Bloom

I remember when this was going to be the year of my writing. 2018. "One" is my word. In regard to my writing, I was ready to consider it "Day One" instead of "One Day". Except.... I didn't. I haven't. And as the days have eased by, it's gotten harder and harder to make myself start. I have this weird thing about myself where I don't think I can start anything in the middle, or in medias ras, as I always taught my tenth grade honors kiddos when we read The Iliad. Only on Mondays, the first day of a month or a year. Well, I read something today about the pressure we put on ourselves and how it's not of God. It was a tweet from someone that said, "God is not in a hurry. You are. It's why you are tired. It's why you are anxious, and stressed, and disappointed. Today I pray that you surrender your timeline in favor of His peace. Trust that what was meant to be yours, will be yours." The only thing holding me back from writing, I realized, was the whole... NOT WRITING part of it. So here I am. With a much overdue post.

In June, we celebrated a year together and a few weeks ago, we officially finalized our adoption in court. This year has been many things. All seven of us have changed pretty drastically in the past year. We have grown in God and in each other. We have figured each other out. We freely fuss at all five kids, get grumpy with all five, and pout at all five rather than just the biological two. The kids can argue with each other, make up, and argue again. Our family is so different today than it was 14 months ago, and yet in other ways we are the exact same family, just larger in number.

I read an analogy the other day of a tree being grafted, and that really resonated with me. The grafting doesn't just affect the new parts, it affects the entire tree. And the tree is eventually stronger as a result of the grafted parts. The day after I read this analogy, I was sitting outside at LifeCare and my grandmother pointed to a tree whose leaves were starting to turn and said, "Do you know why the top part of that tree looks different? That's where they grafted it." Now my grandmother often says things lately that aren't exactly... correct... ;) but it still brought the idea of grafting back to my mind.

Last year in June, we received an awesome gift from a dear friend of mine. She sent a crepe myrtle for each of the kids to plant. I remember that day like it was yesterday, only home a week, everyone running around with shovels and buckets of water. I remember looking at those little plants, still weak from shipping, and thinking about how fragile they seemed. I thought ahead to the winter, wondered if they would survive cold and possible snow, wondered how we would explain their demise if they DIDN'T make it and we had already made the metaphor of the trees representing the new lives of our kids here in Tennessee.

Those trees looked pretty rough all winter. In fact, at various times, Kraig told me he thought they were probably finished. I kept insisting that they would be fine. Sure enough, in early summer, they started to perk up. By late summer, they had full leaves, and by the past couple of weeks, they are starting to bloom. It's also worth noting that each of the trees has grown completely differently. Angela's is the shortest and has the least blooms, but it is so hardy and has so many shoots on it. Roman's is by far the tallest, also strong. Francisco's isn't extremely tall like Roman's, but it is FULL of blossoms. In much the same way, the kids have very different personalities and coping mechanisms.

I stood there yesterday and looked at those trees and I remembered looking at them last summer and fall and worrying about the winter. I remembered being unsure they were hardy enough to make it, worrying that we had planted them at the wrong time and they didn't have time to root and grow strong before the cold set in. I felt many of the same fears for our kids last summer and fall. I was so scared for them to start school, so worried that we had added them to our family too late for us all to "graft" together. I was concerned that there just wasn't time for them to "root" in our family, that the cold world would set in before we had bonded together.

But all of those fears were wrong. These kids have rooted and remained hardy, grown even stronger and fuller, and bloomed. Our family roots are strong and we have so much beauty in our garden. So yesterday, we took pictures of the kids with the trees to have a visual of the first year together and their first year in the US. I'm so thankful for these trees to remind us how far we have come and how strong we are, even when the cold and uncertainty of winter comes.