Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Tears

I wrote this five months ago, but never published it. That was a really hard week, and my heart was very raw. 

For almost exactly one month, Kassi never cried. 


One of the most traumatic months of her life - and she never shed a tear. 


Leaving everything that she has known for fourteen years, to go to a country where she only speaks three words of the language, with people that she had never seen before - and she kept a smile on her face.


Until she cried. 

When she finally let herself trust us, her forever family, enough to let out her emotions. 


What caused the tears? Us telling her that we would love her and never leave her - every day forever and ever. 


She really has no concept right now of what love means, but she is learning.  We are still (and likely will be for a while) working through the confusion that she has about the meaning of being a family. She told us today that she was worried that if we found another child to come into our family, we would "trade" her for them. We are reiterating over and over that we will ALWAYS love her and be her family, and we will never leave her! 


It was so heart-wrenching and painful - but watching Mama just hold her and rock her while Daddy held her hand as she cried was one of the most beautiful things that I have seen. 


She has had many more times of just needing to be held in the rocking chair while she lets out these big, hard emotions, and I know that she will have many more, but that day touched her heart as well - very, very deeply. Since then, she has told us that she loves us - and asked whether we loved her - over and over again.  She worked all afternoon on a picture thanking Mama for holding her and taking care of her, and she is singing us all of the songs that she knows about Mamas and Daddies taking care of their children!


My heart is aching so much right now for the children who have or will "age out" without coming home. Without hearing someone say that they will always be taken care of and loved - forever. Without being rocked by their Mama. Without hearing their Daddy call them "Baby" (Kassi's favorite name). 

Kassi is so worried about her friends in the orphanage, and the stories that she tells us about the children who sing the same songs that she is singing to us while they cry themselves to sleep - I can't imagine. Not many of us can. 


But I can imagine the loss to the world that occurs when one of these children loses that chance. I know how amazing our girl is and oh how I wish that everyone could have a Kassi in their life - and a Kellin, Karwen, Kai, Kolya and Kade, too! 


We are missing so much joy when we let these children stay where they are.

So much joy, so much love, so much light. 


No comments:

Post a Comment