I started thinking about gratitude when my sister told me that someone she knows fairly well and I know slightly told her how much she admired Nathan and I. Why, you ask? We're pretty average folk. Well, it seems she admires us so greatly because we adopted Meron. I believe the exact words were, "I just admire them so much. I could never do what they're doing!" Like many people who have adopted a child, it is a theme we hear often. We respond to it so much that it generally just generates mild irritation and a wrote response "No, we're the lucky ones." It usually is just part of being a family that sticks out a little bit, especially in our small town in the SD. This comment, however, really got under my skin. What, exactly, is so impossible about loving a child? Especially my child? We didn't adopt Meron to be charitable. It was a decision which was not based on charity but on the need to parent a child, and the fact that we were told that she was a child who needed some parents. I think it makes me so angry because I don't ever want her to feel like she has to be grateful to us for adopting her. She has gained a lot by being in our family, but we have gained more. We have lost nothing (well, sleep, leisure time and peace of mind, but we knew what we were getting into) and Meron has lost an entire family, culture and way of life.
Because of that little comment, the subject of gratitude has been something I've been mulling over for a while. And then yesterday, Nathan and I walked down to the park with Meron. We were sitting at the picnic tables eating some ice cream when a family caught my eye. It was two little boys, maybe 6 and 4, with their mom. The mom had brought her laptop down to the park and was watching "Everybody L.oves Raymond" episodes while her kids played. Okay, whatever. I can't believe that television show is that riveting that you have to haul your laptop to the park so you can watch it, but to each their own. Maybe she'd had a horrible day... one of those kids fighting-house a mess-washing machine blows up- nothing to cook for dinner kind of days and wanted to take her mind off of it all for a bit. I get that... it happens to everyone and all you want to do is crawl in a hole and be by yourself for a while. But, in the half hour we were sitting near her, not once did she look at her kids. They each came several times to try to get her to play with them, to push them on the swings, to watch them go down the slide- to ask her to be there with them. She never looked up from her show, even for a token "I'll watch you go down the slide from here." They were met several times with, "Just go play!" They stopped asking when she told them if they needed her to play with them then they probably didn't need to be at the park at all and they could all just go home. She sat and laughed at this stupid tv show... smiling and chuckling to herself and then frowned whenever her kids talked to her. It kind of broke my heart. For all of them. I think it might have been Toni Morrison that I heard talking about raising children. She said that the most important thing any child needs is to have someone who loves them so much that their face lights up when that child comes into the room. It stuck with me so much, because I know what she is talking about. The thing I love best about going to my parent's and grandparent's house is that when I see them, I see their face light up. It is a feeling of such love and security.
I watch people all the time that look at their children seldom, and usually with great irritation. I watch parents pick up their kids at daycare and greet them with a "Get your shoes. Hurry up!" instead of a smile and a hug. And I watched that woman light up for fictional people on a computer screen and give her children nothing.... even when they were just begging her to act like she liked them. It makes me sad for the kids... but I think it makes me almost equally sad for the parents. I mean, kids are awesome. You all know I am goofy/crazy/mushy in love with my daughter and that I think she is the best kid on earth. But the kids that these parents are missing out on are great, too! Or, they could be. It breaks my heart that people don't see their kids for the incredible creatures they are... because as Toni Morrison said, "Thin love ain't no love at all." Now, I've said it often to my circle of acquaintances, that my long, twisted, heartbreakingly painful path toward motherhood gives me a much different perspective than people who got pregnant when they didn't want to. Who have babies that they were ready for. Who have lives that they didn't want or choose. I understand that. And we all have days when we want to pull our hair out and throw things out the window and stomp our feet like a two year old.
But I'm going to start trying harder to make sure that whenever Meron comes into a room I light up. She is amazing, and special, and mine... and that is nothing short of miraculous. She deserves to know how incredibly grateful I am that I get to be the one who braids her hair and brushes her teeth and teach her silly songs and paint her fingernails for the 1000th time (and let her paint my fingernails.. which I don't necessarily recommend). And I hope that the lady in the park wakes up realizes how grateful she should be.
That was beautiful! You are such a great mom!!
ReplyDeletePark Zombies. Drives me nuts.
ReplyDeletePerfectly said. My kids are my life. Yes, sometimes I tell them to "just go play", but...more often than not I'm playing with them or just gazing lovingly at them. I still can't believe that I get the opportunity to spend my life with them.
ReplyDelete