Happy Birthday to My Son

This day. A sacred day.

The day my son came from his mother’s womb.

I know well the opening, the blood, the sweat, and the tears that brought him into the world. His sisters came with the same rush. The same yells and the same power.

I like to imagine him, the wrinkles, the snot. I wonder if my silent boy cried, or if he just stared, unblinking, into his mother’s eyes.

Words fail me.

This day, my son began a slow march of loss and grief that no child should ever be forced to travel.

When I look back at the things I do know, the day he was found in the street next to an orphanage, the day my friends saw him for the first time, and thought of me. When I think about the phone call, and my return call saying YES…

I can’t tell you it was all worth it. Because that seems to shallow of a thing to say in the face of his loss.

However. He is mine and I am his. He is beloved and belongs.

On this day of his birth, we celebrate with legos and streamers. We plan nerf gun wars and we are about to go pick out the birthday donuts.

On this day of his birth, we honor his family of origin. We honor their lineage, their courage. We honor their tears. We honor the travail in which his mother brought him forth.

I have a million things I want to say about this boy.

He is 6 years old today!!

A million things I want to tell you, I want the whole world to know.

And yet, I feel a shift has come.

6 years old, and I feel his story becoming his own in a way that is different from before. I feel the sharing of his story now, today, is more private. His coming into our family was a loud bang, an event, a great to-do.

Part of this year, is him stepping into the quiet. The unknown. The world of his own choosing.

My son.

My only son.

You did not smell of me. You didn’t want me. I was afraid of you, and wanted you more than life itself. Very few things in the world have forced me to confront the darkest and lightest places in my soul the way your life has.

My son.

A miracle. A treasure. I love you forever.

Mama