Another zinger I've heard (which annoys me even more) is, "Not even your children belong to you in life, so don't get to attached.". Sorry to differ, but they DO belong to me. They became mine the moment I received the blessing of carrying them in my womb. Precisely it was there, where a life long journey of caring, loving and looking after them began. AND (sorry for the conjunction at the beginning of my sentence) I am and will become attached to them! Let's not leave out the mommies that adopt, who also can and will become attached to their children with the only difference is that they carried them not in their womb, but in their hearts. Our attachment doesn't mean we're exclusive, it means that we are joined, linked, united, cemented, glued, (and I can go on and on) yesterday, today and forever with them.
Some of the greatest things in life, begin with thoughts and words. Life pulls us towards different places we don't even know we want to go to. This can probably explain why every time my husband and me went to the mall, we would end up in the baby department, looking at the cribs, baby cloths, bottles and all the modern baby gear that was available (we had our first child in 1989). Not only did we do this in the mall, but also in our weekly trips to the supermarket. Every time we passed the baby aisle, we stopped and talked about all the variety of baby products that were also available today. We lingered around and then moved on. With each stop we walked through memory lane and talked about our own children and that's how are yearning was born. That desire of having our home rejoice with a child's laughter again was overwhelming, but we really didn't say it to each other. Probably because neither of us knew how the other would react. My daughter had brushed it aside saying that we were suffering from the Empty Nest Syndrome.
Our yearning was private, we didn't voice it out. We just mingled with the idea in our heads. Up to one day when my husband finally worked up the guts to ask, "what if we adopt a baby?" He did it, he had dared to speak out our longing, that wasn't good because we would have to talk about it in a concrete way. So, I did what I usually do, I backfired with a million questions and statements. What if we do try and fail? How are we going to handle the heartbreak? What are the kids going to say? It's not fair for them! Are you nuts, we are in our mid forties, we should concentrate on us for a change! After a lot of soul searching and going back and forth, talking or may I say persuading our own children of how great of an idea this was (to which all shouted in protest), our imaginary "baby" became a real possibility. We decided that our baby would be a girl and began planning, looking for information, getting ready to adopt.
"I wanted to be the healer, but became the healed."
As things turned out, my Myasthenia relapsed and so did our dreams of becoming parents again. We were forced to face the fact that my health wasn't up to raising a fourth child. I gave up on my hopes of healing, loving and the most important of all, bringing her home. I would always tell my youngest son, "Somewhere there's a little girl calling my name." We had taken a step further, and we had already chosen a name for her, Carmen Isabel. So you can imagine, what we went through when we faced losing our dream. As a family we grieved about the baby girl who would never come home with us. We had become attached to a dream, we had allowed ourselves to cling on to something, but weren't regretting it a bit. Life brings us joy, but sometimes it also brings us hurt, and there is nothing wrong with that.
What we didn't know was that we were being prepared as a family to receive our newest member. If you're still reading my blog, come and meet, who people warn me about not getting too attached to....
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| Ian and me in Franco's Honor List Activity at his University. |
It turned out that my husband's brother trusted him under our care when he was only two months and he turned two a couple of weeks ago (That's another story to tell). He was formed in another woman's womb, but at the same time was being formed in my heart. His name is Ian, his mommy chose that name not even knowing what it meant. The curious thing is that it means, a gift from God. One of my sons told me a couple of months ago "You know what Mom, you were right about a baby calling you, where you got it wrong was on the sex, it wasn't a baby girl that was calling your name, it was a boy.".
Once again, we've faced life with a baby in the house, and dealt with my relapses along the way. I wanted to be the healer, but became the healed. Ian healed my soul and to my surprise my immune system has been much better even since he became part of our lives. We're adjusting, now we don't long or yearn in the mall or the supermarket, but complain (happily) on the soaring prices of baby stuff, but the most important of it all is that he has become our greatest joy. We are and always will be attached to him, and the best part is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
