Crossing Paths.....

A deer ran out in front of my car today. It was a doe, she was as tall as my car. I came around a turn at a street light and started to speed up to 35mph. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw this very tall brown thing move past the tree line and then into my path on the road. When I tell you seconds, I mean maybe one second difference that I missed clipping her back leg. As she gracefully galloped across this two lane country road, I had no time to even touch the break. My adrenaline kicked in and before I knew it she was gone. I won't forget what she looked like, and that the entire moment she passed my car...her eye was on me.

Not too long before my intersection with the majestic doe, I stopped at a local convenient store to get a snack and a cherry diet coke for my afternoon drive. Walking towards the double doors of the bustling place, I noticed an older man leaning against the concrete wall with a cane in his one hand and a glazed donut in the other. He was putting most of his weight on his cane as he shoved half the donut in his mouth. He wore a bright orange hat that read the words "Semper Fi Marine" on it. As I approached the area where he stood, he looked up and me and said "Hi, how ya doing?". I smiled, said hello and walked inside. This man reminded me of my Mom's father...Pop-Pop, he looked around the same age. I knew that when I came out of the store that I would say hello again, with a purpose.

As I roamed the convenient store hunting for a snack, I began to think about my grandfather who had passed several years ago. Pop used to walk every day to Greeman's, a local market, around a half a mile from their home. My earliest memories as a small child were of him taking me there for trips during the day, he would always buy me a scratch off lottery ticket...while he tried to win big at the Pick Six. Everyone in Greeman's new him by Harry. As I grew older we still walked to that same store to get those lotto tickets... even the coming weeks before he died. When my grandfather passed there was a line out the door of the funeral pallor. The young girls who worked at Greeman's came to say goodbye, as they crying they placed some lottery tickets by his side. It was a beautiful moment for my entire family. Harry may not have ever struck it rich in the lottery, however end the end...he won. Harry meant so much to everyone he met because he cared. He cared about his neighbors, he cared about a stranger on the street, and most of all his family. I remember how important it was for Pop to speak to everyone he crossed paths with each day.

Upon exiting the convenient store today, the man in the "Semper Fi" orange hat stood staring out to the road. I asked him if he was a Marine. He said yes, looking at me bewildered....I asked when he served....."1942 to 46", he said with hesitation....I smiled....so did my grandfather I spoke. He told me about being stationed over in the South Pacific. Afterwards, he said something that struck me..."I almost forgot that I served over there, it was so long ago I can't remember that well." And yet he was wearing that orange hat. As we spoke I told him about both my grandfathers both serving in the military and when I brought home sand from the beaches of Normandy, France for them. He smiled. I listened as he spoke about his experience as a marine. At the end of our conversation, we say goodbye....I thanked him for serving and he looked at me with a crooked smiled...and said "you have a nice day miss".

Its so easy to cross paths with hundreds of people in a day. Today I stopped to say hello to a man that gave me back a piece of my grandfather whom I loved very dearly. This man will hopefully go home with a new recollection today of talking about his days serving our country, and a stranger who thanked him for it.

Crossing paths with a stranger....with a doe....and finding meaning in it....gives me the strength to allow me to hope for anything....And It is with this hope that someday soon, Andrew and I will cross paths with the life of one child.

However....

It was noon today, I had just scarfed down a Special K bar in the car to try to catch a customer in an office. It was my second time returning, the secretary Elle told me to come back in an hour. When I returned, Elle, was sitting behind the office eagerly waiting to ask me a question. A few weeks ago, I had mentioned to her that I was adopting a child and in waiting.
Today she asked me if I heard any news....No news....No phone call.

The green leaves on the trees are transforming to bright shades of orange and red...It's pretty obvious in the fall that our lives are transitioning. The fragility of how life can be altered in landscape is apparent...although we may not always recognize this feeling in our daily lives. I love this time of year, it pushes me to believe in that transformation in my life, to strive for it. I would sometimes reach for changing things in my life that I could not control.

This year I began to hold onto that which has given me strength, adoption. I began to talk about it to others, because I am so passionate about this process on so many levels. Adoption was the transformation that I needed to feel EMPOWERED in my life.
I had a discussion with this secretary a few weeks ago, she had given me some blankets for the animal shelter that I visit. I began to tell Elle about our experience with adoption and how it has changed my perspective.

