Dear Temple,
I hope this note finds you well and happy. Yesterday we got the call that we were chosen as the adoptive placement for the child. That means you have another cousin - and I am again a Dad. I really didn't know how this one would turn out. Now, obviously, I know. The funny thing is I don't feel the slightest bit different. I think it may be due to being so tired and run roughshod by the foster children and their biological family's needs that I'm not paying too close attention to my own. I don't know. I Do wonder how this one came to be a 'yes' while the other's were a 'no.' I like to think that it was because of my rugged handsomeness and irresistible charm, but I'm most likely wrong.
I have this odd feeling that God allowed us to be chosen because he knew we were about to give up the pursuit of more children and focus on what we had, that he knew he'd better bless us with this one because it would be his last opportunity. Does that make sense? Is that silly thinking? Probably. Maybe not though. My prayers were sounding like this - "God if you want me to raise another child this is probably the last time I will seek out the blessing." I was serious - and got the blessing.
I'm feeling a lot of peer pressure to react a certain way to the blessing. You'll find, Temple, that your reaction to events that happen to you doesn't always match what other's expectations of what your reactions should be.
I wrote on my Facebook page that I 'couldn't be happier' that this child was placed with us. To tell you the truth, I'm not very happy - I'm mostly tired. It's not that I don't want to be the child's dad. I very much do. It's just that people would react oddly if I told everyone that I was 'recently chosen as the adoptive placement for a child today. I couldn't feel any more neutral and emotionally complacent." That would have been more to the truth, but it would have rubbed people wrong.
Your Aunt Crystal and I have been in the process of adopting through the state for about eight years. That's eight years of classes, staffings, weekly adoptive profiles of abused children, countless social workers combing though our home, zero financial privacy, etc. It's been a long road to say the least. We adopted Elijah through the state - that was five years ago! We have been slogging through this gulag of a process and now we've finally achieved what we're looking for! Shouldn't I be ecstatic? According to some people, yes - according to me, no. I am glad the process to adopt is over and that we have a child, but we're not dealing with a Hollywood type situation where the child runs into my arms and we live happily every after from then on. The child that's coming home doesn't even know he's leaving his current home. He has no idea that I am his father and that all he knows of home will soon be ripped away. This type of transition is slow, tricky and very emotionally painful for the child. There will be a great deal of sadness while the child acclimates to his new home. We will give him all the time and care he needs. We also cannot shrug away the system since we still have foster children in our home. I'm thinking everything will get back to normal in about four months.
We are not out of the woods yet.
I love you much and miss you always,
Uncle Justin
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