A big deal...a REALLY big deal

Tonight Freckles, my beautiful 10-year-old son, brought me four letters that were sent to him by John and I while he was waiting at the orphanage in Ethiopia. I remember writing these letters and thinking how stupid it was to be writing in English to someone that doesn't even speak English let alone read it. Regardless, I wrote the stupid letters because it was the only way that I had to connect to my child. As I wrote the simple words, I remember feeling a sense of awe knowing that my son's hands would grip the paper while he looked over my incomprehensible gibberish. It would be our first connection.

When he brought the letters to me tonight, I asked him if he wanted me to read them to him. He nodded while hiding an anxious smile on his face. As I read the words that I had written probably three years ago, I recalled how different our life looked then. I was a different person. It was a different time. My world had not yet been changed. Our paths had not yet crossed (or rather collided, if I'm being honest). I hadn't yet known the strength that I had within me or what it was like to battle trauma and grief in the name of love and hope. When I read those words, I felt a sense of humility over the fact that I still felt what I wrote at that time (or at least I felt it again). It was a powerful experience for me, but then I turned to look at Freckles.

He stood next to me hanging on to every single word, the words that I wished he could have known and internalized three years ago. He couldn't know it then, even if he could have read the words. They were a mere jumble of letters, not actions. Even if he had understood those words at the time, they would have been mere platitudes of affection from yet another stranger from a foreign land. But now they were real. He had felt what those words meant. He was beaming. Literally beaming.

After I finished reading the letters he merely nodded. There was nothing to say. We gave each other a knowing smile and I asked him if he wanted me to store those letters in his keepsake box. (He did.) He walked away from me with something new, something I haven't seen in him before. For the first time I saw him embrace comfortably how much he is loved. He was confident in his worthiness of such adoration. He wasn't giggling or acting silly. He was thoughtful, knowing, receptive.

Those letters were not written for the day they were received by him. They were written for that moment, and for his future.

This is such an incredible turning point for the two of us. We have many struggles ahead of us, no doubt. But we are building an incredible foundation. It took a lot of time and hurt, but it's starting to form. And it's good.