I Didn't Know You Would Become "Family"

Just recently a favorite "blogger" of mine and quite possibly for you as well made the decision to “step outside for a while.” Translated; he made a decision to end his blog. It is not hyperbole when I say that many of us, his faithful readers, were both shocked and saddened. These personal blogs of ours are strange creatures. When Alyson and I began our blog it was for the most common and noble of reasons, we wanted to capture our adoption journey to Alyzabeth and the blogsite offered an efficient and effective way to capture that quest and share it with family and friends. Not unlike how it was and still is for many of you. However, as each of our adoption processes wound (for some still winding) their way through the grueling paperchase and on through Gotcha Day, did you not begin to notice subtle shifts on the blogs you were reading on a regular basis? In truth, was not a large part of that shift a direct result of you and I, faithful readers through and through, and our ever-expanding expectations for the next day’s post? Not demanding per se but very much in demand. We started to like each other’s company. We enjoyed being together, visiting each other as it were from miles and miles away. We formed overnight FedEx attachments. We developed notarized, certified, authenticated kinships. We were becoming something of an extended family. I have often yearned for a shared blog family reunion to bring us all together where we would sort through our blog family lineages. We would detail how we found each other’s blogsite and compare the site links we had in common. We’d hand out new blogs to check out like they were old and revered family recipes. I know what our imaginary reunion would look like. At our reunion we’ll swap paperchase horror stories and detail the excruciating time spent waiting for the referral. We will proudly show our referral pictures and ooh and ahh over each other’s little ones. Others will be boastfully pointing to their daughters already happily playing together. We’ll talk about long flights, strange foods, jet lag, red couches and seeing our families for the first time on arriving home. Ours would be a grand reunion full of food, laughter, love and daughters. We would proudly stand together adoption battle scared and field-tested sharing a tie strengthened by the commonality of what we had endured… And accomplished. The blogs we read on a regular basis form the families we envision at our reunion. We really do dream these dreams and think these thoughts. All because we take the risk to expose our thoughts, our fears, our hopes. All because we take the risk to care, to share, to offer support. J would be at our reunion and at some point he would lead us in the singing of one of his favorite songs (chosen from a list he once blogged) while dressed in distinctive Purple Pimp Suits furnished by none other than J himself. We will embarrass our daughters to no end. I think that would be Ok. A good laugh is often needed and too often neglected. Maybe your blog began as a way to keep family and friends updated on the adoption process and all of a sudden it too now includes “family & friends” you never knew existed just months before. And did you notice how our blogs slowly began to reflect that change, often with little conscious awareness of its happening on our part? We shared birthdays and anniversaries. We came to know the names of each other’s children, siblings, parents and grandparents. We reminisced on those who had passed on. We “attended” parties with you that we never went to and enjoyed dinners we never tasted. I knew when your spouse was working too hard or how you were counting the days when they would be “home” from business or war. We were sharing baptisms and wedding, vacations and births. We shared like family without ever having met not unlike cousins and aunts & uncles we have today. So when our friend J decided to “go outside for a while” it was more than an acquaintance bidding adieu. It was losing family. He was the favorite uncle who would be missing at the next reunion. I was always envious of J’s blog because he was able to speak so openly, so unreserved, in a way that many of us felt incapable or some how restrained from doing. Because J never shared his blog with his “first” family we were treated to some of the most insightful, funny and sobering looks of his family. I kick myself for not saving some of his classic posts. We had clues J might leave us. On a couple of occasions he had intimated that such a day had crossed his mind. I remember thinking maybe sooner than later. He may return to us yet. I hold out hope for just such a thing. I sent J my best along with the wish to stay in touch, especially asking that he inform us of major happenings with regard to the adoption. The sudden realization for many of us was the awareness that we are all in this together. More closely aligned and tightly bound than we ever envisioned, imagined or remotely thought possible when we each made our private decision to begin the process that would bring our daughters home from half a world away. I have no idea which of you will be the next to “go outside for awhile” but this I know, it will happen. I often thought Alyson’s goodbye and mine would come once we arrived home with Alyzabeth and gradually made the transition to being totally overwhelmed parents. While we can barely wait to have Alyzabeth with us, I don’t much like the thought of losing you. I’ll yearn once more for a morning visit with you over a cup of coffee. I’ll think back to the imaginary reunions that never happened except online. I’ll think of our friend J and all the others who came to be family and then silently slipped away to do the more important task of caring for a daughter. I’ll miss you all when that day comes. I’ll think of you often and like the parents we are to be to our daughters – our thoughts of you, with our prayers, will last forever. So selfish of me. I’m just not yet ready to let you go…