You've lived a life I can't even imagine, giving me the life I've only imagined.Your tears of loss turn mine to tears of joy.You are my son's birth mother, and you are giving birth to my motherhood.We have never even seen your faces, but your lives have forever changed ours.
How do I begin to say thank you?
My words fail...miserably.
Until a few days ago, you were an abstract to me - my own perceptions floating through my consciousness, convincing my mind's eye that I knew what you would be like, what your story would be, how you would react to me.
And then I heard your voice. I heard your words. I feel the history of your young lives enveloping me, soothing my anxieties and quieting my doubts.
How can I say thank you?
I do not know if you could quite understand what your gift means to us. I will never be able to describe it. I do not know if you think of this as the truly, remarkably selfless act that it is. I could never articulate how it feels. You say you are astounded by our act of love, by our open arms and hearts. And I say your gift is the final piece of our existence, your acceptance the final peace we've been seeking.
How can we show you?
His history will never be shrouded, will never be blank. He will know this journey that brought four lost people together to this point of clarity, this partnership, along these two paths immeasurably different yet converging at the same place and in the same moment. You will never be a question mark for him. He will know of the great sacrifices, the unnameable love that knits our separate threads together to hold him up throughout his life. He will hear it in our words and also in yours.
Few people get to experience this relationship we are cultivating for the sake of one life. What a remarkable way to raise a child. What a spot of true beauty, true purpose in our lives.
What scares me now?
It is not a question of your commitment. It is not our ability. It is the fear that we will at times lose sight of the gratitude, the overwhelming joy that has flooded our lives in such a short span of time from such a distant place, a source at once unknown and yet comforting.
May we never forget what it feels like when loss, rejection and frustration instantly crumble away, their shadows pushed aside to make room for this happiness and warmth.
How can we possibly say thank you?
