The Luckiest One

one year ago we held echo for the very first time.  two chinese nannies brought her through a curtain "door" and dropped her into my arms and walked away.  one year ago.  i remember it as if it were the birth of a child.  it was our day.  our moment.  our time.  only ours.  no one knows what we felt, except for the two of us.

every year when i awake to the birthday of one of my children, i have a bitter-sweet feeling.  that breath that i take that says, "ahh, we made it another year".  this year, on echo's second birthday, april 2, i tried to have that feeling.  i wanted it.  but it was different.  not any less special, not any less worthy than my other three.  but it was different.  and i could not put my finger on it.

this morning, our Gotcha Day, i woke up at 4 am and had the feeling.  that "ahh, we made it.  our first year".  today was the day that echo and i shared together.  our day.  the birth of "us", "we".  today was that day.  and i truly felt that bitter sweet feeling.  but with it came another feeling or thought.  i couldn't help but send up a prayer, a question.

"how did You pull all this together, Lord?  when did You begin to tie us together?  was it only last year?  was it the 15 months before when we started the adoption process?  was it during our years of infertility?  was it college, when i was completely interested and thrown for a loop with the whole "nature vs. nurture" concept?  when was it?  and why?  why her?  why us?  why me?"

i've gotten several comments over the last couple of years saying that echo is so lucky.  and she is.  she has 3 amazing siblings, a home, a family, a warm, soft bed at night, food to eat.  oh, she is very lucky.  but the thing that is so amazing is how lucky we are to have her.  she is bright, she is healthy, she is beautiful, she is sweet, she is funny, she is loving....she completed our family.  she was our missing link.

for several years before we brought echo home, i would see asian girls out and about.  some young, some adolescent, some older, some were even very old.  and i could not help but wonder, "where is my little girl?  does she look like you?  doe she act like you?  will i stare at her the way that i desperately want to stare at you right now?"

now that i have echo, i know what she looks like.  i know how she acts.  oh MY, do i know how she acts!  i know so many things about her.  i've caught myself several times in the city walking by an asian girl and smiling to myself.  i no longer have to wonder.  i no longer have to think.  i no longer have to ask the questions.  because i have her.  my girl.  my daughter.  she is home.  she is mine.  i get to watch her grow.  and with God's grace, i will get to watch her grow into that old woman.

lucky.  it's so difficult to hear sometimes.  she came from such an unlucky place with such an unlucky story.  but the day we met up a year ago, it turned around for the both of us.  for our whole family.  we became the luckiest of them all.  we found one another.

if you've ever considered adoption.  looked into the face of another and thought you could possibly love outside of your comfort zone, outside of your "own".  i encourage you to dig deep into your soul.  pray.  allow yourself to be guided.

echo is certainly one lucky girl.  reese, maddox and zane are lucky as well.  they all have one another, they have love in their family.  but i have to think that i am the luckiest.  the most blessed.  really, luck has nothing to do with it.  it is not by chance that we were put together.  it's all one big fat blessing.  and i have the biggest blessing of all.  an indescribable, incomparable, unimaginable kind of blessing.  a random little asian girl, and a random crazy caucasian family were knit together by The Big Guy, himself.  we came together and we are a family.  the luckiest and most blessed of all.

and now i'm off to bed.  because tomorrow is a new day, no longer our Gotcha Day.  just a regular old, crazy mad, insignificant, temper tantrum, food throwing, time-out sentencing, running around, ear piercing, tiring old day.  yep, it will be day one of our journey to reach our Gotcha Day anniversary number 2.  nothing so lucky about that....or is it?

It's In My Memory

zane.  from the moment i met you, i was hooked.  your little puffy eyes, your square feet and tiny little toes, the way you melted into my arms the first time i held you.  you were a blast from the moment we found out that you were going to be born.  the shock and awe of our family and friends when we told them that we were pregnant after just having twins 14 months prior.  i feel like if i had the time to reminisce long enough, then i could conjure up every detail of what it felt like the day you were born.  my memory seems so clear.



last weekend we celebrated zane's 4th birthday.  the age 4 is one of my favorites.  children are still really young, they are super cute, their language is well developed and they say the BEST things!



some of my favorites:
"mommy, i want to hold you."
"i wuv you."
"can you snuggle me?"
"i want to kiss your wips."
"can i sweep wid you?"

