Anyone who stops by our Place Called Simplicity knows that the plight of the orphan and the beauty of adoption are both common themes around here.  Today being National Adoption Day there are about 163 million thoughts rolling around my head. Of course, truth be known, the same 163 million thoughts roll around in my noggin on any given day, all day long.

I long for everyone to understand the joy of adoption.

I hate that orphans wait.

I despise that anyone – big or little cries for someone to love them, but no one comes.

I abhor knowing that precious treasures are hungry around the world.

I bawl that beautiful kids age out every day eliminating their chance to ever be part of a family.

I loathe that there is no end in sight to the orphan crisis.

Thirty years ago we said, “Yes!”  to a handsome little face born on the other side of the world.

I stare at my dashing son’s picture that I took this past Spring.  I see his smiling eyes and laughing face and my own eyes well with tears.  How could we ever begin to imagine our lives without him?

Look at him!!

I mean – Look at him!!  He was once a little one in desperate need of a family.

And all we did was say “yes”.

I gaze at his picture.  I get to be his mom.  I promise I never did anything good enough for the privilege.

He’s a defender of our freedom.  Warrior.  Faithful husband.   Engaging daddy.

 

I can’t imagine our lives without him.  Dw and I both well often with tears when we speak of him.

I know I’ve said it before, but he is truly the funniest person I have ever met.  Ever.  Bar none.  He has that dry Bob Newhart sense of humor and his timing is always perfect.  He probably could be a stand-up comedian and get paid really huge bucks.  He’d write his own material for sure.  And the really cool thing about his humor is that it is not at someone else’s expense. Sarcasm and nastiness aren’t funny.  True humor comes when no one gets hurt in the joke – and he’s a true comedian.

And to think  – We could have easily missed out on calling this remarkable human being our son – if we’d have said, ‘No, I don’t think so.  We’re good.”

Personally speaking, bringing Tyler home was my dream come true!! Since a little girl I had always dreamed of a little Asian boy in red overalls.  After someone handed us our precious little guy at the JFK airport on April 16th almost 30 years ago the first outfit I put on him was a pair of red OshKosh overalls.

Easy going, helpful, tenderhearted, brave, wise, courageous, diligent, bold, talented in so many ways, remarkably intelligent all combined with that amazing sense of humor  – no wonder we can’t even bear to think of our lives without him.

He paved the path for us wanting as many as we could bring home through the beauty of adoption. He set the stage.

We don’t take lightly the horrific grief that occurs on a birth family’s side.  We don’t disregard the heartache of adoption, but that’s for another day’s post.  Today we celebrate 10 of our children!

Ten beautiful human beings.

Ten wonderful treasures.

Ten adoption advocates.

Ten joy-to-be-around people.

Ten orphan loving kids.

Ten we-wouldn’t-want-to-live-without-treasures!!

But as they say, “The proof is really in the puddin'”….and the puddin’ is that we are still adopting, 30 years later.

We just can’t bear to miss out on all the joy.

We just said YES!

And we’ll say “yes” again.  Because we couldn’t bear to miss out.