Four whole years

I have been feeling like tomorrow is a big day for us, but I was hesitant to say anything to our girl.  Maybe it is just me.

But my doubts were put to rest as Little Monkey slipped her hand in mine while walking back from the market.  “It’s been four years, right?”  she asked me abruptly.   It took me a beat to catch on to what she was referring to, but then I realized. She had been watching the calendar and processing along with me.  As I nodded she said, “You know for four whole years you have stuck with me.  Now we have been together longer than we have been a part.”

It took my breath away to hear her say those words out loud.

It is a big deal.

Crazy how life can change so much in four years.  Healing has taken place, love has grown, and now it is hard to remember life without our Little Monkey.  Maybe that is why four years seems like a big deal.  We now remember more togetherness than we remember apartness.  There are more memories as a family and pre-family memories (for good or bad) have dimmed.

I will never forget meeting our daughter for the first time.  She was scared to death of us; we were the first white people she had ever seen and she later told us she thought we glowed!  Such a brave almost four year old who was led into her new life that day.  I don’t remember her tears, but I will never forget how she stared straight forward with a determined look on her grim little face.  She looked so much older than her years.

I thought again today how she seems older than her years.  I promised her brownies to celebrate the day we became a family.  She smiled and said, “Family is the best present of all.”

This marks four years from a birth….the birth of our family as it is now.  That is the gift we are celebrating tomorrow.  Without her, without adoption, we wouldn’t know the depths of love and what family really can be.