Empty

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

. . .

I slowly realized the music inside me had indeed died. I tried so hard for so long to keep my head held high and to keep moving. My strength weakened daily and eventually disappeared.  No passion or drive existed inside me. I lost all sense of purpose or mission. Without striving toward any new goals or dreams, the life inside me completely dried up, leaving me incredibly empty.

I had no words left to express, no song left in me to sing. I could write pages and pages, pouring out the contents of my heart, but the rhyme and the meaning didn’t accompany them. My poems expressed the songs of my heart, yet I no longer had a reason to sing. Even when I sat down to write a poem, no words came. I sat in utter silence, staring at nothing but a blank page.

I felt even emptier inside when I couldn’t write a single poem. But God used that barren feeling to let others’ music speak to me on a deeper level than ever before in my life. I clung to music in a new way. Songs like Nicol Sponberg’s “Resurrection”[1] truly expressed the cry of my heart for God to somehow create beauty out of the now shattered pieces of my heart. I desperately hoped God might breathe life back into me someday.

Christian contemporary music touched me deeply as I found myself relating so well to numerous songs. Many songs spoke directly to me, precisely describing my thoughts and feelings. If someone I never knew could write a song to articulate the depth of my heart so perfectly, I didn’t walk this road alone. They walked a similar road, too. Maybe they hadn’t faced the same circumstance, but they felt the same despair, connecting us. Their lyrics took a desperate heart and pointed it toward faith, giving me the hope I always found while writing my own poetry.

When I had no song left to write, God used others to write their music on my heart. What an impact these songwriters had on me to help me climb out of this lonely pit of grief.

---

[1] “Resurrection,” Nicol Sponberg, 2007, Curb Records.

A dark cloud settling

So, what came next? A constant need existed to occupy our minds. This busyness and sense of adventure really did help dull the pain we felt deep within, or at least it helped us avoid dealing with it until a later time when we might handle it better emotionally. First we took a long vacation, far away from home, and then we headed out on a short mission-trip, the very thing that made our hearts beat. After that, two precious little puppies filled our home with life again.

Suddenly the calendar didn’t hold a single new activity or adventure. I didn’t know how to handle that. Life started to dry up all over again.

My emotions didn’t expect a rollercoaster ride through those dry months. Oh, how it hurt to attend a “baby shower” for a fellow teacher adopting two children. I still remembered when she expressed a tug on her heart to look into adoption after I announced our original plans to adopt from El Salvador. Now, over two years later, she adopted not one, but two children. We inspired her to start the process. Now, a son and daughter filled her arms, while mine felt emptier than ever.

One of the couples we met in Austin finally traveled to Colombia to complete their adoption of a child they met the same summer we met Juan David and Viviana. I felt thrilled for them, but reading their blog tore me up inside. They posted pictures of places we planned to visit. They stayed in the very place we arranged to stay. Those were supposed to be our pictures, our adventures, and our memories. Yet they reminded us now of pictures we’d never get to take, adventures we’d never experience, dreams that would not become realities, memories we'd never build.

I tried to settle back into life and work, but the emptiness quickly resurfaced. While I paid no attention, the music in me died. I found myself in a spiritual and emotional drought. In times past, I always had my poetry as an outlet, as sad as it might have been at times, to get me past each hump in the road, to help me connect my inner and outer worlds, to help me process and make sense of what life handed me.

Now I had nothing left in me to even try to write. Empty pages stared blankly at me. With no new goals to reach for and no new adventures in sight, this unforgettable loss hung over like a dark cloud. I began to die inside, another stage of the grief I didn’t know would come. 

Trying to fill the void

For a while, it helped to stay busy. We kept the calendar full of activity to keep some excitement alive in our life. Mike and I have always loved being involved in missions, as a pre-engaged, engaged, and married couple, so we eagerly signed up as a family to serve on the next church mission trip in California. We used the money we’d poured into savings for our adoption travels as a way to self-fund our endeavor.

