To Mom on Orphan Sunday

Today is orphan Sunday: A day that many churches give special attention to children with no parents to care for them. I've never considered my youngest three boys as orphans, though legally for a time they were.  There was about 8 months between the voluntary termination of Isabel's parental rights and the finalization of our adoption- for those 8 months my boys only parent was the state of Texas.

Most of our friends know we have an open adoption with Mom...for clarity sake, Isabel is Mom and I am Momma. I can't really remember how we decided to do it this way. It just kinda naturally happened. For the year they were in foster care with the goal of reunification, we always called her Mom. "You guys are going to see Mom today"....or "Hey J-man, Mom said she can't believe you can speak English." We needed the language to distinguish between she and I, to draw boundaries around each of us, and make us different from eachother.  After that year, when we began proceeding with adoption we chose to change the boys names, but kept hers the same. It didn't make sense to change it, she would always be their mom.

That used to scare me at first. The thing about sharing your role as mother with someone else, is that you worry the minute your babies turn 18 they will run back to her. In the early months and years when the attachment days are hard and the bond is still fresh you selfishly get angry that she automatically holds a place of esteem in their heart, but you had to work really hard to earn your unconditional spot. You wonder if it would have been easier to just stop all communication and move forward with the future. Maybe they would just forget her? Maybe you can prevent the angry words,  "You're not my real mom."

But then you hear the hearts of your adoptive momma friends- the ones who can't have a relationship with the birth mom because of safety or drugs or what not- and you hear them share their worries out loud, heavy everyday things like "What do I do if I'm in Wal-mart some day and she sees us first?"

That's when you realize what a gift you've been graced with to have an open adoption.

Want to know what would happen if we ever lived in the same town as Isabel and bumped into her at Wal-mart? She would scream. I would scream and we'd hug each other. Then she would take turns hugging all 6 of my boys, including her 3, and immediately hunt through Judah's mop in search of the random red hairs he's always had mixed in with his curls, she'd work really hard to pronounce Canaan's name the right way even though it sounds foreign to her, and she'd use her phone as bait so Silas would climb up in her lap and she could once again nuzzle her baby boy. The one she held so many years ago while she was all alone in that hospital room wondering if the caseworkers were going to take him too.

"He is mine in a way that will never be hers, 

yet he is hers in a way that will never be mine, 

and so together, we are motherhood."-Desha Woodall

Dear Isabel- 

   I never imagined my life would turn out this way. I know you didn't either. I just want you to know what a gift you are to our boys and to our whole family.  I get to see you everyday in their smile, dark hair, and dark eyes and I couldn't be happier about that. You make some pretty babies. I also see you in my future just like I see you in theirs. I see you at weddings and graduations. I see them as grown men visiting you over the Holidays. I see us in the hospital waiting room together squealing over a grand baby. And I see the nurses trying to figure out how we know each other :)

   I can't believe the adventure that started simply because you left your cell phone in the diaper bag after a CPS visit.

  I am indebted to you for not just giving my boys life, but for choosing Cory and I to parent them, and for openly sharing motherhood with me. I'm indebted to you for the way you continue to gift them with security by using their new names and telling them they are exactly where they need to be. Nothing brought healing to Judah more than the hard conversation we had in the back booth of the Fuddruckers that November evening. 

  I'm so proud for you of the life you have now. You are a different woman than you were four years ago.  Finishing school to be a phlebotomist??- that's amazing! And I can't wait to meet your new husband. Cory told me about your Facebook post, how Gerald drove an hour to change your flat tire, and he and I grinned at each other- she's found a good one. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but the angriest I have ever seen my husband is after the permanency hearing in January of 2012. That's when you surprised everyone by walking in the room with your now Ex. Let me just say, Cory was not a fan. As we drove away, I think his exact words were, "There is no way that guy is raising my boys!" He's a bit protective of them :)...and in a way you too.

   One of my sweetest memories of us was just a few months ago when you and the girls came here to see us and it so happened to be only two days after the little two were placed with us. It was so surreal to literally share motherhood with you that weekend. You were the extra set of hands that I desperately needed to help hold and comfort the two newbies. I remember little Mr would call "Momma" and reach for whichever of us was nearest.  I remember wanting to tell you "Now you know the other side of what happened the day your boys left. It is exactly the same as what you see here. They were scared, but we just kept loving them." They went straight from your arms to mine, they were never orphans. 

   Today when Facebook is full of statistics of waiting kids, cries for the church to help the orphan, and tear-inducing adoption quotes-  I of course think of the boys- but I also think of you. I can't explain to you how much I love you. I don't even know how different my life would be had our paths never crossed. You literally changed the course of my life. You changed what my family looks like. You changed the way I think about racism and privilege. Because of you I've seen how sacrifice actually brings more blessings, more love. I'm so glad you are part of my more.