questions will remain unanswered. We do have some sense about what happened but only in a vague terms. On Sunday afternoon, we told our child what happened and sat for a long time while tears rolled. My post today is more about giving the birthmother some respect. While she baffled us, and likely everyone else around her, and we had to make a decision to protect the child that put us in conflict with the birthmother, the tragedy is that we as humans fall short, everyone of us but we deserve to be treated decently. As of today, there has been no death notice or obituary for her. There will be few people, family or friend, who will want to claim her remains. I promised our child on Sunday that we would help the birthmother in death in ways that we never could in life. We probably knew somewhere deep inside both of us that we were taking on more than we knew almost three years ago when we opened our home to the little girl with a big smile and open heart. One year after having to make one of the hardest decisions in our lives, to terminate a parent's rights, we have had to endure one of the hardest parenting responsibilities, informing a child that the woman who bore her and tried hard to take care of her AND loved her in ways only the birthmother could has died way too young. In the years to come we will have harder responsibilities tied to that choice we made three years ago to open our home to Zoie --- her birthmother's chaotic choices, abuse both physical and mental by the men in her birthmother's life, drugs and deception, psychological disorders --- but we learned a valuable lesson this past Sunday: give the child space; hold her tight when she needs the hug; remain strong even in the face of doubt; and sit quietly to let the tears flow. Nights always turn into days, and we know on this side of Easter that tragic events can give way to beauty where grace abounds. Camie Marie Crisp, your greatest act was giving birth to Zoie. We will hold her in safe keeping until she is ready to fly.
On the day we finalized the adoption, her birthmother did not come to court. We were braced for a fight, and every time the door to the court room creaked we jumped a little. But after waiting forty-five minutes, the judge began the proceedings. We were disappointed she did not come because it mattered to us that she show some fight for the child. Sadly, she has disappointed many people in her life, including herself.
From that day forward, we have celebrated a birthday and Christmas, and soon Easter, as a family. Every day, however, we have worried about what would happen to the birthmother. We had prepared ourselves for the day we had to tell our child that the birthmother had died, given both her poor decisions and her lifestyle. Although we had talked about what that day might look like or how we would inform our child, nothing prepared us for last Friday afternoon when we received a message to contact someone who knew the birthmother as soon as possible. Within seconds I was on the phone and informed that she had died that morning.
Questions will remain unanswered. We do have some sense about what happened but only in a vague terms. On Sunday afternoon, we told our child what happened and sat for a long time while tears rolled. My post today is more about giving the birthmother some respect. While she baffled us, and likely everyone else around her, and we had to make a decision to protect the child that put us in conflict with the birthmother, the tragedy is that we as humans fall short, everyone of us but we deserve to be treated decently. As of today, there has been no death notice or obituary for her. There will be few people, family or friend, who will want to claim her remains. I promised our child on Sunday that we would help the birthmother in death in ways that we never could in life. We probably knew somewhere deep inside both of us that we were taking on more than we knew almost three years ago when we opened our home to the little girl with a big smile and open heart. One year after having to make one of the hardest decisions in our lives, to terminate a parent's rights, we have had to endure one of the hardest parenting responsibilities, informing a child that the woman who bore her and tried hard to take care of her AND loved her in ways only the birthmother could has died way too young. In the years to come we will have harder responsibilities tied to that choice we made three years ago to open our home to Zoie --- her birthmother's chaotic choices, abuse both physical and mental by the men in her birthmother's life, drugs and deception, psychological disorders --- but we learned a valuable lesson this past Sunday: give the child space; hold her tight when she needs the hug; remain strong even in the face of doubt; and sit quietly to let the tears flow. Nights always turn into days, and we know on this side of Easter that tragic events can give way to beauty where grace abounds. Camie Marie Crisp, your greatest act was giving birth to Zoie. We will hold her in safe keeping until she is ready to fly.
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