Less than four weeks after coming home from the East coast, we found ourselves flying out to San Francisco on the West coast. Not only did we help a new church expand its ministry, but we made new friends from our own church and tasted a little bit of California culture. Exactly what we needed.

With our travels wrapped up and no new trips on the horizon, we knew we could use a big change at home. David lacked a companion now more than ever since his “siblings” didn’t come home. Being an only child never bothered him before, but this new reality offered a screaming reminder that we had no sibling to offer our son. So, the search for a dog began.

Bottom of Form

            An ad for a black lab caught our eye, reminding us of our two black labs in Indiana years earlier. David loved thinking about names for our new puppy.

“Maybe we could name him Rocky.” David imagined his pup growing into a big, tough dog.

“Rocky sounds like a good name, but what about Mickey, since he’s black?” I went for the fun names.

David and I went back and forth between the two names, finally deciding on Mickey. We drove out to pick Mickey up, and somehow I caved again. We came home not only with little Mickey, but with little Minnie, as well, the runt of the pack.

Those little pups added a lot of work and needed constant attention. Yet they filled part of the huge holes in our hearts and lives. We needed two of them, one of each gender, to help fill those voids the kids left behind. Now we had both a little girl dog and a little boy dog to take care of, nurture, and love--our valentines, home right in time for Valentine’s Day.

The void in my heart

The time away did wonders for us, almost a therapeutic experience, constantly distracting us from our reality. Years had passed since I’d spent Christmas with my eldest brother, so I enjoyed the time to bond again with him and his family. I cherish the memories we made together.

Right before the New Year, we packed up again to head toward our last destination. We reserved a hotel room right outside of New York City, giving us the chance to spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day exploring the Big Apple. The 9/11 Memorial site, as well as the beginning stages of the new Memorial Park, left David in awe and also filled him with great sadness. He still grew in my womb when the twin towers crumbled, so I didn’t realize we’d never taken the time to tell him about that tragic day in America.

We felt lured into the festivities surrounding the infamous “ball drop” at midnight, though the weather and some unforeseen circumstances led us straight back to the comfort of our hotel and a television that evening.

We did nothing but explore more of the city on New Year’s Day covering as much as we could on foot in a day. A long line already formed for the ferry ride to Ellis Island, so we decided to snap pictures of the Statue of Liberty from a distance rather than spend our time waiting in line. Instead, we hung out in Central Park for a few hours, taking in all the sights, and then inside the Museum of Natural History. The adventure of the city led us from place to place, hour by hour.

By the second day in January, we packed our things one final time to head back home to Texas. Mike drove twenty-two hours straight through, the entire way from New York City to Dallas. With only a day left to catch our breath and reorient ourselves, school and work called us back to reality quickly. Such a needed vacation, and I can’t say I even wanted any extra time to rest or recuperate. It felt good to enjoy our family of three again, to build positive memories together after facing such negative ones recently.

Coming home at the beginning of a new year meant closing this last chapter of life to start a new one. Hard can only begin to describe that process. Part of me still so bewildered by the chain of events over the last two years, I wanted to put the entire experience in a box, put the box on the shelf, and pretend as if it never existed or never happened, despite the reminders scattered everywhere. I didn’t know how to interpret the contents of the box. If I put them away, maybe they’d make sense at a later time when I could emotionally handle bringing the box back down.

 That, however, left me with a new problem. How did I go back to living life the way we did before them?

Those two kids changed me. They changed us. Our family before them no longer existed. We used to be whole, and now, we were broken. Once content with an only child, now something felt missing. We couldn’t just go back in time.

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Part of me wished I’d never met them, both for our sakes and theirs. But the other part of me knew how amazing it felt to love them and be loved by them. Deep down, I knew I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. But now what did I do with the huge void they left in my heart?

