Just What I Needed
/Yesterday had quite a few bad parts to it. I'm hoping for the adage that in time your heart only remembers the good so I'm not even going to write the bad about yesterday down. What I will write is this:
The last thing we do together as a family each night is to read some scriptures together. It's not always as peaceful as it sounds like it might be. I blocked all of that out and turned to my Marilyn who was sitting near me on the stairs. I took her hand in mine and memories and feelings of our life together started coming back to me and the stresses of the day felt less heavy. How grateful I am for this living angel in my life! She doesn't generally like to have others touch her but she loves having her Mama give her loves. She tenderly reached out her other hand to mine held it sweetly. That's not a gesture I take for granted, even now, nearly four years after she joined our family and it brought tears to my eyes. She is just what I needed.
In that sweet moment I remembered the days of firsts that we experienced those four years ago.
The first time she held my hand as we walked from the office where we registered her adoption to the place we had our picture taken to go with our official adoption decree. We had to walk across a busy road and Chris and I held one of her hands in each of ours. She trembled and cried the whole way. I'm sure she was terrified. What trust she put in us - her stranger parents.
Just an hour or two later we held her hands again as she walked with us from the van that had taken her from her orphanage and we walked with her through the turnstile doors of our hotel to be alone with her for the first time. Her grief and fear was palpable and watching her walk through those doors into the rest of her life was the bravest thing I've ever seen another human do.
The following day we held her hand as she smiled, we all sweated, and we climbed the Great Wall of China. We laughed together as we taught her some of her first English words to help her navigate the rough and uneven steps all along the wall, "Big step! Small step!"
And then there was our trip to the zoo a week later when she was so completely exhausted and she let me hold her for the first time. I was hot and exhausted too but my little girl was letting me hold her and I would've carried her until I was utterly spent, so great was the opportunity.
Then came our first 4th of July ever just a few short weeks after you came home to America. We walked hand in hand on our way to the parade singing the ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and every other English song we both knew the entire way.
There have been so many sweet, endearing, bonding moments since. Overnight mommy-daughter sleepovers at fancy hotels. Long conversations while making dinner together. Craft projects, coloring, shopping and more. Happy, happy moments.
Dear, sweet Marilyn, you brighten my life and lighten my load. As I cradled your cheek in my hand last night I felt once more the privilege it is to be your mother and have you as my precious, precious daughter. I love you so much. Each of my children filled up an empty, aching part of my heart, but you my dear, my last, filled it to full.
