West Dodge Road

Oh it is hard work to put the pieces together for a little heart, for a kiddo who isn't even sure what he feels or why he feels it.  For me, it's not the talk part that's hard.  It's the walk part.  The walking beside these little bodies who look and act pretty normal most of the time but who still carry within them confusion and fear and sorrow. 

It is so hard to watch little hearts be raw with those feelings. 

My kids seem to be blessed in that they easily talk about it.  (Compared to other kids who rarely talk but instead rage or distance themselves or completely insulate themselves from trust and love.)

Yesterday was one of those days.  Of course it had to be while I was hurtling down a 6 lane road (West Dodge) in the middle of Omaha but isn't that just how life is? 

We've had quite a few things lately that probably have coaxed out some of those feelings for Kenson. 

Two days ago, we read the book, The Mulberry Bird, for the first time.  It's a parable of adoption where a Mama bird has a baby bird but is all alone to raise the baby.  A storm blows the baby out of it's nest in the trees and despite the Mama trying very hard to feed it and protect it, she finally decides she can't and makes a plan with Owl to bring the bird to a family of beach birds. 

A caregiver of Conleigh's Skyped with us on Wednesday.  Both kids were excited and Kenson wanted to be in the thick of things even though he doesn't know Lori.  But after the call ended, he immediately asked to talk to Mama Juislene, his Haiti Mama.  We of course are not able to do that.  We don't even know if she survived the earthquake.

Then yesterday we went to Omaha for a doctor's appointment.  Dr. DeLair happens to be Haitian and speaks fluent Creole which she was happy to try out on my kids.  At the appointment, I thought Kenson was acting funny, like maybe all the Haiti conversation/Creole was bothering him.  He was a bit clingy and kind of whiney.  Once we got in the car, as soon as I turned off of 84th and onto Dodge, he started crying about some very small thing.  I asked if he was tired but then rethought and said "Are you tired or are you having some big feelings about Haiti?'  He quickly said "About Mama Juislene."  His eyes were full of tears, not the frustrated, I'm 4 and I'm cranky tears but the sad, sorrowful, from the depths of my soul kind.  Not sobbing and carrying on for all the world to see tears, but an instant welling of a few singular tears.  So I reminded him of the story we read earlier about the Mama bird from the mulberry tree.  And he replied that he was the little bird.  Oh it's so hard to hear him say that, to watch as he slowly recognizes the gravity of the events of his life.  So on we went, hurtling down Dodge, with me gently bringing up keep parts of the story.  That sometimes Mamas are all alone.  That sometimes Mamas try very hard to feed their babies and to keep their babies warm but that sometimes Mamas just can't.  That sometimes Mamas love their babies so much they decide to put their babies in places where they can have food everyday and be safe.  Kenson was quick to repeat several times "She tried?  She tried?"  Then it was on to how God was a part of all of that.  From when Kenson was a baby inside his Mama Juislene to when Mama Juislene was trying to take care of him to when Kenson was in the orphanage to when he came to our house, that God had a plan, a good plan full of hope. 

While I believe that is the one hope that will not disappoint, my kids have to choose to embrace that hope.  And as they piece together all that has happened in their lives, it is my job to offer that hope along with my tears over how we have been blessed by the losses of my kids and their first families.