ADOPTION AND THE HOLIDAYS
Don’t expect the day, yourself or your children to be perfect. Apply grace liberally and keep in mind a favorite beatitude that I wrote for myself long ago. “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break.”
By Stephanie Rodda For many, perhaps most, the holidays bring about lots of joy for the present season as well as fond memories of seasons long ago. Often people declare that you’ve never truly experienced the holidays until you’ve done so through the eyes of your child. Parents can hope, dream and pray for many years to have that special opportunity. As my husband and I struggled for more than a decade with infertility, I could only imagine the delight that must surely accompany the holidays with children. Our first Christmas as parents we were foster parents to a house full of assorted ages of children. I wanted everything to be perfect and idyllic for multiple reasons. First of all, I wanted the children in our care to experience it “right” when their young lives had seen far too much of how it could be done “wrong.” We had six foster children, the capacity by law, and had been fostering for six months. Our youngest was a newborn preemie and our oldest was a teen. My husband’s brother was in from
Tennessee to see their parents and after the kids were all in bed on Christmas Eve, he came to our house in full Santa costume with ho-hos and pictures while they each sat upon his knee. I was thrilled. It was just as wonderful as I had expected it to be. What I didn’t expect was the fallout from all the festivities. Just days before, one of our foster children had run away. We went on to foster for 15 years and never again would a child run away from us, but this one had and right before Christmas. Although we found the child safe within hours, he had insisted that he would run again at his first opportunity unless we promised to return him to DHR the next business day. We did promise and we kept that promise. It was a sad situation. He was a troubled child. Many people didn’t understand our decision and I wasn’t even sure that we understood it ourselves. I just knew we could not force him to stay. And so, our story continued as did his, but we were to travel different paths. Determined to make the best of it, I pressed on, carefully choosing each gift, making
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sure they would all be pleased with what we had gathered. Our church and DHR helped with the gifts. I orchestrated it all and that was quite the achievement, let me tell you. And so, we had arrived at this magical moment and the children who were old enough to understand what was happening, had reactions that were unexpected. One teen girl, as the big event ended, paused on her way back to bed and asked me, “Is this it?” Her question stunned me. I had anticipated giddy excitement and much thankfulness. Not so. If I had understood then what I understand now, I wouldn’t have felt so disappointed myself. The holidays are without a doubt full of heightened emotions. Anyone who has faced loss, anyone who is grieving, anyone in the midst of a family or health crisis can attest to the fact that it is harder to face during the holidays. After all, the holidays revolve around family gatherings, plenty of gifts and an abundance of food. When any of these things are missing, it is so much more apparent during the holidays than any other time.
