"What is a family?"

The car was quiet as we drove home. I turned up the radio to try to ease the tension of the silence. The past two days we had been going around in circles, working through the hard and the gritty- the unseen challenges that only adoptive families know far too well.

“I have a question for you,” she asked quietly. “What is a family to you?”

I was confused. “What do you mean? It’s what we are.”

“You tell me, ‘In a family we don’t say those things to each other,’ or ‘In a family we don’t treat each other that way.’ I’m not sure if your meaning of family and my meaning of family are the same.”

Huh…. I was stumped. Wasn’t it obvious? It’s what we had put everything on the line for. It's what we've been trying tirelessly to give her since before we had even met her two and a half years ago. 

Carefully I asked, “Let me ask you this first. What is family to you?”

She told me of each of the families she’s been in throughout her life: biological, orphanage, foster, and now adoptive. She had been given “a family” so many different times. Each a world apart in their differences. Some good, some bad- each leaving its own mark, its own scars. I finally understood another little piece of why adjusting to living in our family had been a challenge at times. 

What is a family? I asked myself that for the first time. I prayed silently as I gathered my thoughts, knowing my answer would be pivotal in our relationship. 

After a few moments, I asked her, “Have you ever seen a baby learn to walk?”

“Yes.”

“A baby starts out crawling. It’s all she knows how to do. It's all she can do, but the day will come when she wants to learn how to walk. Learning isn’t easy but her parents are there and so are her siblings, helping her to stand and steady her balance. They walk beside her, holding her hands for support and catching her when she falls. The baby is learning to do something difficult but she knows she is safe because her family is there to catch her. As the baby gets older and stronger she begins to take steps on her own. Her parents have to stand back sometimes and let her do it on her own, knowing that sometimes she will fall and sometimes it will hurt. But they're there, sometimes holding her up, sometimes just standing by. They will never be far away, even when she’s walking completely on her own.

“I guess I see a family kind of like this. A family is a training ground for life. It’s where we learn to navigate through what the future will bring. It’s a safe place to make mistakes, a safe place to fall. It’s a group of people who, no matter how badly we mess up, will always be there, will always love us. It’s the people with whom we learn how to work through disagreements. It’s the people with whom we learn how to love. Some day you’ll have to know how to navigate the world without us always by your side, but we’ll never be far.”

In her short time with us, even within the realm of traditional, she has seen so many different types of families. Each unique in their own way, and at times creating confusion as to what she should expect from her own. Sometimes even I don’t know what to expect from an adoptive family. What’s normal? What’s not? I’m still learning how to walk too.

We talked about the million different ways to be a family. Ours isn’t necessarily the right way. It’s certainly not the only way. There will undoubtedly be things she wants to do differently with her own future family, and that’s not only okay, but to be expected. 

She had that bounce in her step as she walked through the door when we got home, that bounce she has when we’ve broken through another glass wall- one of the countless walls we’ve shattered over the past two years. I felt lighter, my heart fuller. Grateful yet again for one more lesson I’ve learned along this path we blindly set out on not too long ago. Grateful for the realization of something I had taken for granted until then- of what family is to me. Grateful for my own parents and the family that taught me how to walk.

Change

The longer Dennis and I are married, the more I realize how truly different we are in so many ways. He finds comfort in permanency, in consistency, and knowing that tomorrow will look like today. I find comfort in new beginnings, and feel exhilarated by change and risks. I'm always turning things over, looking for something new.

The last six months I had began feeling the dreaded feelings of stagnancy settling in again. Every year or two, inevitably it comes knocking, and it can be suffocating- I imagine from my upbringing. Change was the one thing we knew would always come when I was a kid- a complete overhaul of everything we knew, and the one thing that will help a third culture kid survive is to learn to embrace change.

Over the years I've learned that I have to give those feelings a space and at least some voice, instead of always trying to suppress them. Living in the same small town for thirteen years now and with no foreseeable plans of moving, has provided lots of practice.

