Saying goodbye....

As I start today's post, I'm strangely reminded of a Lynn Anderson country song titled "I Never Promised you a Rose Garden".

Mostly my posts are full of the funny events that make life bearable, but today is different. Today is the day my "birth family" is putting my "birth Mom" in hospice care.

There are so many sentiments I can't even sort out regarding this event. I think many of my emotions can be traced back to not knowing how to respond to being adopted. Some are about my "place" in the family. Then there are the deep feelings about someone I care for going home to God. Mostly, I feel sorry I've run out of time. Regardless of the emotion, they are all very powerful and deeply felt.

My feelings, over the years, have led me to make SO many mistakes in life. One of the mistakes I managed to correct, mid course, was deciding that I COULD be emotionally vulnerable to this new family who wanted to meet me after so many years. It didn't start that way--at first I just wanted medical information. Then it was just a conversation. Then it was accepting cards on my birthday. It was the proverbial "peeling of the onion", layer-by-layer, conversation by conversation, between just a daughter and her birth Mom.

Then, someone suggested I was complicating my life beyond what was necessary. In retrospect, I see this person was scared of how this might impact their life. My advice on this? Be very careful when people say they "have your best interest in mind." Sometimes they are speaking what is in THEIR best interest, along with words of fear.

One enormously profound thing my birth Mom said to me was "Much fear comes from the Devil. Fear is not of Christ." In this situation, she was very right. Fear of being hurt because you decide to invest yourself in a healthy, respectful relationship is not from Christ. I can see so clearly now that, as humans, we hurt each other, but that doesn't mean we don't TRY having relationships with others.

So, based on advice born out of fear, I cut communication for about 3.5 years. Then the cancer came back to her life and she made a very hard phone call, not knowing if she was going to be rejected again. When I received the call, I just knew this was the beginning of the end. I hardly hesitated to see what I could do to make her time left here happy and to right the wrong, to fix the mistake.

When we met on Valentine's Day this year, it was strangely comfortable. I FIT in this family, even though I had only met them that day. We played games (games I grew up on with my adopted family), broke bread together-- twice (and had some of the best fish I'd ever enjoyed, thanks to my half-brother-in-law), lingered over pictures of me and Mike growing up, engaged in political and religious conversations that involved a variety of opinions (all with no ugly disagreement or arguing--I felt like my mouth was hung so far open I was collecting flies--this was so odd to me!), and thoroughly enjoyed teasing each other and soaking in the love that was so thick in the room. It was, in a phrase, a perfect day.

I'll always remember my birth Mom standing on the porch as we got into the rental car, late that night. She didn't take her eyes off me, even after the door was shut and we started down the road. I think she was taking mental photographs to add to the few moments she knew me when I was only hours old.

When I think of those few minutes I'm reminded of a line from Psalm 121, her favorite verses in the Bible: "...he who watches over you will not slumber..." In fact, in this Psalm alone, the writer refers to God watching over us five times, in a short eight verses. I know that, as I write this and she struggles to get closer to her Heavenly home, God is wooing her, calling her name, watching over her Earthly life and looking forward to welcoming her to her reserved place in Heaven. Just as he is watching over those of us who will be left to grieve her passing.

This is one time I'd really like a do-over. But, I'll have to live with my fear-based blunder, which meant that we spent less time together here on Earth.

I hope she'll understand, when I see her again. I'm pretty sure she will. Because she's that kind of person: forgiving, generous, loving, and kind.

How blessed I've been to know that my life started in the womb of such a wonderful woman. How glad I am to have been a part of her life, even if just for a brief moment.