I am in Colorado again this week, enjoying some time with my parents. But I put together most of this series of posts while traveling out here last weekend. I read some of Deb Hannah's comments to my husband as he was driving and I was typing. I couldn't read them without filling up with emotion, as my own wounds are still quite fresh.


Here is more of what Deborah Hannah, author of An Unlit Path, has to say about our job as parents in healing from the wounds of lost hopes and dreams … She is describing her personal “resurrection” as she rises from the ashes of having adopted five children, only to have every one of them leave her home for long-term hospitalization, jail or their biological family …

I thought I had truly traveled the road to forgiveness (when she dealt with the grief of 4 of the 5 children “blowing out”) but even my forgiveness was contingent upon at least some part of our life making sense. If one child made it then there was always a reason for what we endured. I clung to that—maybe it helped in the healing, at least in allowing me enough hope not to jump off a bridge.

Side bar here … perhaps, while I shouldn’t place the overwhelming pressure on Beth to succeed in order to validate my choice to build our family partially through adoption, it is OK to acknowledge that her apparent success thus far has significantly contributed to my ability to process and heal from wounds of the past. The message here is that perhaps I shouldn't place any contingencies on her success in the future …


Continuing with Deborah’s thoughts, she says:

God was not done with me, and in order for me to share the story of forgiveness, I had to learn the total lesson. Forgiveness is looking back on something truly horrible in your life and seeing the value in it and how your life—your philosophies, your future—is better because of it. I still saw my value in one child making it—I could not yet see that the value was in the gift, not what the receiver did with it. I needed one child to succeed because it validated me, my choices, what my family went through, and even that was not to be. God needed me to see that I had succeeded, I was validated, there was purpose to my life, but it was not because of the outcome, it was because I chose to give. I cry as I write these words because even though God has revealed them to me it will take time to embrace them. I know that God needed to strip me of every idea that somehow one child making it was worth the cost because so many of us do not get that one child. It was worth the cost because we tried and the truth is that was the only reason. I am humbled by my perception of failure, and my inability to change what seems inevitable but somewhere in the darkness I see that I cannot lose hope that the cost—the risk—is not more than I am willing to take. I take it, my family takes it, and it seems there is not a day when it ends, as a book so conveniently does. It goes on and on and a choice we made long ago continues—the real goal is to continue without seeing success.


Charlie’s mistakes and failures, individually, are not as important as the lesson in all of this.

So are you bawling yet? I don’t know how someone can make sense of this without some sort of faith, some sort of belief in a higher calling or bigger purpose. I don’t say that to offend anyone who doesn’t have that kind of faith. I simply can’t imagine trying to comprehend the point of this journey without having the ability to assume there is more here than mere mortals can grasp.


I have often said I wouldn’t wish my personal journey on anyone, but I wouldn’t want to be who I was before the journey, either. I am appreciative of things in life now that I wouldn’t have given a second thought about two decades ago.


At the beginning of our visit here in Colorado, my niece and nephew were here. My sister has four kids, and the oldest and youngest were the ones that came for a couple of days. I watched them interact and once again, it crossed my mind ... what if my husband and I had built our family only through biology and not by adoption? Kyle and Steph have a great relationship. What would their life have been like if they had more biological sibs? I would be lying if I didn't admit to the sadness I feel when I think about the lost hopes and dreams represented by the two kids whose positive contributions to the family thus far have been minimal or nonexistent, but whose negative influence has been pervasive. Not what my husband and I had in mind when we adopted.


But as I stated above, I have learned so much. I started ATN because of my experiences, and that is a huge positive. Quite often these days I receive a tangible example, often in the form of a card or email, of the positive effect ATN is having on families across the country.


And of course I have Beth (we have Beth!), and at least thus far, she is a huge positive. Even if some day that changes, I have many, many positive memories in the bank. And Kyle and Steph couldn't imagine not having her in their lives, either.


I am trying my best to absorb Deb's words and be content in the knowledge that the gift was in the giving, not in how the receiver(s) used the gift. What an incredibly hard, hard concept to embrace.


We have to grieve the loss of our "dream kids". This article can help you understand this process.


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