I don't love the zoo and it's rare that I agree to load up house and home into the mini van/bus and pay the sticker shock fees to get it, but this past Friday turned out to be a zoo appropriate day.
Reason #1. It was under 80 degrees with a nice breeze flowing through the fecal smelling air. When it's over 80, the fecal odors gets stagnant and my tolerance for the heat, mixed with poop is unreasonably low, meaning my patience for the littles isn't stellar. Not a fun outing for anyone.
Reason #2 (and the significant reason). Squirt's birth grandmother and her birth mom's identical twin sister came for a visit. Our first visit since she was a wet, slippery newborn. Tim and I did spend a large chunk of time with both the grandma and sister(s) in the waiting room the day of Squirt's birth and grew to greatly appreciate and respect Squirt's grandmother. She's a hard working, single super woman who has busted her hump trying to raise 3 girls and make enough to survive on. She supported the adoption 100% from day one and acted as one of our biggest fans, which is an amazing feat of trust. We met her mid-pregnancy when we took Dude for the first ultrasound and that was enough for her to stay on board with her daughter's selfless plan to place Squirt in our arms and provide the life and support her birth mom couldn't offer her. Grandma didn't have it in her to start all over and we have always respected that reality.
So, the visit. Jo (we'll just call her Jo) emailed a couple weeks ago, letting us know that she was finally able to take vacation time and wanted to drive through Denver for a visit. Would we be interested in seeing her? Without a doubt we would. We will always bend over backward, quite literally, for the opportunity to spend time with Squirt's bio family. It's a relationship all of us deserve to have and will be better for as a result. Tim and I took Squirt to the zoo and arranged to meet Jo and the twin sister at the gate. To the zoo's credit, it was the most idyllic spot for this type of meeting. Lots to see, lots of distractions, plenty of opportunity to talk and walk and watch Squirt be a four year old little monkey. We greeted with hugs, talked about my new hair color as an ice breaker, we all stared at Squirt for a minute while she ran around nervously and then it was like we were old friends. Like family. There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about the 3 hours. Squirt had a fabulous time and Jo and the sister treated her casually while happily observing her gallivant around the zoo. We talked about who Squirt is and how's she's similar and not at all similar to her birth mom. We talked about Squirt's beautiful birth mom and where she's at in life. We talked mom to mom about this stuff and my heart broke as Jo poured out her Mama heart about a daughter who blessed me with my own.
Tim went back to work, we all hugged good bye and Squirt and I jumped into Gus the Bus to head home. We all know it'll be rare that we see each other and that's okay. There's an underlying connection through our blond haired, blue eyed, chocolate hating, dancing queen that makes us family. I don't hesitate to call them family. I never have. And at the same time, I drove home that day with a helplessly broken, aching heart. My heart resides with our birth moms and the brokenness of their connection with our kids rips me apart. I want them in our story so much more than they can be. I want them to know us and to know their first borns and to see how amazingly perfect they were created to be. I want them to have the opportunity to see their role in all of that. They deserve to see their angelic presence in our lives. I don't want their hearts to be broken, but I know they are. And so mine breaks too and I can't look away from all of that. I can't mend that piece of me because adoption is both breathtakingly beautiful and undeniably broken. Every single one.
Visits like this one bring all those conflicting and complimentary emotions to the front lines for me. Some day Squirt will see the brokenness in her story too, but for now it's just who we are and the way God created our family to be. I don't doubt that plan for one millisecond. That little girl was created to be right where she is. But that doesn't take away the brokenness. We discuss the complexity of it all in simple terms and she nods her head. We don't over-highlight how special she is for being adopted. It's just her story and we embrace it for exactly that. Her story. We celebrate our family in all its forms and she gets it in a 4 year old format.
Squirt's birth mom now has a large tattoo on her right arm. It's a clock - a really artsy looking clock. The time on the clock is 11:35pm. I've noticed it in past visits and suspected it had great significance to our story, but I wasn't able to confirm my suspicion. Her mom confirmed it for me on Friday. It does read 11:35pm. The time Squirt was born. And the lines running through it are tree roots. Family roots. Really beautiful, intertwining, thorny, smooth, connected and broken family roots.
We may not talk more than once every year, but we're all rooted in hidden depths deep enough to keep family trees alive.
The zoo will now hold a new appreciation and significance in my heart. Just maybe not on 90 degree days.
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