A Great Cloud of Witnesses?

We had a little visitor grace our home a couple of weeks ago, and this blog entry has been percolating in my mind ever since. The reason for this percolation is because of the deep, profound parallels I see between myself and Bella. As I was growing up, I was always aware of another “set of eyes” which were reading the newspaper clipping of my exploits in Punt, Pass & Kick, or something else that might have catapulted me into the local news. I always wondered if “she” was watching, or “he” was even interested. In spite of the fact, that even saying it that way suggests that they had a choice to watch what I was doing, or even if they knew who I was, but being in the position I’m in now as a birth grandparent, their hearts were watching even if their eyes weren’t. Bella may not be asleep in my arms, but she is permanently stored in my heart. I find myself waiting and watching with my heart even if I can’t “see” her. The bittersweetness of it all comes when she actually appears in person, and knows me/us as nothing more than stranger(s) who gives her gifts to celebrate her birthday.  We were blessed to be there at her very first birthday!  That is certainly one fact that can’t be taken from us, and, in some vain sense, sets us apart from all others in this little one’s life.

I continue to be reminded how soaked my experience is with the spiritual (as if any of our experiences aren’t — we(I) just don’t make the connection).  For a birth parent, or even a birth grandparent, our experiences so mirror (darkly) God’s experience with us.  He was there when I was conceived, and was there when I was born, and then fades into the background until I become aware of Him once more.  God was “doomed,” in a sense, to live in the shadows(at times) of our lives, and at other times I bring Him to the forefront to re-establish His rightful position in my life.  The thing that I struggle with, and He chose, is that fact of being in the shadows, a lurking loving presence.  Bella may never know as the years pass, the “lurking, loving presence” of our hearts toward her.  But, that’s okay… It’s an exercise in a dimension of love that few get to experience.  If I’m honest, it’s a difficult truth as much as it is a reality that I cherish.  At times in my humanness, I want to be known.  I want to be recognized for the place I played in her life.  At other times, I’m just thankful to have any place at all, and I’ll choose to live loving from afar.

There may not be a “great cloud of witnesses” as Hebrews 12 refers to, but in Bella’s life, there are at least three who are watching and loving from a distance.

Engraven…

Of late I have had a growing awareness and perhaps even understanding what God meant when He said to Isaiah…

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

This little one has been engraved on the most sensitive part of my heart which I think is what God was communicating to Israel. He had permanently inscribed on the “palms” of His hands Israel’s name. It was a vivid way to communicate His abiding and everlasting love to Israel because He would never be without a reminder of them — it was and is just the way He wanted it. He so loved them that He was willing to make it so that He would never forget them.

The only thing in my limited perspective that separates His perspective from mine in regards to Lil’ Bella is that He was more tied and accessible to his “children.” There is something to knowing that if you really wanted to get time with your grandchild, you could. We don’t have that. Of course, this doesn’t begin to communicate or account for the inaccessibility when it comes to tucking a little one into bed and praying with her, or enjoying walks together, or sitting and just being together. There is some profound emptiness I feel, and yet, in spite of the darkness of it all (or so it appears), I wouldn’t have it any other way. That is the bittersweet wonder of it all. My situation with Bella explodes with spiritual symbolism. I get to watch from afar the journey through life she is taking from which we launched her, but have little voice in it for the rest of her life. She knows little of us, or that we are even relevant or significant figures in her life, but because of my intense love for her I have chosen to be a shadowy figure in a history that she won’t even remember. What a sacrificial part of my journey that I get to walk!  I have been given the opportunity to sense the bittersweet sacrifice that is made on behalf of another, and maybe the most painful, and I suppose beautiful, part of it is that she is blissfully unaware.  It seems to me that there are plenty of instances where God communicates that He feels the same things about me. “Watching from afar” and intensely desiring to be closer and more involved, no included, in my life. The switching lenses in this aspect of my journey is emotionally jarring.

As self-absorbed as this post sounds, my only hope that it might be of encouragement to any other birth grandparents that what they might be feeling isn’t out of the ordinary. Of course, there isn’t any access or means by which to make this available to any other birth grandparents, but that is up to God to use this. It isn’t for me to figure out how it might be used by anyone else.  I just feel compelled to write my journey as a birth grandfather even though I feel far from worthy of that title.

