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I feel it coming like
the ripe just before birth, an instinctive knowledge that today unveils wonder.
I look at the dates
and I marvel
Such significance for
this Mother
Her first year has
come round complete
A full nine months
since we brought her into our family.
As I ponder dates and
timings and the weight of this day I can’t help but feel security in knowing
there is a Divine Orchestrator to this marvel.
For a Mother of
adoption there is beauty yet agony on the date of birth,
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I never have felt
such longing then to be able to whisper it to my girl, how I wish to have carried you deep within and loved you with every
breath and waited with a reverent anticipation to merge with something Holy
bringing you to life. Yet our story is different and that time we were
apart can never be given.
This is the longing
of an Adoptive Mother.
Yet there is a grand
and gracious expectance because without all of her story she would not be the profound
and perfect preciousness she is.
Her soul was brought
together by the
Author
of Life
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Born of another heritage,
one I am so humbled to welcome as my own.
Born to a Teen Mother
who’s shrivelled and despondent life breaks yours into something more like
Christ.
I know so little of
the actual birth of my daughter.
What I know echoes
hurt through me.
I know the gush of
water came hours before that teen mama managed the courage to accept this was
upon her, she lay there a mess, wishing it would all just go away, all her
fears met her in the mid of that night.
It was dawn when she
heard the first cry.
It was the waking celebration
of July First
She never washed her
first born with her humbled tears or held her to her heart and fed her from her
own ample goodness.
She just looked.
I can only imagine
the chasm that lay between her and the beckoning beauty of her newborn.
The Father was twice
the age of the Mother.
He’s a wanted
criminal.
His anger has hurt,
with his fist, words and abandonment.
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I remember that day
as clear as the days I birthed my other children, because pain makes memories
vivid.
And that first of
July stirred my heavy heart
I remember how we cornered
the road at the North Bonaparte and the breeze ruffled the silver canopy of an
ash tree and I knew the Rockies were between us and her; in rushes I felt the
distance.
I took Roger’s hand
for comfort as I said ’she may be in
labour, I sense it, it seems so strange but I feel I should be there’. All my
concerns ran raw down my cheeks; his grip tightened as he says so often, that,
my heart is wide and much too sensitive
to carry the needs of so many others.
You see she was just
someone distant.
How were we to know
this young lady was birthing our daughter?
As soon as I reached
my computer I emailed the shelter
I wrote “she must be here! A few days early, but,
did all go well?”
A moment later I got
the first glimpse of Amaris.
Tears came again
She
was precious,
yet so vulnerable.
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It was the week that
followed that I first held her.
Tiny and chilled, because
of her mama’s inexperience and inattention.
That Mama, she
dropped her baby heavy into my waiting arms and gladly left her infant with me
for a few hours.
At one week she had a
rash, tummy troubles and a chill.
I rubbed the tummy,
swaddled, and put some cream from my purse on the wounds already showing.
I kissed her, sang
and cuddled her.
Encouraged the Mama,
you can do this, find
ways to connect, hold her, bath her, look at her,
All while I ached
LOVE
HER! LOVE HER!
She deserves,
requires, love!
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When the visit was
over I left.
Drove away.
In my life I have
walked away from the dire of this world.
Hunger in Africa
Babies on beaches
Little girls losing
their innocence in slums
Infants birthed to
teens living in shelters.
There has never been
a harder burden for me to endure then knowing
I have
the freedom
to walk away.
This time was the
most excruciating.
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At that point I had
no thoughts of adopting this one.
It was never talked
about or considered.
I encouraged parenting
and kept a close eye on the baby.
I stole away from the
bustle of my own as many times as I could to nurture others.
Three months it took
Three months we all
held our breaths with the most cautious prayers.
And then she asked
“Take my Baby”
Hauntingly hope filled
words.
To be asked by
another to raise and care for theirs, handing over flesh of your own flesh and
willing it to another,
race, culture, religion, family
Mother!
Could anything in
life prepare me for this?
Nothing and
everything.
Hindsight offers a
clear view of the Lord leading me to our daughter.
Yet no book,
conversation or story taught me how to hold the weight of one abandoning an
infant into the accepting arms of another.
It’s a
beautiful broken
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After signatures and a
series of official documents, I loaded her into the carrier and clipped her
into our car and drove away from the mama who gave life to my daughter.
It all felt eerily
easy yet humbly significant.
Ten minutes down the
cool gray road leading home
I pulled to the side
and on that glowing late September afternoon I scooped her tight into my body
and whispered it as strong as my maternal heart could.
I love
you!
I will
never leave you!
You
are safe!
I’m
your Mother!
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She slept every hour
of every day for a week solid.
No eye contact
No hand movements
No laughter filled
with life overflowing.
She was withdrawn
into a safe place of avoidance.
In some ways I did experience
her coming of life, just three months after her first breaths.
It was an awaking
filled with the hope and pleasure of Holiness.
We as a family were
living the miracle
Pleading and
applauding and coaxing what was left for darkness.
It was a Holy unveiling
of all that is pure and natural and a gift so often over looked.
Life
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Then came her tears
So much emptying of
the soul
Right into the
shoulder of her Mother who wanted, ached to turn back time.
Her past has left
marks.
The soul is a place
where emotions, spirituality and character collide and her soul has been broken
The Brain sends a
million messages connecting the complexity of who we are. Hers has a
fingerprint of neglect smeared into its depths confusing processes.
We became healers the
day we became her parents.
What an extraordinary
privilege.
What an overwhelming task.
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This Dawn
as I watch the world
arise, the song of the woods singing with
amber’s hazy rise, natures dramatic salute to the new of this month, the
seventh, a complete nine months fulfilling the time of gestation and formation
of something new. I know mine and hers is a story I must tell, here today, so
that fear and the force of a mother’s care can’t hide details behind a veil of
protection.
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Today
I accept what has
been in the past and look humbly forward with all the hope of Heaven
I will watch as my
girl continues to flourish to the pace Heaven has set.
I will continue and constantly
be overwhelmed by the gift of adoption and
The most gracious
beauty in my daughter
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Amaris
Anne Milner
Happy
Birthday sweet love,
I will cherish every birthday we celebrate as
family and ache for the one we did not experience together.
You
are everything I have ever prayed for.
All my
Love
Mommy