Elle is a fifty year old, married mother of two. Her two children are in college now. She loved raising her kids and feels a longing to nurture. A month ago she was discussing her consideration of adopting a dog. Elle also used to run a daycare for years before she became a secretary at this office. Today, she began a new consideration....she informed me that she was thinking about becoming a Foster Mom. She was unsure if her husband would be interested in the notion. She said that Jim loves children, and he would be great at helping her Foster. While I was in the office with her we took the time to research online what it takes to foster a child and the benefits of the program. One needs to be married, with a stable income, and would consider fostering to adopt someday. Elle described to me the joy that she would get from helping a child in need before they find a permanent home. She mentioned that she did not want to adopt permanently she would only consider fostering at her age. We talked about the possibility of someone in her life who would consider to adopt a child that she fosters....that she could be the gateway to a child's new beginning. As I left the office today, Elle was going to sit down with her husband to discuss the possibility of the foster program.

Today, no phone...no word on when....HOWEVER....change is happening.

Endless....

Did you see the clouds today? I did. They were endless...white tones, with splashes of gray and layers of blue throughout them. Out on the open road I saw changing shapes and flowing patterns of anything and everything imaginable. There was a turtle, a whale, a submarine, ducks, a pirate ship, even one of a puppy...there was also a cloud shaped like a baby. Whatever you could imagine you could capture it in the clouds today.....

I also saw a man in a waiting room today. He was in a wheelchair. The nursing home facility had a driver drop him off an hour before his scheduled appointment. He had been waiting for an hour and a half, alone. The home sent no aid, yet he could barely speak, a stroke or parkinson patient I assumed. It seems as if he did not have much of his mental capacity left. His ability to think and speak was barely there, and yet no aid. This was not his CHOICE...like so many things in life.

I wrote a quote down the other day about hopes and dreams. To dream is to imagine....and even the slightest bit of that can carry hope. Every child has this gift at a young age...they imagine, which gives them the ability to dream of the hopes and possibilities. Somewhere along the way as I grew older in life I felt like someone stole my ability to dream, to hope. It was my trust that was stolen...I looked everywhere. Searching high and low for that trust...I sought doctors advice, the wisdom from family and friends, and from the world around. It wasn't until I stopped searching that I found it...trust was always within. The choice to dream about the shapes in the clouds was always there inside. Once I began to trust, I began to hope. A child can teach us so much...how to dream, how to live in the moment, and to hope for anything in life. It's that hope that resides within us all..it's choosing to trust in that hope, which only comes from within. The choice to hope...the choice to trust...and the choice to dream.

"The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams."

Away We Go....

So, it has been almost a week since I last posted. We have been on the road up and down the east coast visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Rhode Island. This was our second trip up to visit them both and so my brother James and his wife Em, asked us if we would like to head to Newport for the day....a cliff walk was suggested. Cliff walk?? I mean, its Rhode Island...really cliffs, I wondered. So we ventured out to Newport on Saturday, the day after Hurricane Earl slightly grazed the east coast. We took the short drive to the beach and parked our car near the walk...we began what was a three mile tour. I had no idea what I would encounter along this walk, it was the unknown.

The walk begin with high cement walls on the side of the bay, followed by beautifully designed historic mansions on the other. As we continued to the unknown we came around the corner to the ocean, there were rocks leading out to the ocean, looking down we came across surfers walking out on these giants rocks to go catch some really big waves, stirred by the path of the hurricane. Andrew was inspired by their point of entry to swim out to waves, he photographed dozens of pictures. The wind was turbulent at times almost blowing us off our footing....the glory of mother nature with the waves crashing along the rocks was directly in front of us. We pressed on to find a Asian Inspired Pagoda House along the cliff, not expecting to come across such a beautiful building in Newport. The four of us were challenged along the walk to climb rocks and find the best path for our grip as we climbed up and around a much larger cliff than I ever imagined I would find in this town. The flowers and tall grass at times along our path were so beautiful. It was amazing that this three mile journey was created by mother nature.

We finished our walk, feeling as though we accomplished a great feet...and we did. As we walked into town to catch a trolley back to our cars, Andrew turned to me and said "My love for you is stronger now." I asked him what made him feel that way. It was mother nature, staring at us right in the face that windy day in Newport. The giant rocks, the beautiful trail of flowers, the amazing force of the wind, the fantastic waves caused by the remnants of Earl. Nature was staring at us in the face, and Andrew and I both realized we had each other. In this turbulent world of change that is beyond our control, we have us...we have our love...and that is just as powerful when we let it be.

