Perspective

While I haven’t been updating on my blog as often as I had originally intended, I do keep my own personal journal. It’s been a helpful tool for me to vent my frustrations without worry that I will offend others. While I was writing my most recent letter to nobody, I received a phone call – more paperwork updates are needed. So to update those of you that are waiting for an update, you’ll have to keep waiting. I am however going to share the journal entry I was writing as the phone rang. While our own adoption journey has been a long and difficult one, most are not. I am a stronger advocate for adoption today than I was last October and I still believe that it is worth the mounds of paperwork, updates and heartache that may still come our way. Am I frustrated? Absolutely. In times like these, however, I am calmed by my favorite poem, Desiderata. I have posted it for you as well.

I am hopeful that my next post will be a happier one.



My frustration.

It’s nine in the morning on Wednesday September 16, 2009 and I’m feeling depleted of all care. I take that back. I’m actually wishing I could feel depleted of all care. I can’t seem to comprehend how we ended up in this amazingly complicated and frustrating situation. The past year has been a test of my strength, my character, my patience and of my sanity. I am furious and I don’t know where to direct the anger that has been building inside of me so quietly and persistently. There isn’t one person at fault. There isn’t one system to blame. This is simply the result of senseless ignorance by everyone and I can assure you that our family and our children are not the only ones affected. There are orphans in every corner of this world and there is absolutely no need for it anywhere.

Every evening since I’ve come home from Russia I’ve gone outside and sat under the stars and thought of Max wishing, hoping and praying he would come home and wondering how long it would be until he did. Last summer I had the most beautiful giant sunflowers in the yard. I remember thinking as I cut down the old stalks that next summer Max would be playing among them with his sister. When summer rolled around this year my backyard was too sad to plant new sunflowers. When I’m out there I’m only reminded that Max isn’t. I’ve watched four seasons come and go. I’ve wondered every night if he felt as cheated as he has been and hoped he just hasn’t realized how happy his life should be. I’ve prayed that there was still enough innocence left within him to save him from becoming an angry and jilted man that in my opinion he would have every right to be.

As each new setback has come our way, I’ve tried to battle them by finding reason in disaster. I’m struggling to understand how this adversity is helping each of us to grow. I’ve tried to see the good that I know comes from every tribulation. I like to believe that every cloud has a silver lining and I can clearly see some of them. After witnessing the way in which the innocent in this world can be so coldly treated by bureaucracy and ignored by society, we have become more compassionate and our commitment to our children is indestructible. I can only hope that while our daughter’s heart, broken time and time again with the empty promises her father and I have made assuring her that her brother she has grown to love will be home soon, will someday be filled with the immense love we have for her when she realizes we will never surrender in a battle to protect our children. I hope someday she can look back on this a see herself in Max and know we loved her before she came home to us just as much as we do him.

We loved our children before we ever met them. We find it sad when people question our commitment to Max and suggest we give up and seek another child to become our son. They don’t know the strength of love. They don’t realize the depth. Becoming parents through adoption is the most amazing blessing. We know what others don’t, love has no limits. Love is not dependent on blood, birth, boundaries, or contracts. How sad it is that so many people think it is.

The one thing in all of this I cannot seem to find justification for is how this could possibly benefit Max. What is he going to take from this experience that can help him to grow? Where is his silver lining? What good can come from him having to live in a cold and impersonal orphanage half a world away from the people that love him more than they love themselves? He’s alone. No one is hugging him. No one is smiling into his eyes with his mother’s love. Where is the reason in that?


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Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.


Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.


Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.


Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.


You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.


Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.


Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.