One of the least disruptive ways to quench my thirst for change was to enroll in a BSN program, to finally finish my nursing degree. After 14 years, I'm back in school again remembering why I never liked math. That was the easy part of the decision, but in order to make time for school, came an unwanted change.

For the past two and a half years, I've worked as a school nurse at a local high school. I loved my job- the students, my schedule, the amazing on-site daycare for Mila, the teen moms, the staff, and only 7 minutes from my house... in so many ways it felt like the perfect job. But to open time for school, I needed to condense my hours, which meant leaving the school. It was an emotional and difficult decision to make. I shed many private tears in the days leading up to leaving. Not a day has gone by that I haven't questioned whether or not that was the right decision to make.

I took a new job at a long-term care facility, which in many ways has proved to also be a blessing, but has also been disheartening to once again get back into what feels like very mechanical, assembly line-type nursing. Non-stop running for 13 hours, crabby patients, and constantly keeping in mind the CYB (cover your butt) mantra that nurses have to live by in our sue-happy society. I had forgotten the steep learning curve that comes with clinical floor nursing. I have to remind myself that in order to get away from this type of nursing, I need to continue on with my schooling.

Unfortunately, my first night off orientation and the first week of school also coincided with the week that one of my children had surgery, and Dennis was out of town. To say that it was overwhelming would be a vast understatement.

People often ask how things are going with the changes that have come from the adoption. Most days are good, some are quite hard. I've come to the conclusion that there will be some things that will always be a challenge just due to the nature of adopting an older child, and that learning to adapt to a new normal will be my lifelong undertaking. I love change, thrive on it- but somethings simply may never change, and that is a pill I'm learning to swallow.

Many car drives alone to the pharmacy have provided private space for tears and prayers, hoping to understand the things God wanted me to learn and become when he first sent us down this path. But I'll never regret the decision to walk it because of what it has given me- a renewed relationship with God, a family that has grown stronger through adversity, and a bond with my husband that can never be broken. I never want to go back to who I was before this all. I thank God every day for the companion he gave me to walk this road that sometimes feels so very lonely. Dennis has been my saving grace, my rock, and my dearest friend in this world. While I seek change in the other areas of my life, this is change that I pray will never come.

The unwanted companion

I've sat on this post for weeks. It's been several months in the making as I've debated a hundred times whether or not it's something to be shared. I never thought this would be a part of my life story, but here we are. I suppose all that's left to do is to accept it for what it is- a personal Gethsemane of sorts- and to perhaps someday learn to embrace it.

I wonder what my children will say someday about the journey this has been over the past few years. Not only bringing Hengxin into our family, but so much more. Older parents tell me these years are both the most challenging of raising a family, as well as the ones they miss the most. It's been a long road and there are miles yet ahead of us. As my children get older, what will be the story they tell of these days? What will be their story? I suppose all I really know is my story, or how life appears through my lenses.

A few weeks ago I walked the dogs through the subdivision where we used to live, to unwind after a long day. It was dark, the street lamps illuminating the sidewalk in sporadic spotlights; like a silent, empty stage. I had memorized the way the roads looked in the dark, having trained for many races throughout the years in the early hours of the morning or late into the night after the kids were in bed. Walking the darkened streets felt like visiting an old, familiar friend. I paused as I stopped in front of our old house. We had lived there for almost 9 years. It felt like a family member, long forgotten. An unfamiliar car sat in the driveway. The trees bigger than I remembered them. The glow of the interior lights shone softly onto the street, the quiet movement of shadows behind the curtains. I stood now as a stranger in front of what was once so familiar to me- transfixed- every inch of the house holding a thousand memories. It was a hallowed space that had once cradled us through the earliest days of our family. Those years had been hard too. Simpler, but still hard. Unbid, the tears began to fall- feelings of despair welling up, like they wanted nothing more than to swallow me whole. How was I going to survive this time in my life, and cross all of the mountains that stood before me? It was insurmountable. It was sometime before I was able to continue walking. I was taken back by what was stirred in me that night. I thought I had been doing better. I thought that the worst had past.

