"...she was in bitterness of soul...and wept sore..."

A dear friend, and faithful reader of this blog, reminded me yesterday that I have not always produced the promised extensions to stories that I touched on in earlier posts.  So rather than wait a few weeks or months to expand on the leg of "the journey" shared in last Thursday’s blog called "Success Within" (scroll down to read), I will extend the story today.  Here goes...

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
- Kahlil Gibran

One afternoon, not long after my morning at the blackboard with God, our son's birthmother came down to join me for tea while I was nursing him in the kitchen.  She sat down gingerly at the pine table in front of the picture window where I was cooing to our son and explaining to him that the birds standing on the frozen ledge of ice along the shoreline of our lake were actually warm in the icy air sprinkled with sparkling snow crystals drifting from the eaves of our home.   She listened distractedly and I held my breath while I continued speaking, knowing that the winds were shifting in our home as clearly as I could see the snow flakes changing direction in the invisible dry air beyond the pane of glass in front of us.

She took a sip of her tea, cleared her throat and then began...and once it started, there was no stopping the outpouring of regret, love, heartache, tears, and pain that flowed out of her that morning.  Yes, she loved us...no, she couldn't bear to leave him...yes, she had asked the adoption agency to advocate for the dissolution of our adoption plan.  But she also needed time alone with him before she could decide what she really wanted. I sat as still as stone that morning.  I don't think I cried.  I think I appeared pretty supportive….I was sure trying to be.  But I knew that something inside me was shattering...falling like broken glass into sharp shards of pain that, if I moved in the slightest, would slice and cut and stab the most tender places of hope and fulfillment I had just begun to believe were safe and secure in my Father's care.

We hugged, and I told her I understood.  And the funny thing was...I did.  I understood her love for this baby, because I was feeling it too.  And with that, I handed him to her and she took him to her room and closed the door.  I called my husband at work and shared with him what had happened and he promised to return home as soon as he finished a project he had gone into the studio to work on. 

The birthmother had explained that her counselor from the agency would be coming for her and the baby later that afternoon.  Her mother was flying in from out of state to join them in a "safe harbor home” to have a quiet place to think and come to a decision.  Going somewhere else seemed ludicrous to me.  All of her clothes were there, at our home.  His nursery was set up and all of the things that they would need for his care were already prepared...just for him...this was his home.

My husband arrived home just before the adoption counselor.  In front of the counselor I asked him if he thought they couldn't just stay at our home.  We could go stay with extended family nearby until we heard from them.  The adoption counselor was a bit disoriented by the offer.  But because it made sense for the baby to not move around from place to place in the middle of winter, he consented to this very unorthodox plan...chuckling that everything was unorthodox about our, then, very unconventional open adoption and he wasn't sure any longer what was "appropriate".  But he knew that this particular request was the most loving approach...so he went with it.

We made a few phone calls to arrange for our stay with family members.  We gathered our things together, said our goodbyes, and drove away from our home.  There was complete silence in the minivan in the large presence of our son's little, empty car seat that afternoon.  We were praying….both in our mobile closet.  I don't know what my husband's prayers were, but I do know that mine involved pleading one minute and surrendering the next.  My husband had to go back to his office/studio and I accompanied him there.  I found a dark corner of the green room, quiet on a Sunday afternoon since no radio guests were being interviewed on the weekend, and prayed.   Prayed that the birthmother would know that I would be a good mom regardless of the outcome....prayed to remember myself… that she would.

We spent the next days with family members who gently tiptoed around our very fragile spiritual poise.  My prayers wavered between a calm surrender to God's omnipotence and a frantic begging for His benevolence. 

That was until the phone rang one gray late afternoon.

It was the adoption counselor.  The birthmother had made her decision.  She wanted to rescind her surrender of our son and she planned to leave that evening with her mother for the long drive to her parent’s home in another state.  I asked the counselor to offer her all of his clothing, baby toys, etc.

Then...I lost it.  Period. 

There is no other way to describe that moment.  I lost all poise, vision, hope and balance.  I wept, wailed, beat on pillows...trying to drown out the pain in my heart.  I cannot think of that afternoon in my husband’s aunt’s home without feeling tightness in my throat.  My apologies still go out to all who were present and had to witness that anguish.

Soon we left for the drive back to our house an hour away.  Our van was still filled with a heavy silence and an empty car seat.  The agency's counselor for adoptive families had told us that we did have recourse, that although it would be difficult, we could appeal her decision and buy ourselves some time with him and establish our case more securely as being the better home.    And I have to admit this consideration was poking at my thought, when with absolute clarity...as if spoken by the only Counselor...the Mighty King, the Prince of Peace...the message came.  "Can you imagine yourself, when he is 12 years old, explaining to him that his birthmother had loved him and wanted to parent him, but that you had fought real hard and won?"  The answer was as simple and clear as the question itself..."No".