L-I-V-E

Over the past six months during our home-study process Andrew and I have LEARNED so much about ourselves, our strength, and our love. Since July, I have been sharing my story with you all and the words of kindness have been so wonderful. To continue to SHARE I would like to fill you in on where we are in our adoption journey.....We have spent the past two weeks working on our picture profile; sharing the story of us for the birth-mothers who come to the agency. As of tomorrow we will be officially finished home-study, dropping our last piece of papers to the agency. We LEARNED that this means we are "paper pregnant", its a term the social workers like to use. "Paper pregnant"....means that the next time we speak to the agency, will be when we are selected as the parents by a birth-mother. Regardless of how it happens, it is going to happen. Since there is no more work to do on our end through the agency.... I could sit around and twiddle my thumbs and wait, or I can LIVE.

In order to live, I need to follow my heart....Hope now exists for me in life, I want to use it to inspire those whose hope has faded. There was the time when a baby store was my enemy...a pregnant woman was my envy..... There once was a woman who use to cry at Juno, and now I don't search for my life in a movie...cause it's real.

I realize now how to begin the announcement for the group that I am starting at my parish: LIVE, LEARN & SHARE in the journey of adoption: For couples who have, who are interested in or who are hesitant to walk in this path....

Begin with Hope

On my way home from visiting a friend today, I felt compelled to stop by the Church rectory of my parish. I had not been to Church in the past two months however, I had this urge making me turn right into the parking lot. I realized that they were setting up for the annual Carnival that begins this evening. The odds of me speaking to someone, I assumed were low. Contrary to my assumption my experience couldn't have been any further from it.

When Andrew and I first decided we were going to move forward with adoption, we discovered the young priest in our parish, Father Mike, was adopted. He spoke about his experience in the spring during a mass. We reached out to Father Mike and had lunch with him one weekend in early spring. We listened to his story of how he was raised by two very loving parents and his life through adoption; his perspective was new for us. We also discovered that like Andrew, Father Mike was a surfer, and thus the spiritual connection between us became deeper.

When I opened the doors of the rectory Father Mike was standing in the lobby, almost as if he was waiting for me, unknowingly. I told father of our journey during the last five months in our adoption home-study. He was very grateful for my visit and said that he would pray that our wait would be short. I began to explain to Father Mike how empowered I felt from this experience and wanted to do more. There are couples out there like Andrew and I that want nothing more to become parents, yet they feel hopeless. They have no insurance to cover fertility, and no income to support what they assume to be the astronomical costs associated with adoption.

In what began as a two minute conversation, turned into a hour and half one. I found myself sitting in the kitchen of the rectory speaking to Father Mike, The Pastor and Pat, a friend of the family who works at the rectory. Father Mike, stood at the counter eat a banana. Monsignor Rich, spread out a handful of M&Ms on a placement and Pat and I picked at a bowl of cherries that were delicious. We began to brainstorm together on ideas of an adoption group at the parish. The Revered from the entire Diocese of our state is coming to our parish in the fall to have a meeting centered around adoption. They asked me to run it. I found myself being whisked away to a world of possibilities. How will I begin this group? Who will come? What will be the focus of our meeting. So begins my story.

My hope is to give hope to families who don't have it. There were times along my way that I could not picture our home with a child. A few years ago, I began to watch the world around me change, friends and family members becoming pregnant, moving forward with their lives...and I was not. My struggle to become a mother is going to serve a purpose, I have found my way...now its time to give my hope to those who need it most.

I am my friend....

As I drove in my car today, I listened to a song that seemed to make the cars and trees move in harmony; it was as if the world around me was dancing. I came across the Simon and Garfunkel song…. The Boxer. Instead of driving in solemnity thinking about what list I had to do today, or mindless thoughts that I sometimes wander upon, I began to listen to this song, so deeply that I felt an overpowering feeling of strength. Where was that strength that I felt coming from? I asked myself to follow that feeling that I had from this song…..
For years I found myself searching for the answer of who I am from those around me, from my job, from every external identity that I could claim. I was searching for the answers of my life. The answers to the struggles that have taken place along my way. I reached for the infamous question we all ask…"Why?" I thought if I knew the meaning to all of the “why” questions, I would find strength to handle my life. In the song, The Boxer, the music takes your mind on a journey, searching with every note something new. The song describes a story of a poor man’s struggle for life. The words are spoken…“I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there.” I could feel those words digging deep into my soul. Those quiet moments which felt like I was on a desert island with no one around but myself to make sense of life. No one ever answered those questions, and yet now I don’t need to know. That feeling of strength that I had throughout this song was within me, it was my own voice. The years of asking "why" to the world around me to find the answers are fading. The only strength I needed all along was to believe in myself, and I do. That inner voice that kept questioning life for so many years is now filled with only one answer that is necessary to live. The answer is me. This is how I came to adopting a new way of life, which is why I can to see beyond the adoption and into who I am, and that is the answer.

It’s a belief in who you are, and no one or nothing else can give you that but yourself.

“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”