Dandelions

Dandelions
Making weeds into flowers

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Loss and Gain



We recently attended a wedding and ran into some friends of ours—a young couple with two small children, a boy and a girl. It worked out great since they were the only other guests we knew and vice versa. This convenient happenstance allowed all of us to have people to dine and converse with at the reception. 

It was a festive reception with wonderful Mexican food and a mariachi band. Not far into the festivities the little girl began to cry. She had somehow hurt herself, but between the volume of the music and her tearful delivery of information, her mother really wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. It made no difference to her. She placed her sobbing daughter on her lap and began to rock and comfort her. She gently kissed her, spoke words of understanding in her ear and stroked her head, all the while lovingly holding the little girl close to herself. Very quickly the child surrendered to the pacification of her mother’s touch, and all was right with the world again.

I watched and thought about all the hours of adoption training that warned us of feelings of loss—feelings the adopted child will have, and feelings adoptive parents have. A quiet sort of sadness surfaced as I recognized the mutual loss my daughters and I share. I will never hold a tiny little Baiba or Agnese on my lap and kiss their heads to make it better, and they will never experience a mothering moment quite like that.

I look at the handful of photos of them as toddlers and little girls that we’re lucky enough to have, and long to know how it would have felt to hold them, smell their hair and hear the rhythm of their breathing as they slept. I can almost imagine it.

Loss is a funny thing. It’s something we have to recognize and validate, but it’s not a healthy place to live. I know I’ll have more feelings like this as time goes on, and the girls eventually will have to deal with a great sense of loss as the reality of living in a new culture takes hold. However, I pray that we will all primarily celebrate the sense of gain in this new family of ours. I’ll have my own unique maternal experiences. No tiny heads to kiss but emerging butterflies that I’m privileged to watch take flight. What a gift.