It took me months, even years, to see it for what was. I had dismissed it as normalcy- or at least my normal- for so long that it never occurred to me that perhaps it was something more. It ran deeper than the grief of what I had lost over the years, or of what I'll lose in years to come. It was more than the stress and fatigue that come from being the mother of a large adoptive family. It had become a canker, feasting away at any hope I had for the future. It had planted seeds of resentment and harvested bounteous crops of anger. It stole away my optimism, leaving feelings of despair and darkness in its wake. It had companioned me for so long that I scarcely knew it was there anymore. It was just the way things were.

I soon realized that my dark companion had a trusty side-kick: guilt, its loyal friend. I had no right to feel this way. I had seen God's hand in the past two years in ways that few people do throughout their lifetime. I had felt His love for me more than I ever had before. What more did I want? I have a good husband. Healthy children. Beautiful home. Good education. I was ungrateful, I told myself, and ungrateful people are bad. I confided in a friend that some days I just wanted to disappear- to be forgotten.

I received a call one afternoon, asking if I'd give a presentation to a church youth group about anxiety and depression. As a nurse, a day rarely goes by on the job when I don't address some form of anxiety and depression, but still I was confused as to why I'd be ask to give the presentation, of all people. However, I accepted and began to study. For weeks I researched and read anything I could on the topic. I interviewed people who suffered from them. I prayed and fasted, pondered and studied more than I ever had for any class. It was during one of the interviews that a question began to form in my mind. Could this be me? I rejected the thought but it never left me, quietly tugging on my pride, like a persistent child tugging on his mother's shirt.

With reluctance I asked to assessed by a physician. I wasn't surprised when he said, yes, I most likely was depressed. But still, it didn't feel the way I thought it would.

How long had I been this way? I couldn't say for sure, but likely it had been simmering for years, with the last two years helping to rear its head in full force.

Within a few short weeks of beginning medication coupled with counseling, my lenses began to clear. The way I had felt for so long was not normal. I saw people differently. I saw myself differently. Anger towards the hard things of life, lessened. Resentment towards those who I had felt hurt by, softened. The grip on difficult things from the past, that for so long I had clung to, began to loosen. And with that loosening started coming the first rays of forgiveness. The heavy shroud of darkness began to lift.

But with the clearer lens came a deeper understanding. Medication was simply a tool, not the cure for my depression. The rest depended on me. There were boundaries that needed to be put in place. Physical health that needed to become a constant, rather than an occasional sprint. Spiritual self-care needed to take priority. The people dearest to me in my life needed to be drawn in, rather than pushed away. And others, perhaps, needed a little more distance.

Relapses still come- more than I wish they would. I imagine to some extent they perhaps always will, but this is a journey, and I might likely have this travel companion for quite sometime.

I once heard it said that to feel joy in our life, we didn't have to change the context of our lives- our family, our job, our home- but that it could be found even in the hardest of days and the darkest of nights.

I felt that joy as I observed the happy chaos at the dinner table the other night. The constant interrupting of excited little voices to tell us about their day at school. The creative and (sometimes) subtle ways my children come up with to tell me that my cooking leaves much to be desired. The caveman-esque table manners of the youngest child that makes us laugh. The sneaking of unwanted food to the dog waiting eagerly underneath the table. The sticky little arms around my neck to thank me for the dinner that remained mostly untouched. The incredible mess of food an dishes left to be cleaned up- the remains of an abundance. Happy, beautiful chaos.

These are the days- the hardest and the happiest of life- that surely I'll miss the most. I thank God for the journey, even with its less-than-desirable travel companion, because it's after the darkest nights that the dawn of all that's good and beautiful seems brighter.

The visitor

Just seeing her made my heart ache- Rosalbita Frias, my maternal grandmother. "This can't be a dream... she seems so real," I kept thinking. And yet still I knew I was only dreaming.