And that was that.

This didn't make the next hours any easier, but the question of whether to pursue recourse was answered with supreme finality.  We arrived home in the emptiness of a cold, clear winter's night.  The sky above the ocean and our lake was dark and fathomless.  The stars were as brilliant as if laid on a jeweler’s mat of black velvet above us.  I wasn't prepared to see her car still in our driveway as she and her mother finished packing the trunk and back seat with baby clothes, the remnants of her seven-month stay with us, and a new, infant car seat I didn't recognize.

We sat in our van nearby, not wanting to put anyone in an emotionally awkward position, as they buckled Austin into his little seat and into their seatbelts before edging their way out of the driveway and out of our lives.  We remained there in the cold without speaking, long after their taillights disappeared around the bend of the wooded lane on which our home sat.  Finally my husband broke the silence.  He opened his car door, got out, and walked into the house.  It had been a long siege and he was ready for it to be over.  I, on the other hand, couldn't imagine going into a house that was filled with the baby scents of bath soap, powder, and baby oil.  I hugged my parka close to my chest, pulled my hat down over my ears, and tightened my scarf around my neck before pulling on my gloves and getting out of the van.  I headed up the hill through the frozen grass and pine needles that crunched beneath my feet.  I needed a place to grieve.  The nearby Indian burial ground suited my mood perfectly.  I opened the rusted iron gate and found my favorite place at the base of an ancient pine tree where I could settle myself between her strong roots.  I collapsed against her trunk and allowed myself to  weep with abandon.

Looking out over the lake that reflected a billion stars in her icy still surface, I sent up to the heavens a sound as primordial as motherhood itself.  I found myself listening to the howling in the air, and I realized it was not a coyote or a wolf but my own voice that had me riven with terror.  I began to chuckle and I thought to myself, "Thank goodness there is not a living soul for miles around, because if anyone were to hear me they would think I was a drunken woman wandering through the woods."

This realization itself was a Godsent angel message for me.  It woke me up from the grief-induced hypnosis I was under and I began to actually think....and the first thought was:  "Well, didn't Eli, the priest, think that Hannah was drunk (see Bible story, I Samuel 1 ) when she came to the temple praying for a child and was "in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore."  In that moment I felt a kinship with Hannah, her plight...and her victory. That spiritual sisterhood was as real and tangible as if she were standing next to me with baby Samuel in her arms saying, "Look, it was true for me...and it will be for you too...God has heard your prayers as He heard mine...the promise will be fulfilled."

Centuries of time melted and we were sisters...I was looking to her for confirmation that the trust I had placed in God's love was warranted...and she was telling me not to falter.  Her story became my story.  I knew in that moment that my tears, my weeping and wailing like a drunken woman in the dark winter's night, were the prelude to a promise.   I gathered my coat and my wits around me and walked slowly and calmly back to the house.  I knew that "according to the time of life"... just like Hannah, I too would become a mother...but this time to a daughter and that we were being asked by her Father/Mother God to name her after this woman who had comforted and encouraged me in my sorrow.

Staying in our home that night was peaceful, yet heartbreaking.  The nursery seemed like an empty hole in our home that mimiced the one that I felt had been carved out of my heart.  But I held to the promise that this hole was really a nest being carved out for the daughter God was telling me was "on her way".

The next morning we left our home for an unscheduled trip to Colorado to see family and friends who had been prepared to meet and celebrate the birth and adoption of our new son.  We knew that we needed to go there to assure them that we were alright and were going to survive this experience....even though I was still on a roller coaster of emotions.  But more about that trip and the healing that took place during our drive to Colorado in Thursday's blog....I promise!

A little over a year later I would be holding our daughter, Hannah, sitting on a sunny veranda in the middle of an African bushveld farm with a gang of gibbon monkeys in the orange trees nearby throwing half-eaten fruit at the farm manager as he tried to chase them out of the trees so that they wouldn't ruin the whole crop.  I chuckled and turned my face to the bright sun of the southern hemisphere and sang to my daughter verses from the "lullabye" that had held my heart together through those bleak days of winter that seemed so far away from the warmth of Africa in April.

"Mother's Evening Prayer"
Oh make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate,
And fear no ill,  -- since God is good,
And loss is gain.

No snare no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's teardrops gain,
And mother finds her home and heavenly rest.
- Mary Baker Eddy

The Bible has a precedent setting story for you that holds hope and comfort...let its prophets and matriarchs speak to your heart...a message of peace and promise.

K