I had a call from a good friend of mine today while driving. We had a conversation about adding more children to your life and how you can possibly love another child as much as you love the one or ones you already have. Probably every parent who is bringing a second child into their family has had the same thought. When I was pregnant with child #2 I wondered how I could love him as much as I loved child #1. It seemed impossible because that love was so huge. But the second that baby is handed to you your heart just expands and you fall in love all over again. Then as you add more children you just know that your heart will keep expanding.
When my boys were young I got re-married and my husband had two children. I wondered, "could I love them"? I hadn't given birth and didn't even meet them until they were 4 and 5. Today they are 25 and 26 and I call them my love children. I love them because I love them, not because I gave birth to them. My heart expanded to make room for them. To me, they were mine to be loved, cared for and protected no differently than the ones I gave birth to. Amazing thing this parent love.
Then we added two more and the heart grew bigger.
Then we met Vlad. OK this was different altogether. This boy was not only 15 years old but from a different country, culture and spoke another language. How was this going to work? One day we sat down with him and asked him if he wanted to be a part of our family, our son. He said yes. Truly in that instant he became our son and I fell in love with him just like my others. Putting him on a plane to go back to Ukraine that August day was one of the hardest things I've ever done. He was my son and I was sending him across the world into who knows who kind of life, without being able to watch over him. How did this happen, this love thing?
So the next 6 months became fraught with mother's anxiety, working at mach speed to finish paperwork to get him home where he belonged. Seeing him again in that orphanage I was overflowing with happiness. My son safe with me again!
Now we have three teens over there. Two of them we haven't met and yet they are mine. Yuri and I talk every few days and there are a lot of "I love you's" going back and forth. The two girls, well, even though we've never met they are my daughters and I love them. I can't explain it. I'm just so grateful to Yahweh that this kind of love exists. The kind of love that when you hear your daughters voice over the telephone for the first time your heart just about bursts with happiness. You listen carefully to every sound of it, wanting to remember how she sounds, what the tone is and hoping to glean everything you can from it. Trying to figure out if she's happy, excited, scared or what? Your mother ears are on full force. (You mothers know what I'm talking about).
So hearts just grow. I can't explain it. It's a miracle. And we are so blessed to be able to experience this miracle.
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