Special day, busy weekend, and adoption update

8 years ago I got a call that rocked my world.  That moment plays like a slow motion movie.  The sound warbled.  The information came in bits and pieces.  The result still the same.

I remember the initial call came in as "Mom's been in an accident."  I am even embarrassed to admit but I thought that my mom would have been at fault.  I use to tease her about being an airhead.  She use to zip around in her convertible, playing music, with a smile on her face.  I could see her getting in a fender bender.  My first prayers were please don't let her have hurt someone.  My prayers were answered but not in the way I expected.  As more news came she had been hit by a car walking across the street with my adopted 8 year old brother. They were walking from the parking lot to the church for a special service.  She managed to push Chris out of the way.  She died at the scene or in the ambulance, the detail never seemed important to me.  She was 62.  The mother of 6 children, two of which were adopted.  The man who hit her just did not see her.  He was a father of 4.  About ten years older than she was.  He was changing stations on his radio and turning onto a busy street.  To this day I am so thankful for the God's grace in allowing me to forgive him immediately.  My sisters have had a harder time.  They were so angry with him.  That anger is so heavy.  Something my mom would have never wanted.  By the time I flew down and got to the house, it was too late.  But just seeing her recipe box open and the recipe of what she had been cooking out, the message she left on my machine that day, or the letter that she had thrown in the mail that morning...such gifts!  I will always miss her.  But she knows that.

The only child of mine she did not meet was Bella.  I know that she would have loved Bella, and Bella would ahve adored her.  She was fun, kind, and gentle.  So today we talked and prayed for Grammy.  We went to the beach before church.  Grammy loved the beach and Grammy loved little kids:)  So she would have loved how we celebrated her life.

So now onto a lighter subject.  We had so much fun at R and A's birthday party.  Bella loves these girls. Followed up by a Fasika celebration planned by this amazing mom.  By Saturday night, we were exhausted.  But you have to laugh at the way of a 4 year old.  This was Bella on the way to the Fasika celebration:

Two minutes later:

And maybe a minute later:

On the adoption front...we are home study approved, waiting for the hard copy so we can submit to CIS.  Yeah!!!!  I am loving CHI/Ywam.  I wish I could have gone to the Mom's night out that they had in WA.  But as you can see this weekend could not have fit in one more activity:)

Holidays and Missing

With Thanksgiving and Christmas, I find that I think about and miss my mother more than I normally do.  I don't think that it ever goes away, it just becomes more acute during the holidays.  To explain why, I have to tell you a little about what my mother was like.  By the time we lived in India she had had four children.  My brother was a few months old when she fell in love with and then adopted Sabrina.  They went on to adopt another, a boy who is now 13.  When I came home from college, I never knew who would be living in the house.   A single mother, a down-on-his-luck young man, a young lady who needed someone to care... our house was full, whether it be children, or adults.  My mother never raised her voice-I mean never (okay,maybe twice).  She was incredible loving.  She almost never wore make-up and use to drive me crazy because she would pair a beautiful cashmere sweater with a flannel skirt.  There where two rules that are front and center that she taught me and that I continue to repeat to my children: 1. if you have nothing nice to say don't say it (she never gossiped-I try not to but I am not as successful as she was.)   2. what drives you crazy in other people, is a reflection of a characteristic that you have and struggle with - greed, pride, etc.  (unfortunately, I have come to realise that this one might also be true.)

Five and a half years ago, she was walking my youngest brother across the street to his First Holy Communion.  She was struck by a car in the cross walk.  She was able to push Chris.  I don't think that he even had a bruise.  She died soon after the impact.  I never met the man who hit her.  The six of her children have dealt with the loss in different ways.  I have felt that God has given me the gift of forgiveness.  I did not want to be angry at the man who hit her or God.  To this day, while I miss her, I have never been angry about the details of the day.  I am so thankful that we had had our daily talk earlier in the morning.

That brings me to the missing part.  My mother was an incredible cook and baker.  As the wife of a diplomat, she had made an art of it.  So, every holiday that involves food....I sometimes forget that she is not here and go to call her for a question on some recipe. Or, I start crying when I making one of her pies.  By the time the pies are made, the turkey stuffed, I have worked it out and am back to being thankful for having had her for 35 years.  It has made me more empathetic when my friends lose loved ones.  

So to the adoption part.  I wonder, too, if the experience may give me a grain of understanding as what the newest member of our family may experience around his/her birthday or other milestones.  Will he or she struggle with missing someone or somewhere, or doing something like making pies?  Will he/she even be able to articulate the feeling?  Will he/she be too young to register much?