I sat in the galeria, sunlight streaming through the huge windows that looked out to the garden. She sat next to me at the round table next to the TV- the same table where I've spent so many hours talking and laughing. It was covered with a flowered table cloth, just like it always has been, with a dainty crystal vase and colorful floral arrangement. I could see the wood paneling with our pictures on the wall behind her- the greenery that so abundantly filled the room.

The lines on her face, the way her silver hair swept across her forehead, the pearl earrings, and those eyes- so beautiful and brown and vacant. I saw her as I last remembered her, tiny and frail with her mind a million miles away- tucked several decades ago in the past. Stolen by the grip of Alzheimer's.

I looked down at her hands and realized how deeply I had missed seeing them. Her hands... they told the story of her life- thick and calloused, laced in the lovely wrinkles that one only earns after several decades of life. They told of the sacrifices she had made for her small family, of the triumphs and of the heartaches. How many times I had seen those hands expertly craft hundreds of empanadas. How many times they had cradled the animals she so tenderly cared for. She rubbed my arms as I talked, the way she always had, her eyes staring off in the distance.

I wept as I talked to her, knowing by the vacancy in her eyes that she didn't understand what I was saying. I didn't care. I just needed to talk to her. 

"Ritita," she called out to no one in particular. During the years after she lost her memory, I had always wished she was calling for me when she said that, but I knew it was for her sister whom I was named after. I pretended she was calling for me.

I told her about everything that had been hard for me lately, about how inadequate I felt to face the challenges that lay before me, about how much I had missed her. I wept as I talked, just needing to free myself of the weight. She responded in confused and jumbled words. I didn't expect anything else.

But slowly a change began to come across her face. It started with the crease between her eyebrows softening- the same worried crease that had deepened as her memory was taken from her. Her hair began to darken and the hollowness in her face began to fill out. Her jaws regained their natural teeth and within moments I was looking at the face of the grandmother I remembered when we had moved to Chile when I was 7 years old.

She looked at me differently now. Her eyes finally seeing me. She was radiant and healthy, the way she looked in the years before my grandfather passed away. She spoke clearly, fully in the moment. She talked to me for sometime. She had always been a talker. I just listened, and listened... and listened, the way I had done so many times as a child as I watched her work. I don't remember anything she said, and somehow it didn't matter. Just knowing she was talking to me was enough.

After sometime, she hugged me in the firm embrace I had always remembered and my heart felt like it was going to burst. Her wonderful grandmotherly scent, so familiar and sweet, filling me up. All too soon, the dream was over and I awoke, aching for her to stay near.

My grandmother had come to visit me, of that I have no doubt. It had been too vivid of a dream for it to have been simply a reorganization of thoughts, the way our minds do when we are asleep.

I've thought of her a lot lately and I'm not sure why. Perhaps she experienced some of the same challenges I've been experiencing, though I've never been told if she had. Perhaps our thoughts are drawn to those deceased family members who experienced the same things we're going through as they quietly help us along. 

Our time together that night, though brief and fleeting, was precious to me. She had come to remind me that despite the veil of mortality that lies between us, she is there for me, rooting for me and helping me along the way, as are my other grandparents and loved ones who've gone before me.

Rainbows in the making

I remember staring across the restaurant with what I knew full well was nothing more than selfish envy. The newly adopted toddlers in their newly purchased clothes, adorable and smiling at their newly acquired parents who lovingly spoon-fed them breakfast. They were absolutely darling. I glanced across the table at the preteen sitting silently in front of me, expressionlessly poking at her food.

We had had custody of her for a little over a week and I had caught several glimpses of how amazing she was, but I had also quickly realized that we had our work cut out for us.

I was tired. I didn't want more work, even if it had been cut out just for me. I just wanted easy. And the toddlers looked easy. I felt ashamed of myself. I knew better. We all had our work cut out for us, even the parents of the toddlers.

The hotel where we stayed in Guangzhou housed several adoptive families, all on the last leg of a long journey as they awaited to finalize their child's paperwork at the U.S. consulate. Each morning at breakfast as we saw adopted toddlers and young children, I had to remind myself that God's plan for us was sitting across the table from me- not across the restaurant.

