Sunsets and Jigsaw Puzzles

Maphada has been home for three weeks. Three weeks!!! It is too weird to explain, the way time messes with your head... In some ways it feels like she has been here for three years, in others it feels every bit like only three weeks. I have no idea how to put the highs and lows that have filled the last twenty-one days into words, but I am going to give it a try anyway.

Some of you might be thinking "Lows??? Really? What can you possibly have to feel low about?" Well, let me try and explain. From the very beginning, I have loved Maphada as my very own. From the very moment I knew she existed, from the very first glance at her face, from the very first time I held her in my arms, I felt like her mama. Her "gotcha day" was a few weeks shy of three years spent waiting and longing for my daughter to come home. During those three years, I did an awful lot of day dreaming! You try to pass the time and pain away with imagining all kinds of scenarios of what your life will be like when your beloved child finally comes home. I was so blessed to get to travel often to spend time with Maphada, which has been a blessing and a curse, but I'll explain that later! For now it is important to know that even having spent all this time with her, there was still a ton I didn't know about her, and my imagination was perfectly content to fill in the gaps! So, you love this little girl. You know she is quiet and shy around grown-ups, a bundle of energy and laughs with her friends. You know she loves the Lollipop song and pistachios. You know she is athletic because she can totally rock a jump-rope and she's not too shabby with a basketball either. Beyond things like that, what can you really know? Most of the time you have no idea what is going on behind those beautiful brown eyes. You can only guess what is going on in her heart. So you play make believe. And you fall deeper and deeper in love with this little person that has laid claim to your heart. You work ridiculous hours to earn money for the adoption expenses, giving up time with your son and your husband. You sink into despair from time to time, feeling so helpless to do anything to speed up the process, so hopeless that it will ever actually come to pass. During those dark days you find it hard to enjoy your family as it exists in the moment, because this huge part of it is missing, leaving you feeling all kinds of down in the dumps. Which brings me to the jigsaw puzzles, this piece of your heart that is missing, from every moment, every day, every holiday, every outing. You try to fill it with all of your daydreams and fantasies. And finally, one glorious day, you board a plane, with your daughter, and everything is right in your little world. You bring her home, show her around the place, introduce her to family and friends and you feel like you are living in one of your often thought of daydreams, only this time it isn't a dream. It's the real thing, and after about six or seven days you come face to face with the fact that your little fantasy doesn't exactly match the reality. You find yourself looking up at the sunset, remembering a day not too long ago when you found comfort in knowing that the same brilliant sunlight was shining down on your daughter's beautiful face 1600 miles away, only now she is here, within reach, and it's messier than you thought it would be. The missing piece to fill your aching heart has been found, you can finally complete the puzzle, only now you can see the edges more clearly, perhaps I should say accurately, and you find the piece doesn't quite fit, at least not like the piece you created in your imagination.

So what now? Well, to be perfectly honest, you have a few "what have we done?" moments. Just a few. Because you know in your heart that this is right, that there is nothing at all wrong with the puzzle piece, just the puzzle itself, or rather the puzzle owner's very vivid imagination! You hold this beautiful puzzle piece in your hand, with just enough flaws to be absolutely perfect, compare it to the puzzle, and you adjust your ideas and expectations, and you make it fit. It doesn't happen overnight, or even in three weeks! But you trust that it will happen, and in the meantime you enjoy all of the ups and downs and thank God every day for the miracle in your living room, because that is exactly what she is, a beautiful miracle. In our home, within our reach... Please excuse me while I go scoop up my little miracle, and her equally miraculous little brother...