"Running away" in order to cope

I never dreaded Christmas as much as I did that year. The sadness in my heart stole any joy in celebrating the season. I purchased two beautiful blue Christmas stockings in the summertime to fill for my “newest” family members. Now they remained empty. I had no desire to dig out the other decorations, to transform our little house with the magic of Christmas. I didn’t want a tree, a wreath, a star, lights … nothing. I hung our stockings and set out a few nativity scenes. My heart couldn’t handle much more than that.

David, on the other hand, wanted and needed every decoration up. We dug out at least a few bins for him to go through, and he decorated his entire bedroom with several little trees, nativity sets, reindeer, lights, and musical decorations. He filled his room to the brim with the Christmas magic the rest of our home lacked.

Viviana clung to her dream of our visit, but we didn’t have the opportunity to travel to Colombia see her. I kept my promise to her by sending a Christmas package, filled with as many of the clothes and little goodies we bought for her that fit into the box--a special purple quilt, red sunglasses, a purple watch, Scooby-Doo movies, and a few other things she asked for.

We also filled the box as tightly as possible with the clothing we picked out for her at various yard sales throughout the year. I filled all the extra space with small dolls and toys, squeezed in a little white stuffed puppy, and even added a few Spanish books. On top of the box’s contents, I placed a letter reminding her I would love her forever and would pray for her every day. A Christmas ornament with my picture on one side and David’s picture on the other tucked itself inside the letter. The overflowing box represented my final goodbye.

Another box filled with clothes, books, and two backpacks also made its way toward Colombia for Juan David and Julian. I didn’t know Juan David’s size, so I suggested he and Julian split the contents based on what they needed, wanted, and could wear. It both broke and thrilled my heart to include the special blanket he’d asked for, the one we draped over “his” bed. My final letter to him stated my sorrow over not spending Christmas with him, reminding him God still had a great plan. I never wrote the word “goodbye,” but I knew he could read between the lines to know why I sent the box.

Mailing those two packages cost us a near fortune. One of us could have flown all the way to Colombia with them for a similar cost! But the money didn’t matter. We knew those packages would light up their world for Christmas, as well as bring comfort to Juan David especially. Nothing mattered to me more.

School got out for the holiday, we mailed the boxes to Colombia, and then we headed out of town the same day. I don’t know that any of us could have handled the holiday at home, even David, despite his room bursting at the seams with Christmas décor. Too many reminders of our shattered dreams would have made for a miserable vacation. David needed us fully present with him, and we needed to find a way to somehow enjoy ourselves.

After driving over twelve hours straight through the night to Indiana, it felt good to distract ourselves with an early Christmas celebration with Mike’s family for a few days. God even sent a special treat for David as soon as we arrived. Snow! Only an inch or two of accumulation was enough for David to blissfully throw snowballs and make snow angels.

A few days later, we continued our drive eastward all the way to Pennsylvania. A winter snowstorm hit right before we got there, so you can imagine the surprise that greeted David as we pulled up to nineteen inches of snow at my brother’s house! Our little Texan never saw or played in so much snow in his entire life!

What an amazing ten days lay in front of our little boy. We showed him some of his mommy’s old stomping grounds in Lancaster County. We also spent a day in Philadelphia, saw the Liberty Bell and visited Hershey’s Chocolate World. Yet the experiences in the snow, sledding and building a huge snow man truly topped them all for David. 

Levels of grief

Grief traveled more levels than I knew. We mourned the loss of the kids’ presence in our lives, along with the loss of an assumed reality. We also grieved for them, knowing only a fraction of their loss. They lost a set of parents, a new brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They ultimately lost the security of a forever family, now for the second time.

 We grieved the loss of a dream, as well as our ability to fulfill a promise to the kids and to our son. We grieved losing our joy and purpose, along with our confidence and faith. We even grieved the loss of finances we gave up so willingly for what seemed to now be “nothing.”

Grief took over our lives for several months. I thank God for numbing us to different levels of pain so we didn’t have to experience them all at once. He let us grieve one stage at a time, strengthening us to endure the next one. Still faithful, God carried us through it all. He never left us alone or abandoned us.