How to stay real and honest about the hard parts of life, without feeling like we have to turn everything into butterflies and rainbows? Life is so much more than that. It's gritty and hard sometimes, and that's okay. It's the very nature of what's hard that unfolds the beauty of the rainbow. Rainbows are what come after the storm, not inspite of them. The two are inextricably linked- one can't be appreciated without the other. That's why I write about the hard stuff, to give meaning to the victories that otherwise I would have overlooked.

Yesterday was a rainbow day for me- a day that to anyone else might have seemed like just another ordinary day but, to me, marked a huge milestone for both of us. We drove to another long doctor's appointment, and chatted and laughed easily the whole way there and back- a blessed relief from the uncomfortable silence we usually experienced on appointment days. Some things we talked about were a stretch for her, but she talked calmly and directly about how she felt about issues that in the past had quickly flared into defensiveness and anger. The evening was also lovely. Uneventful. It ended with sweet notes she had written and left for me and Dennis underneath our pillows. Ordinary events with extraordinary gains behind them.

She's perhaps the most resilient person I've ever met. She has every reason to not be the kind and gentle person that she is. And yet the longer she's home, the more I see the damage that was done during those many years in the orphange, usually so subtle that most people miss it- damage that only love and time can begin to heal.

She's learned everything at warp speed- all of the little things that we take for granted. How to give and take in a relationship. How to express emotions in a healthy way. How to recognize an ally without labeling it a foe. I couldn't be more proud of her.

And yet there are still tough times. Times when both of us want to call a time-out and walk away.

A few weeks ago we were there- in the middle of an awful storm. I felt like I had nothing left to give- no more patience, no more understanding, nothing. I sat at my desk at work one morning, wondering how I was going to find the strength to go home and do it all over again. It wasn't just that I didn't want to, I couldn't. My emotional reserves had run dry. I felt completely empty. Just then I got a knock at my office door and a student asked if I'd consider being video interviewed for a school project she was doing. The topic- learning to find faith in yourself during your lowest moments.

I sat down on the stool, the video camera began to roll, and the rawness of all we had been through, and all that is yet to come, came to the surface and I began to cry. I cried as I addressed the topic of the interview- the lowest time in my life. It was just a year ago when we brought our daughter home. When everything that seemed like it could go wrong in our life, seemed to be going wrong. Times that made me shudder to think of, and that sometimes- like that very day- things were still hard. Really hard. But that I realized that finding faith in myself meant reaching out and not trying to doing it alone.

I was so embarassed. I hardly knew her, and here I was spilling my guts and blubbering like an idiot.

She turned off the camera and quietly told me that she had been adopted too as as child. That things had been hard for her too, and that sometimes they still were. I was stunned. I had no idea. We talked for some time, both shedding tears. She encouraged me to keep going, to keep loving my daughter and to never stop, even when she seemed to push us away. We embraced and I knew that once again God had intervened on my daughter's behalf. I drove home that afternoon, noticing the warmth of the sun for the first time that day. A heavy darkness had been lifted.

Little did I know that just a few days later, we would reach an even lower point- lower than we had ever reached before, and that the darkness would feel darker than ever. But it didn't last long and I had to remind myself that it's that very ebb and flow that often characterizes adoption. Hard moments, followed by even harder moments, and then a breakthrough when you can finally catch a glimpse of what it is everyone's working towards, and the view is breath-taking.

I think back on those days eating breakfast in the hotel in Guangzhou and I realize that I would never trade her for one of those darling toddlers. Not a hundred of them. Even with all the past year has brought, I know now, with more perfect clarity than ever, that she was always meant to be our daughter.

