Two Wings Are Better Than One

I've heard it said that each of us are angels with just one wing ... and we can only fly by embracing one another ...

By now, we should be flapping on enough shared wing power to take us anywhere if we were to measure this journey by the people who have embraced us, embraced our waiting daughter, embraced the magic of adoption.

We have found that the majority of people who hear about our life journey step in with warm wishes, offers of help, excitement and genuine curiosity from a good place. Most of them. OK - we've had some of the curiosity factor coming from people who are just downright nosy and don't care a flip about any of it - they just want to poke themselves in where they don't belong so that they can spout their opinion, because it's obviously 'not something they'd ever consider'. We also have had people ask us "have you really thought about this?" Duh?? Who ARE you? (oftentimes this question comes from someone we have not met before). Do you think we have struggled with paper mountains, protocol quagmires and endless waiting WITHOUT a thought? This is not a process for the faint-hearted, let me assure you.

So - as most families who grow through adoption have learned - we don't pre-judge, but ask one simple question to figure out where a particular line of questioning is coming from. I practice my standard response to people: "why do you ask?" This is usually an opportunity for someone to stop and think - sometimes they realize that they are touched enough to perhaps consider this for themselves and we take the conversation to a new level, as they genuinely feel connected; sometimes they realize that they are being something less than an in-your-face pest and that allows them to leave the conversation gracefully, while they still can.

The Cox family, recently home with Ai Li's friend Jen, call the people who touched their journey in a positive light Joy Sowers. Isn't that beautiful? So, we have Joy Sowers and Wing Sharers.

Our Wing Sharers are endless. God, His Angels, each other here at home, our families, the big, burly guards and folks at the Department of Homeland Security who have been simply delightful to us when we've met, the Social Workers, the teachers and moms at school - the kids at school (they're so in to this), our friends, our church families, the amazing group of yahoo families who wait or share joys of their new children from Zhuhai (talk about sharing an incredible bond). We now know that 10 of Ai Li's friends will be scattered across the U.S. and we can keep our girls connected, just like we stay connected with our Xiangtan girls. How do you begin to thank everyone for sharing a wing?? I cannot find the words, but the feeling is very, very real.

In June 2007, we started telling people that we'd be travelling to China "next year".
Now we say "next week".

It's truly happening. Finally. We're so wired, so happy, so tired, so nervous, so hopeful, so excited, so thankful, so lucky, so incredibly honored.