I took the 8 hour train ride to NYC...the plane fare was far to much at this time of year...I could return by plane (an hour flight!) as it would be after the holidays. It took me quite some time to pack that extra suitcase full of Christmas gifts...each one was purchased with a lot of thought and great love...I also had my daughter-in-laws January birthday gift...It was fairly easy to buy for the grandchildren...even for my daughter-in-law...but for my son...for our first Christmas together....this gift had to come directly from my heart.
I decided that I would make him a journal...I filled it with all the e mails that we exchanged before we finally met each other in July, I painted each page and brought it to the life and love I felt each time I read one of those e mails...I also gave him a small wind up toy (because we love the toys!) and a book on how to make a working paper clock...the other gift that I gave him was a compass that was in a rosewood box, when you opened the box it was engraved with: We have been found. Love, Mom 2012. (in one of his e mails he made that statement..."We have been found"...I still get goose bumps when I say that out loud!)
I received a wonderful candy dish with a bird perched on the top...and several bags of peanut M & M's (both favorite things of mine) My son said that the gift he had for me was not completed yet...For he was also making me something. I watched him as he finished making my gift, I loved seeing him as he was doing this creative work...It is a night light that I put by the side of my bed...but it is no ordinary night light...it was the first hand made gift from my son and it also carried a message from his heart...
I wrote the following as another article for Adoption Voices Magazine:
As parents we have all received hand made Christmas presents from our children. They always pull at your heart strings, and you keep them forever. They usually are hand prints in plaster, trivets made from Popsicle sticks, or the stick figure drawing of a happy family. As a mother to a son who was entrusted to the adoption system, I had not received such a gift, until this year.
Forty three years later.
As we celebrated our first Christmas as a reunited family, my son decided to make a gift for me. He made me a bedside lamp that holds words that we both believe in. “There is always a choice.” However, he went a step further and added, “thank you for choosing me.”
As I contemplated these two sets of words, I thought about the choices I have made in my life. There are choices and actions that lead us in different directions and it is through those choices and actions that we create our reality. Sometimes we choose to do something that takes us in the opposite direction of the reality we want to create for our self. (Such as I did 43 years ago when I would rather have chosen the “happily ever-after” route that was not available to me.) When we do that we tend to feel a variety of different emotions…uneasy…unhappy and unsure. All emotions that I have carried with me for the last 43 years, along with quite a few others.
“Thank you for choosing me.” These words touch me deeply, they open up a flood of emotions. They strike a chord that allows me to really feel for the first time that the choice I made so long ago was the right one. That the choice of entrusting my son to adoption did not harm us. That despite time and distance it did not break a bond that we share. That by choosing him, by allowing him to come first, I was able to provide him with a family that consists of two mothers who love him.
I believe that an important part of our spiritual unfolding requires that we grow beyond our choices and take responsibility for our self on our own terms. We are all decision makers, and every moment provides us with the opportunity to move in the direction of our higher self. It is a choice we each must make for our self sooner or later.
Although I thought I had made that transition, I realize that I had not done it completely. Not until a hand made gift from my son came my way. A hand made gift that through words has released me from the feelings I had been holding on to. A hand made gift that allows me to stop and breathe; to come back to my center; and to realize that we are finally a family.
My son thanks me for choosing him …
I thank him for accepting me!
I am not sure why, but this time that we were together was very emotional for me...there was a bit of melancholy, and this parting was extremely rough on me...Once home I had to figure out what was going on with me...why was I all of a sudden so sad...and so fearful...
I was about to confront some of my demons...
