One Year Home

This blog is going private now.

I wanted to close it up after Eme's one year anniversary of being home with her video that I've yet to make.

Thank you for following our journey to China and for the numerous comments and emails throughout this journey. I've enjoyed you all & wish you the best.

With our busy life and not having the proper internet for a while, I wasn't able to acknowledge our one year mark with our sweet Emerson Grace. As I've blogged about in the past, there will be no "gotcha day" parties, no "forever family" day parties or anything else that will turn my daughters loss into a party for her family to celebrate. Her story is to big for a party, as her Mother though, I will forever cherish May 24, 2009 as one of the greatest days of my entire existence.

We walked into a busy room and a complete stranger handed me a stunned little girl and walked away. I immediately loved her for exactly who she was. She was the dream that my soul had longed for my entire life. May 24, 2009 was nothing but a huge day of happiness from my perspective. May 24, 2009 was nothing but another huge loss for my daughter. She did gain a family that will love her forever, but she lost her entire life that day. She lost her homeland, her culture, every scent that she recognized, every face that cared for her, every Chinese word ever spoken to her, every piece of clothing, toy or lovey that she knew of, all familiar foods were gone to her, every thread of her entire being was lost to her on that day. Her grief was heavy, her anxiety high. We've spent the past year working hard on healing her wounded heart. The scars are there, they always will be, but those scars are also the glue of who she is. Nobody lives a perfect life or a life without pain. These are Eme's roots that are molding her into the young lady she is growing up to be.

What a difference a year makes. For most of you, you know the pain and anxiety that my daughter suffered from for the first 3 months home. I can hardly recognize her as that same little girl. She's do darn confident and happy that it's easy to forget how fragile she can be. Her fierce love of life is nothing short of heroism. I will forever be grateful for the long journey to China that led both our paths on the right track to meet exactly at that moment on May 24, 2009. Thankful is all I feel one year later.

Thankful for:
the pain of the wait
the total annoyance of paper work
the long flight over there
the agency who was nothing short of perfect
the social worker that redid my paperwork 3 times
the pain in the ass gov't who messed up my paperwork and lost it 4 times
the man who held my daughter in that busy room till we walked in
the man who sat down and shed a few tears in the background of my video while he watched our first few moments with our daughter
Eme's birth parents who choose life for her
Eme's foster parents that loved her till we could
the orphanage that did the best they could for her
whomever the anonymous person was that spread our family file out on their desk and matched us with Ling Wan Hu
& to the People's Republic of China for allowing us to raise one of your own.
Thank you.