lost and found life

After months - no, years - of talking and praying about adoption we have finally taken the step, written the check and, it feels, reached the point of no return. Three days ago I stopped at the bank to get the certified check to send with our acceptance documents. As I waited for the check to be printed I felt like I was going to throw up. Really. It was not at all because this was by far the largest check I've ever written in my life, but because I was reeling from the days of indecision, the nights without sleep, the fears without end of how our lives might be changed by this moment.

I could no longer remember why we had begun the process of adoption, why we wanted to prolong our already lengthy parenting stage, why we thought it was a good idea to uproot some children on the other side of the world and try to make them part of our white, middle-class American family. I could not fathom why I should not just send this generous amount of money to an orphanage in Ethiopia and feel good about all the food and medicine it would provide. I had completely lost the train of thought or good intentions that had brought me to this place. I just wanted to go home and have things be like they have always been in our lovely, happy home. I certainly did not want to take a chance on these children I have never met.

This was a hard week in other ways. On Tuesday I said goodbye to my beautiful 19 year old daughter for at least six months. She was headed to Boston in a compact, heavily-packed, low-riding car with a cousin who was also leaving home, though the cousin was only traveling as far as Baltimore. C was catching a flight to Thailand. She took so little with her - only a backpack for the whole time even though I reminded her often that she was allowed two large suitcases on an international flight. She was wearing the same pants my older daughter had travelled around Thailand in three years ago, her money tucked away in a tiny inside pocket A had stitched by hand for that purpose. She had cut her long, wavy blond hair for the trip, so she'd be cooler and less encumbered. Everyone thought she looked darling, but I couldn't help but feel as if she were a little, shorn sheep in her tiny t-shirt and Chacos sandals. I didn't help at all with her packing over the last several weeks; I couldn't watch her empty her shelves and drawers. I surreptitiously went through the bags of paper and trash she kept bringing downstairs, saving an old scrapbook from 10 years ago, some old letters from her sister. Maybe she didn't need them any longer, but I did.

The same morning our smallest cat delivered a litter of four lovely orange kittens. I had worried that she might be too young or too small to give birth, but the kittens were large and healthy looking. Two days later we found one dead in the corner of the box, and the next day another died. I was so sad I could hardly bear to think about it - which seemed a little strange to me since I've officiated at many pet funerals over the years. I kept wondering why this hit me so hard, but my emotions were already like a cup filled to the brim. The slightest unsteadiness would cause them to spill over the rim. I felt overwhelmed by change which felt like loss.

I realize as I think about my daughters - the one who just left, the two who have not yet arrived, as well as the three upstairs asleep - that what I really want to do is to save my life. I want to keep things the way they are. I've had a picture postcard life, and I don't want to lose it. But that is exactly what Jesus warned his disciples about. The surest way to lose your life is to try to save it. The only hope for saving one's life is to lose it - on purpose. Young's literal translation of Matthew 16:25 reads, "for whoever may will to save his life, shall lose it, and whoever may lose his life for my sake shall find it." For me, at least, that means I have to let C go to care for orphans in Thailand, and open my nice home and my not-so-nice heart to these two little orphans if I hope to find true life in the end. And I do hope to. I do hope. I do.