26.11.12

Always thanksgiving

Oh, the holidays. Family has a way of testing our resistance or release of resistance. Maybe it's an unnerving comment or not so subtle criticism.  For me, it's being a first-time mama and letting the elders enjoy my daughter without being frustrated by their judgments on how I complete certain tasks related to N.'s care or how I relate to her.  In those most challenging moments, a prayer of thanksgiving is most appropriate.  

But before that, I say the serenity prayer . . . God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  

As we grow our family through birth and adoption, I am most aware that this first thanksgiving welcomes our three-and-a-half-month-old. We are blessed.  We continue to complete a whole new set of paperwork to keep our adoption application active, and it tests our faith in the process.  Sometimes I am so close to just cutting our losses and being done with it.  But I can't bear the thought when we've been in the process so long and have invested so much emotionally and financially.  We're certainly in no huge rush to have a second child just yet as we are still adjusting to baby N. However, we'd welcome less paperwork.  There's always some change in ICAB's adoption rules.  Or PSB, our agency, throws us some zinger.  When we actually pick up a sibling for N., it will be yet another miracle we will have witnessed.

Quiet moment
I well up while washing the dishes, one of my few quiet moments of the day, and I can't help but miss my Dad especially with the upcoming holidays.  How I wish he were here to meet N.  Oh, the holidays.  How they have a way of creeping up on us so quickly and awakening our souls.  Whether it's the hours in a day marked by N.'s next feeding or nap or how the calendar pages seem to turn apace on their own, my thanksgiving wish for others -- more quiet moments to awaken your soul. 

Thanksgiving prayer
Fall's breath gives me life
i exhale a smile
my neighbor
Generosity
greets Sandy's survivors
as they too inhale Fall's breath
--
blessed are those
the strong in Spirit

[Dropped off some items at our local Storm Relief Donation Center this past weekend. How sobering it was when the volunteer asked us, "Picking up or dropping off?"  Many families just on the opposite side of town along the river were flooded out, their homes totaled by Superstorm Sandy.  If you're in Middlesex County, the Borough of Sayreville has established a Donation Center. Please take donated items to the Gillette Complex located at 287 Cheesesquake Rd., Suites K & L, between the hours of 10AM-2PM and 4-8 PM Mondays-Fridays and 9AM-5PM on the weekends.]