Stories of YES #39 - Happy 12th birthday, Daniel

 

He'd be twelve years old today, this special boys of ours. It's been ten years now. TEN YEARS. An entire decade since meeting our son Daniel for the first time, and then laying him to eternal rest only four months later. I can't believe that's even possible for me to type into a sentence.

How blessed that we were able to spend a birthday with him at all.

February 2nd - so commonly known as "Groundhog Day" and in the similar way, every year the journey of love seeps in repeatedly through my Facebook memories feed...notes of safe travels and well wishes from family and friends, the journey to China - which seemed like it would take eternity in itself, the days leading up to meeting our son, and then the union of souls on Gotcha Day - January 24th, 2010. Praise you, Lord, for that gift.

If you're a believer, then you'll appreciate the signs of hope given to us through his life - the fact that our son's birthday - February 2nd - is also the the holy feast day of the Presentation of the Lord, concluding the celebrating of the Nativity, 40 days after Christmas. Every once in a while, it falls on a Sunday, and this day - 02022020 for our "Decade of Daniel", it did.

I don't have words to explain how he changed us so - this cherub of a boy with the brightest eyes, reddest lips, and sweetest voice. Our hearts multiplied in size from embracing him. And then our hearts were riddled with holes - 127 days later - from the shrapnel of grief. The Lord used His goodness to fill those holes, though, and it amazes us how so much has transpired in those ten years since Daniel climbed up to Heaven - three more adoptions in our family, a memoir leaving his permanent mark on the world through my own fingers, and then, a Holy Spirit-made ministry created to defend the countless orphaned and abandoned children in the world. The work of Open Hearts for Orphans keeps his precious spirit alive in this mama's heart.

Only one who's gone through child loss understands this overwhelming desire to move mountains in their memory, just to cling to them more. I have connected and prayed with so many of those grieving mamas since - one of those Mamas a lovely woman named Ann Bartlinski, whose beautiful daughter, Teresa, left such a mark on the world. So many of us from the adoption community and beyond prayed as she bravely fought through a heart transplant, and then we grieved collectively when Teresa left the world as we know it. There's an extra layer of pain for those who've walked the path; those who "get" the grief up close and personal; those who want nothing more than to comfort and console. In the past couple of years, God - through our Heavenly babies - united the two of us to serve the voiceless together, and now - ten years after meeting our boy and seeing him off to eternity, we were given the opportunity of absorbing another amazing non-profit called Little Hearts Medical - with a mission to mend the broken hearts of orphans and impoverished children, children like Daniel and Teresa. Seems like only the kind of thing that God would deliver as the greatest gift - to continue glorifying Him in memory of our little ones who blessed us so and all the other heart warriors we love so much up there.

I still think back to Daniel's adoption referral. We could have said "no" to that file. The mere thought crushes me...even with the unbearable weight of losing our boy in his physical body, the weight of never having loved him? Lord, that would surely crush me more.

My tears today are not tears of sadness - they are tears of sheer thankfulness.

Happy birthday in Heaven, Dan Dan. The world misses you, and we love you so.