A Mother's Heart...

It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again. 

There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk.

While words can be few and far between in moments like these for eleven year old boys, his smile said everything. He immediately put the necklace on and it was as though the distance between Ethiopia and Pennsylvania had gotten a tiny bit closer. That same night, one of Biruk’s baseball coaches had stopped by with a stack of t-shirts and hats from his team to share with his family when he arrived in Ethiopia. Although many looked similar, Biruk meticulously picked up each one asking if we thought his birth mom would like it. 

Our adoption agency was awesome in setting up a meeting for us to meet his birth mom, but truth be told, we had no idea what to expect. We had arranged for the meeting to take place towards the end of the trip, and spent the first few days in Ethiopia seeing all the sights and sounds we could take in. While we loved squeezing every little bit out of the few days we had in the country, all of us were anxious for the end of the week to get there, especially Biruk, who I’m sure was feeling a million things he couldn’t articulate.

The day of the meeting, we had all sorts of feels. We had found out that we would not only be meeting his birth mom, but also a half-sister and an Aunt, so we packed up gifts and about 100 pictures of Biruk over the past 10 years to share with his family (props to Nate for spending hours doing that!). When we arrived at our agency’s office, we waited. And waited. And waited. There were plates covered in cookies, a variety of sodas and waters, and the friendly faces of social workers, but our collective anxiousness was the only thing we could concentrate on. Despite having shown Biruk pictures of his birth mom over the years, every time a new woman would walk into the room he would gently ask me, “Is that my mom?” 

And then she walked in. 

While she was now a young adult who had aged some, she had the same eyes, the same smile, the same gentle demeanor that I had remembered the day she handed Biruk to us. In a flood of emotions, I was reminded of every day we had prayed for her, the flowers we had bought to honor her on every Mother’s day for the past 10 years, the blog entries I had written about my gratitude for her, the days where I had wondered where she was and what she was doing, and that day she had chosen life for her son. To say I was overwhelmed was an understatement. 

She immediately embraced Biruk and it was one of the most touching moments I have had the privilege of experiencing. A mother’s love is unmistakable. 

The next few moments, as we sat down awkwardly among social workers translating for us, trying to figure out how to fill in the gap of all that had happened over the past 10 years, Nate said, “Show her the necklace!” I turned to her and held the necklace a few inches off of Biruk’s neck and said, “Do you remember when you gave this to us to give to Biruk when we first met you?” Tears filled her eyes and she motioned over to her sister who had come with her. In was in those moments that her sister reached into her pocket and handed over the necklace we had give her 10 years ago. She told us, “I held onto it all those years in hopes that I would find you.” 

Even as I type those words, the tears are fresh. There are not enough words for that moment. 

For the next several hours that day, and then the next full day, we would not only create a memory we would never forget, but we gained a family for a lifetime. We shared our past, our present, and our hopes and our dreams. We laughed. We cried. I watched as a mom who 10 years prior had made what I can only imagine to be one of the hardest decisions of her life, be reunited with her son…a son who she had given a name that meant, BLESSING, the very thing we had come to say Biruk was in our own lives. 

There were so many sweet moments that happened over those 24 hours that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Watching Biruk’s mom tell him over and over how proud of him she was is probably at the top of the list. As we filled our time with stories about the past, stories about the present, and shared hopes and dreams for the future, I reminded her, “Biruk is not just our child. He is yours too. He is ours together. We are family forever.” 

And when we said goodbye, it was this mama that couldn’t stop the tears. They were more than just tears that come with a goodbye. They were tears of gratitude for the gift that I will never be able to say enough thanks for. Tears of sadness for the many miles that are between us. Tears of joy at the faithfulness of God. Tears of gratefulness for a story that had come full circle, a story of two mothers with a full heart of love for the same child. A child who had taught them more about God’s love than they ever could have imagined.