Grief and gratitude

Yesterday, we wept with grief for the families of Uvalde, Texas. Today, we wept with joy when an unassuming piece of mail turned out to be Oscar’s birth certificate: the last official step in the process of adoption. Grief and gratitude almost always walk hand in hand, don’t they? We are unbelievably grateful to be parents to this sweet child 12 years after deciding to start a family, and at the same time, we hold the grief of disconnection on behalf of Oscar and his birth family. His revised birth certificate tells one story, but it’s not the whole story.

On our walk around the city tonight—through the petting zoo, over the rivers, around the neighborhoods—we laughed at Oscar’s silly faces and songs, and how he props his bare feet up on the tray of his stroller like a carefree traveler sipping cocktails on the beach. And we worried about the world he will inherit. “You don’t even know,” I thought at the man mowing his lawn, “what an important day this is for us.” None of us knows what courage the future will require of us. We can only hope to become brave little souls who dismantle the systems of suffering and create kinship everywhere we go in this beautiful, broken world.