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Oceans At Christmas©
As my family slips head over heels into the holiday season, our thoughts are often of what we'll give and receive. Private conversations take place between one member to another, punctuated by the squeals of, "He will absolutely love that," or "Perhaps we should buy her this..."
And I'm reminded of my "other daughter." A little girl we would call Aidana Lily. The little girl we would never have. She was the reason for our decision to adopt from the country of Kazakhstan, and the tiny child we planned to bring home from there. We discovered that she was terminally ill and thus, unadoptable, a mere three days before boarding a plane to cross the world for her. Immediately following the news that we had lost her, we were offered another child at the very same orphanage. It was because of Aidana that we even knew of that orphanage in the first place, and that we were led to a different child. Our Alia Marcella is now two, and hasn't yet seen the pictures of the child who almost became ours. But those pictures live on in my soul every hour of every day. Some might say I should not mourn. I did, after all, get a healthy child. And I never actually knew the one that was never mine. I say it isn't so simple, that a child is your child before you even see their face. And if you never do, the child remains yours. It is never in disdain for Alia that I think of Aidana, for they are two separate beings who happened to exit and enter my life within the same week. Alia is a bright and beautiful blessing, every bit my daughter. And Aidana... She'd be five years old now. I never got to hold her, and she never heard me sing or even say her name. I never saw her dance. But, if Heaven is as wonderful as it's said to be, someday may I have the chance. My husband thinks this Christmas of yet another daughter; his second child of his first marriage. Erin is a grown up girl, on her own in California. It's been over a year since he last heard her voice and several more since he's seen her face. She wrote him a letter once, to tell him she really couldn't deal with his divorce or remarriage just yet, that things would never be the same. That she wasn't ready to forgive him, though she herself could not verbalize what he'd done to her that would require forgiveness. Told him to leave her alone. That she would call when she was ready.
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