Blessed

As I was fixing brunch this morning I heard the Elton John song 'Blessed' playing on the iPod and I remembered back before 'The Little Girls' came home from Korea. My memory is that at the time we knew 'someone' was coming, but we had no specific information, and inevitably we began to fill in the blanks with artful imaginings. Jennifer had heard a song on the radio by Elton John...something about a child that had yet to be seen, '...you're a child in my head...', she mentioned to me that she'd heard it and was touched by it, and thought the name of the song was 'Blessed.' Sure enough we were able to find the song on CD. We played it many times in the weeks before we learned of the girls and before they 'came home' in September 1996.

At the time I think Jennifer and I were entirely focused on how WE parents and grandparents would all make sure that the girls lived a 'blessed' life...and we have all kept that commitment...Kim, Shawn, Jennifer and me...the girls have been blessed with love, stability, safety, continuous adult presence, and perhaps too much 'stuff.'

What I didn't predict and couldn't have known was how blessed I would be...we would be...by their presence. While we thought they were being 'saved' from an undesireable life in a ‘2nd world country’ it was precisely the time that we needed focus outside of ourselves and our own wants, needs, history and real or imagined hurts...the girls came into our lives and became that bridge to the future...and it gets better! When I heard that Justin and Heather were going to have a baby my initial reaction was almost that another grandchild would be superfluous...I'm not proud of that initial response, and it turned out to be REALLY untrue. Even though Hayden didn't need to be saved from poverty, ignorance and superstitious biases that the baby twin girls in Korea would have experienced, he has again attracted us to the future, at the same time he reveals himself, our parents, and ourselves as he develops...we are blessed by his presence and need him in our lives, and our intent is that he will be blessed as well.

So even though I joke (sort of) that '...insanity is inherited, you get it from your children...' it is through our children, their choices of mates, and their children -- adopted and biological -- that we continue to be blessed.

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