There will be more storms, of that I have no doubt, but we learn from each of them. For me, mostly how to handle (or not to handle) myself during those raw and difficult moments. The storms have a way of unearthing every vulnerability and insecurity in myself that I thought I had learned to manage, or that I never knew even existed. As much as I tire of how deeply I feel everything, it was the emptiness I felt that day of the interview that scared me the most. I never want to go there again. So, I will try to take each storm and embrace it for what it is- a rainbow in the making.

I'm grateful to Kat, one of the amazing advisors at our school who was present during the interview,for capturing the moment.
(Posted with the student's permission)

Those who lost

The one-year anniversary of Hengxin joining our family came and left quietly. Not because it went unnoticed. In fact, every day leading up to it, I replayed in my mind the preparations, the nerves, the emotions that came before taking the biggest leap of faith any of us had ever taken- forever seared into my memory and in the deepest pit of my stomach. Most adoptive families commemorate Family Day with a celebration but I couldn’t do. I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate the beginning of what felt like some of the darkest days of our family’s life. Our little world felt like it was falling apart in so many ways. Satan was once again attacking from almost every angle possible. I quickly came to realize that the grueling process of bringing her home, which I thought was the pinnacle of our trials was, in fact, only preparation for bigger things to come. They were only the beginning. I wanted to look forward, not back.

Just as adoption is about gaining, it is also about loss. So much loss. And the most wounded often sit in the shadows, unnoticed and overlooked. My biological children suffered a tremendous loss for so long- something that is rarely talked about in adoption stories. While they watched their new sister gain parents, they felt like they were losing theirs, their mother and father consumed with this new family member. Almost daily medical appointments taking me away for hours at a time. Every conversation, every meal, every activity, seemed to be centered around this new person who at times seemed to only push us away. Strangers in their own home and lost in a new and disheartening reality, their world had been completely turned upside down.

There was grief disguised as anger. Some more than others and it felt like life would never feel normal again. At times, some of the children who had initially been the most supportive of the adoption, felt the deepest wounds and the greatest resentment. This was as much a trial of their faith as it was ours, and my heart ached as I watched them struggle.

And yet a celebration is in order. Not for where we were, but where we are today. On the one-year mark, in a serendipitous series of events that I couldn't have planned if I tried, I was able to sit back and reflect in gratitude for where we are today, not where we were a year ago. At times I am guilty of allowing the difficulties overshadow the triumphs.

A few nights ago Hengxin handed me a paper that she had written in school. It was a letter she had written to me about heroes. And her hero, she said, was me. For helping her. For comforting her when she was sad. For loving her. And the date she had written it? March 1st- the one year anniversary of her joining our family- the very day I had wanted to slip by unnoticed.

It was on the very day I had wanted to skim over that she also delivered several boxes of food for a food drive she had organized and carried out for my student's in need at my school. It was a labor of love, one that involved overcoming deep-seeded insecurities and fears, as she stood in front of large groups of people to solicit food donations. And the outpouring of support for her efforts was huge.

She had no idea how the timing of any of it coincided, so I was able to reflect quietly on its impact.
It was God gently nudging me to not focus on the difficulties we had experienced, but on the beauty of where those challenges led us. To remind me that it was all worth it. Every single bit of it.

But most of all, to see those wounded little ones who had once sat in the shadows, learn to embrace their new life, for me that is the greatest reward. They play together, laugh together, and yes... fight together- just like real siblings do. They gained a new sister, a friend, a playmate. They gained a mother who became more present than she used to be. They gained faith through experience that when God commands something, He sees it through till the end. That miracles happen daily, big and small. They learned the power of a changed heart, and that more often than not, it's our own heart that need to be changed. They learned that good health is one of our biggest blessings, and the power that comes when families work together through hard things.

So often people tell us that they are amazed by me and Dennis, that they could never do what we've done, but it isn't us who are the true warriors. It is the children, each of them, who didn't choose any of this. None of them did. They followed along with what God told their parents to do, and then opened their hearts in the best ways they knew how. They've each lost, but they've gained so much too. These little warriors are my heroes.