zane has an amazing talent.  the boy can squeeze his way into your arms and into a perfect snuggle position without you even knowing it.  it's his favorite past time, to snuggle.  well, snuggling and making loud obnoxious noises...that's his other talent.  he just tucks himself right into, on top, under, around, through, behind, or in front of the person he wants to snuggle and he goes for it.  he claims that space as his own.  and if he has his lovie, raffie, with him, then he sticks those two middle fingers in and goes silent.  and to top it off, with the middle fingers in his mouth, it makes the "i love you" symbol with his hand!  it's awesome!  he's warm, silent and smells of "zane".  it's one of my favorite things.

just this past weekend we were scootering in the park sunday afternoon and we decided to get some ice cream.  the kids were silent as they devoured their ice creams.  after finishing our cones zane asked the question, "hey guys!  guess where all my ice cream is?"  heath and i both replied, "it's in your tummy!"  and zane said, "no, it's in my memory!!!"  we thought it was so funny and so clever for him to say such a thing that we both laughed.  yes, of course, that's where the ice cream is, in his memory!   duh!

already, i can look back, just over the past 4 quick years that have gone by and realize that time goes by in a blink.  it happens so quickly.  i look back at pictures and can remember the best of times.  i remember the happiness, the joy, the CRAZY moments, the love....oh those sweet tiny babies.   believe me, i can also remember the difficulty of it all as well.  the late nights, the early mornings, the lack of sleep, the whining, the crying.  the chaos.  the pandemonium.  but we all keep growing.  we are making our memories.  we are making them together.

each time we bring a child into our lives, they change us.  my children have made me stronger, quicker and more joyful.  though i wonder why it is that my weakness comes out so easily when i see them hurt or suffering, or why i feel so slow when they are moving circles around me and i just can't seem to catch up, or why my frustration comes out in quick sudden bursts.  they bring out the best in me and they bring out the worst.

little zane has only been in my life for 4 years.  how is it possible that life ever existed without him?  without any of them?  you know that question that parents ask themselves, "what did we DO with ourselves before we had kids!?"  well, actually, i can answer that one.  and life was really good...sleeping late, eating warm meals, cooking for two, late nights, endless conversations, doing what i wanted, pretty much when i wanted to.  yep, life was pretty good.

but truly, this is so much better.  i'll take the early mornings, the cold meals, cooking for what feels like 20 screaming monkeys, early nights because i'm so dog tired. broken, scattered, completely interrupted conversations with heath...and i'm doing what i want.  maybe not when i want to but it's certainly what i want.  these are our memories that we are making.

zane, i don't care how old you are or how big you get.  i will always want to hold you.  i will always want to kiss you.  you will always have a hold on me.  you will always melt my heart.  you are my baby.  you are in my memory.

I thank my God every time I remember you.  Philippians 1:3

Happy 4th bithday, Zane!!!

My Name is David

i have made a few friends since moving here.  friendships are one of the most important things to me and without them, i don't function quite as well.  i have made all kinds of friends in my lifetime and i plan to make many, many more.  my dad use to tell me that if i could count the number of "true" friends on one hand, then i'm doing really good...well then, i consider myself amazingly blessed because i could fill up all my fingers and toes with the amount of "true" friends that i have.  if you combine the group of friends that i have along with the group of friends that heath has and you put them together, than we are doing better than just good.  much better than good.

back in january, heath and i had taken the children out for dinner and a special treat.  they were allowed to get ice cream and then we bought each of them a small gift for earning "house points" for doing extra special things around the house.  (the house point idea came from reese and maddox's amazing teacher!).  after our grand adventure out into the city, we started to make our way home.  and when we came out of the mall we'd been in, we realized it had been snowing!!!  i love snow...maybe even more than my children do.  when i was a teacher, we would tell our students to wear their pajamas inside out so that it would surely snow.  (and guess who else would wear hers inside out in hopes that it would bring us snow?)

yes, i love snow.  so on this night, i was feeling more than blessed.  an amazing night out with my family in a really cool city.  ice cream, toys and now SNOW!  it couldn't have been better.  it was when we got off the bus to make our way home and we passed by a homeless man, that i could not help but feel a pull in my gut.  here we were celebrating the snow.  cheering.  PRAYING for it to snow more, harder, bigger, colder snowflakes.....