After continuing to call Juan David once a week for a solid month only to hear excuses each time as to why he wasn’t there, I finally got the point. They no longer allowed him to talk with me, so I stopped calling. I could only hope he knew I tried. I always wondered who finally told him why the phone calls stopped. How did he react? Who comforted him in his grief? What exactly did they tell him? Maybe Julian could share those things with me someday if we stayed in contact, or maybe I’d never know the answers to those questions on this side of Heaven.

To my surprise, my contact stayed alive and intact with Viviana throughout my grieving period as I continued to call her faithfully every week.

“Tía, will you please come to see me for Christmas?”

“I don’t know if I can get permission to see you at Christmas, but I will send you a special package if I don’t make it to visit you.” I felt awkward still calling her, especially since I no longer understood God’s purpose for these conversations. He obviously still wanted me in her life for some reason.

My phone calls must have meant the world to her. I adored her and loved hearing the sound of her sweet voice. Until she had a mother of her own, I counted her as a daughter in my heart.

One evening in early December, she asked me to pass the phone to David and Mike. Mike took the phone and heard her say, “Te quiero (I love you).”

He naturally responded in his limited Spanish, saying he loved her, too. Then he quickly handed the phone back to me.

 “He said he loves me!!!!” She nearly cried into the phone, repeating herself several times.

Priceless. Hearing Mike say he loved her touched her deeply. She never had a father in her life to show her such affection.

I will never forget that conversation with her. Sadly, I never heard her sweet voice again. A week later when I called, a female voice told me Viviana no longer had permission to receive phone calls. Words can’t even begin to describe how much I would miss talking with that little girl.

Guilt

Up until this point in my life, my relationship with God grew more intimate every day. I cherished my morning time of prayer more than any other time of the day. I longed to spend time with my Creator, pouring my heart out to Him while interceding often for others. As I grew closer to Christ every year, I found nothing else could even compare. I felt like a miserable, unsatisfied mess when I missed that hour in the mornings. My Savior’s love filled me and refreshed me every morning.

Now, for the first time in my entire life, I felt so unloved. I didn’t understand why my faith wasn’t enough. My mornings no longer felt “romantic and peaceful.” The intimate conversation stopped.

Daily screaming matches in my car became my only conversations with God. Me screaming about my anger, humiliation, hurt, confusion and devastation. I felt offended and insulted. He, on the other hand, took it all, carried me through it and gave me enough strength to keep moving each day. He gently whispered in my ear that, yes, despite it all, I could still trust Him.

He did love me, and He actually hurt, too, knowing the extent of the pain in my heart. It hurt Him to see me hurting. He missed me, and even if I wouldn’t admit to it, I really missed Him, too.

http://www.goodsalt.com/search/jesus_crying.html

Truly, my anger mostly directed itself inward. We all fought through anger toward ourselves for not being “good enough” for the committee to approve us in the first place, forcing us to let the kids down. The guilt overwhelmed us at times, like a heavy weight crushing us beneath it. So great a heaviness, I could barely even breathe.

I let them down. I didn’t fight hard enough or stand firm enough. I must not have spoken or written to express our case clearly. I didn’t do everything I could have done.

What doors had we not opened or gone through that could have made a difference? Did we open and go through doors we shouldn’t have? Those precious siblings counted on us, and we let them down. Where exactly did it all go wrong? Did one specific thing trigger their whole chain reaction against us? Could we have done something differently to avoid this whole mess? Did we ever even stand a chance or did doom follow our case from the beginning?

Not only did we fail the kids, we failed everyone involved. We could compile a running list of everyone we let down:

·         The summer hosting program

·          Our adoption agency.

·         The kids’ host family

·          The families not chosen to pursue this adoption

·          Everyone who donated money

·         The organizations that awarded us grant money

·         Our church’s Adoption Ministry

Basically we failed everyone who supported our entire journey.

In addition to bearing the weight of failing so many, we also knew we failed each other, and we failed our son.