One of my cherished memories is when we were giving a bath to a little one and he got scared and started to cry. We spoke to him like we always do, letting him know that everything was okay. He stopped crying. It blew me away that he trusted us to, in his little way, bravely move forward. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. I was a witness to how his little trust muscles were working - to trust us! We were the object of his trust. It blew me away. It still does.
I also remember when we Becky first rushed up to us at church, to tell us the story of how she picked us - from faces on an adoption profile - to be his adoptive parents. It was a rush of joy, of emotion, or trying to move my mind fast enough to capture and register every marvelous and heart-bursting thing she was saying. In the middle of the dizzying emotion and with tears in my eyes, I asked if I could hold Dean. I was asking if I could hold my son! She held him out and I took him in and - and it had been years since I had held a baby and so I was a little scared that he would cry or I would hold him awkwardly, giving away my secret that I had always fumbled babies in the past and really didn't know anything about being a mother - but his light body bobbed for a minute in my arms and then his head fell into my neck and rested there. Warm and soft and right.
That smart little one!! He was giving me a sign. He was communicating with the sweetest and most potent of tools, letting me know that I was okay. That he wanted me as much as I wanted him. That he would let me in to his little world.
What a gift.