was this man wishing...praying for the opposite?  what did the snow mean for him?  where would he find shelter tonight?  did he have enough to keep him warm?

i've passed by a few homeless people here in the city.  you can't dodge it in a big city.  homelessness is everywhere here.  you can't always see it, but it's here.  lurking in corners, crouched on steps , pushed back from the crowd.  hiding.  it's there.  and i always have that pull in my gut.  haven't you felt that pull too?

so when we passed this man on this particular night, i, like always tried to put it behind me as we passed him.  but once we'd gotten in the door of our nice warm flat.  our shelter.  our warmth.  i looked at heath and i think he knew right away what was wrong.  i told him i had to go back out there.  i had to bring him an umbrella, something.  i couldn't just leave him there.  i could no longer walk past him.  i'd walked past him already too many times.  i could not leave him tonight.  so i grabbed the umbrella and started to rush back out when heath called for me,

"mistye, give him this...."


and out i ran with my umbrella and some cash.  my husband, just when i think that i need to do something for someone else, he pushes me to do more.  that's the great thing about our marriage, i'm not afraid of the "doing" and he is not afraid of the "giving".

i ran back out and crouched down to give him his things.  he looked up and smiled, "God bless you", he said.  i gulped back my words.  i didn't know what to say.  i hadn't expected much conversation.  i told him to keep warm through the night and i began to walk away....

but i'd only gotten a few steps when i felt it, the pull in my gut.  giving was not enough.  (remember, i like the "doing") so i ran back to him. and stretching out my hand.  i said, "i'm sorry, i didn't get your name.  my name is mistye."  he looked me dead in the eyes with his beautiful hazel green eyes and said, "my name is david" and shook my hand.  we spoke briefly about the snow.  and i told him that i'd seen him out often and it was nice to finally meet him and that i was so happy to know his name now.  he smiled and said he felt the same.

since that night, there has not been a day that david does not cross my mind or my heart.  i began to pray for the chance to see him again.  he sits out in front of a crispens mini grocery store across from my flat so if anyone had a chance to see him, it would have to be me!

finally, one night when we needed milk and bread at around 7 pm, i ran across the street to pick some up.  and there he was!  i ran inside and immediately filled a bag with extra goodies.  apples, water, milk, and peanuts.  i almost forgot what we needed for ourselves....oh, yes, milk and bread!  i grabbed my things and ran back out to give him his bag of food.

"hi david!"  


"oh, mistye!  hi!"   (yes, he remembered me too)

i told him that i'd been waiting to see him again and i was glad to get a chance to say hello tonight.  he smiled and said thank you and i was on my way again.

it was the third time seeing him that we became friends.  the third time, i felt comfortable enough to sit with him and talk to him about who he is and why he is homeless.  his story is probably not very different than many others.  he was in a war (shame that i don't remember which one!).  he's in his 40s. he came back from war and can't get back on track.  he is injured and having trouble getting over the war situation.  he is from scotland with no family left.  he said the cold weather doesn't bother him here in london because it's not nearly as cold as what it is in scotland.  david is a bright man.  i can tell by his vocabulary. david never smells of alcohol.  i've never seen a drink in his hand.  he reads books.  he is looking for assisted housing.  he had an interview coming up and he wanted a shower.  so i asked him what i could do to help him today.  and he said he needed bus money to get to the shower so he could look presentable for his housing interview.

bus money is next to nothing.  so i gave him that and little more and told him to get a sandwich after his shower.  after we said goodbye, i turned to look back at him.  he was jumping up and rushing to the next bus...

i saw david the following day.  sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper, looking very happy.  and very clean.

i've seen david several times since then and we always exchange conversations.  i've sat with him a few times to talk.  although his scottish accent is thick, we still manage to understand one another pretty well.  but then, accents don't need to get in the way of a friendship, right?

yes, i've made all kinds of friends.  david is one of them.  a very different, but equally as special, friend.  he teaches me not to turn away when we feel that pull in our gut.  that voice that says to turn back.  that call from God.  because that's what it is.  a calling.  our calling.  to give and to do.

friendships are important to me.  without them, i don't function quite as well.  i hope that david is able to function a little better, himself, knowing that he has a friend out there.



Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.  Proverbs 27:17