Finding a place

The dust has settled, like we're finally stumbling out to see the aftermath of what once felt like a terrible storm. In some ways it feels like stitching back together the tattered pieces of a quilt. In other ways it feels like walking out to victory.

Today was our first Christmas with our little girl, who a year ago, was a perfect stranger to us. It was lovely- a distant cry from where we were just a few months ago. The past few weeks I've been thinking about it all- the highs and lows of the roller coaster we've been on.

I'm part of a large online adoption community where I've been following the journeys of several adoptive families. As I read of some of their struggles, I can't help but feel a sense of guilt. For all the challenges we've been through, compared to the challenges of other adoptive families, we've had it easy. Incredibly so. In so many ways I feel like we hit the adoption jackpot. She fits into our family seamlessly, like a glove. It's this realization that makes me feel weaker than I thought I was as I reflect on how much I've struggled. She is a treasure- a priceless one, and I shutter to think what life would be like had we never said yes to bringing her home. But what got us to this point was going blindly down a path with lots of guessing and hoping... hoping that I wasn't screwing things up too badly.

__________________________

She stood there, staring at me in disbelief and I almost lost my nerve.

No, I told myself, follow through. I motioned again for her to take the backseat.

She narrowed her eyes but obeyed. Her face turned to stone and she clenched her jaw in defiant silence as she turned to look out the backseat window. I took a deep breath and sat in the front seat.

I felt sick and completely unnerved. I looked at Dennis for reassurance and he nodded quietly. She had only been home for a couple of weeks and still struggled with carsickness every time she traveled in a car. We had been having her take the front seat since it helped minimize the nausea, and now I was booting her to the backseat so I could sit in the front. It felt awful because I knew. I knew I had no idea what I was doing, that I was bluffing my way through it.

I had been sensing over the past few days that my attempts at being seen as gentle and understanding were being perceived as being weak and insecure. Bonding and attachment had been taking a steady downhill turn and I couldn't help but wonder if that was why. Our little girl can be quite intimidating when she wants to be, and truth be told, had intimidated me several times up to that point.

We had reached a crux. Either I was to be the perpetual weakling or I was to take my place as the leader of the pack- the alpha- and I was risking a puking kid in my backseat to prove it, but I knew I had to do it.

As she sat staring out the window, I could tell she had completely shut down again and that it would probably last for hours.... and it did. Her shut downs are hard on me. The silence, the emotional distance- it kills me.

But then something unexpected happened. After several hours, she pulled out of it and was different than she was before. Oddly enough, she smiled more that night, laughed more, and seemed strangely content- like an assurance had washed over her.

As the weeks and months went on, I saw this pattern reemerging time and time again. I'd comfortably slide out of alpha role, and bonding and attachment would suffer. We'd struggle through a few days of muck before realizing that I needed to tighten the slack, and our relationship would improve almost immediately. With each episode we'd be better than before. I would have to remember to occasionally fluff my feathers for things to continue to improve. It seemed like the strangest phenomenon.

Sometimes I'd "alpha" over the most trivial of things to pull her out of it- like how far away from me she was allowed to walk when we were in public- but it was too much of an obvious pattern to ignore. The stricter I was- even on the littlest of things- the safer she seemed to feel and the happier she was. I was learning a side of parenting I had neglected to notice with my biological children- that for some children there's a comfortable security that comes with what feels like militaristic parenting.

It isn't easy work for either of us though. At times we've locked horns for hours, sometimes day. There have been tears and frustration, but each time I see her blossom brighter than before. Today she shines brighter than ever before. As I write this, she came in to check on me from working with her dad on her new puzzle. She smiled and patted my shoulder, asking how I was doing and if I needed anything. She is a sweetheart beyond belief.

My little girl has been riding a roller coaster of uncertainty and grief for the past 12 years of her life, and finally there is a seat belt around her little lap, holding her in tight. She can finally be the child and enjoy the ride, letting someone else take care of her for a change, instead of always having to look out for herself. I pray that someday along this ride she'll be able to see with bright eyes what her place in this world really is.

And what a place in this world she has.