A birthday tribute

Today marks a significant milestone in our family.  About this time last year, we were just emerging out of the “danger zone” with Corrie.  While her little girl was hale and healthy, she was fighting for her life and the medical staff was doing all they could to not lose her.  It was a surreal time of my life to be holding in my arms that little one just as I had held my first daughter only 20 years before.  Not only that, I stood looking at my daughter fighting for her life after losing so much blood.  It was a frightening thought that I might lose my daughter only to gain granddaughter.  It seemed like such a cruel “trade.”  Thankfully I didn’t have to make that trade, and my life has been so greatly enriched.  I am so thankful that God was merciful to both Corrie and little Bella that day.  When the crisis was beginning to be passed, we could turn our attention to the incredible joy at a new little life that had entered the world.  I continue to marvel how one little life can change so many others.  It seems to me that is what adoption does not only in the world we know, but also in the eternal and spiritual sense.  When God adopted us as sons, it too had a multiplicative impact that reached far beyond the relatively singular act of adoption.  In God’s case, it had an impact that reached worldwide and into the future eternal.  In our case, this one little life has an impact on Corrie, her family, and her story that will no doubt be told countless times into the future. The act of adoption also reaches into another family line of the Kolmans.  Bella’s impact is yet to be felt in that family as her story and theirs continues to unfold.

Shadow people

Birth grandparents are truly shadow people. In some respects, I suppose that’s appropriate and normal, but it is truly painful. The adoptive parents have their own parents to share the little one with, and the history is built with them as the grandparents. Adoptive parents have little need for the birth grandparents. They have no history with them. There really is nothing they need from them. Therefore, the relationship with these people (us) who have been so intimately involved in the care and support for the birth mother (and by extension the little one) has little to commend itself. Not unlike the birthmother, they were involved in the emotional investment in seeing the little one be delivered into the world, but thereafter it’s as if they don’t exist. There is no contribution they can make to the rest of the child’s future (no Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays, family vacations). Even as I write these words, I don’t want it to sound like they are to blame, becasue they aren’t. It is just the cold, cruel reality of adoption that few can foresee. For me, it is just another disappointment and loss that I face every time I see Bella. Oh, well…

A Welcome Visitor

We had a welcome visitor a couple of nights ago when Bella and her new family visited for the first time since the hospital. Again, I was assaulted by the mixture of emotions. Thankfully, her new family was not overly possessive, and Corrie had the opportunity to spend good time with her daughter to refresh the memories left behind by the hospital. I had this odd sense of surrealness as this relatively foreign family came into our home with a baby that my daughter had given birth to. I am still struggling (even more today) with the void that is left behind. The imprint of this little presence is not in any way proportional to her size. As I sat and looked at her I felt like I was looking into the future, and yet it was obstructed from us (Linda and I). I don’t say that in a way to imply that we are being violated and “put upon.” Everything has been by choice, but what a choice! To choose to be the shadowy figures in the background of this little one’s life is probably the most difficult decision to make. Corrie will, no doubt, be enfolded by this family, but what of the grandparents? In some ways, the void is even more profound. My thoughts keep returning to the profound spiritual immensity of God’s decision to send Christ. That sacrifice takes on new meaning through this process. To, in a sense, destroy the unity of the Trinity to allow us to be adopted as His sons and daughters is profound. When I see how heavy my own heart is, and how profound the pain of this sacrifice, I can only imagine God’s heart. That statement, in no way, is to spiritualize our pain. Instead it is only to implant the truth in my own heart even when days like today settle in on me.

A birth grandfather’s journey through adoption

I don’t know about you, but the picture to the right aptly captures what I conceptualized grandparenting to be. Being older in years, wizened, and capable of giving the love that this little one obviously enjoys. Yet, when a daughter of yours becomes pregnant quite unintentionally, a little life begins with very little accolade or applause. When the same little one is born, there is an intense bittersweet sense — I was so full of joy for the birth and even the future of the little one, but yet anticipated the loss. The problem is the loss of a future. Because I have been a parent and journeyed through the long years of parenting (still am) — childhood, the tumultuous years of adolescence, and even peeking into young adulthood — I could fully anticipate what I would be missing and what my daughter would be missing. It was all so painful, and yet, putting myself into the life of our little one, all so exciting and full.

How does one bring together such conflicting emotions? My suspicion is that the answer to that question lies in resisting the urge to reconcile the emotions. There is no way to do that without diminishing or violating the other. I’ll ruminate more later…

More ruminations

The challenge with the conflicting emotions is, as I said in the previous entry, the temptation to “reconcile” the two powerful emotions of grief and joy. But, I think that is where I would go wrong — trying to reconcile emotions that aren’t to be reconciled. They should be given the opportunity to stand alone — by doing so I would be according the rightful degree of importance. Unfortunately, though, that leaves me with a dilemma. I don’t experience them separately or even in sequence. It is a whirling mess of such emotions, sometimes more like a tornado or hurricane than stages, phases, or steps. That’s what makes it so difficult. Allowing both to “stand” demands that I experiencing an intense conflict. There is something inside of me that demands me to reduce the tension or war between them. In order to do that I must make one “win” out over the other. But, that is simply something I’m not willing to do. Ultimately, of course, it drives me to cry out to my Heavenly Father for comfort and endurance to live through this part of life. As John Denver once sang in a song… “some days are diamonds, some are stones.”