Written on Max’s 18th Adoption Day
It was eighteen years ago when mom and I took the short drive from Whitehall into Allentown and into the parking lot of the Catholic Social Agency. The building was not nearly the kind of place where you would expect the world to change. But that’s what happened. We walked into that building as two people and walked out as a family. Changed … lifted up … made better in the most glorious way.
And as every day, week, and month passed, life in our house got even better. And as those days, weeks and months eventually turned into eighteen unbelievably wonderful years, life in our house was transformed. Transformed through the most amazing kind of love. Love born from happiness, laughter, respect, honesty, sharing, and support. The love of a family.
I’ve said more than once that I don’t know how things could be better than they are right now. At this very moment. Yet time passes, and things … life … gets better. It truly does. This is due in no small part to you. Sure, before August 18, 1995 there was happiness, laughter, respect, honesty, sharing, and support in our house. Mom and I are one of the lucky couples. All these years later, our love for each other has never changed or softened. Still something was missing before August 18th, 1995. As we wrote in our autobiographies to our adoption counselor, we wanted to share our love with a child. We knew it would be wonderful … yet I don’t know that we fully realized the other part of that equation: The amount of love and joy the child we would adopt would reflect back into our hearts. Such pure, honest joy and love.
So much of the past eighteen years has been working toward this day—the day when we would all be together, ready to send you off on the second great journey of your life. How wonderful it is that we can do it with our hearts full, nervous yet confident that you are ready, knowing all of us—especially you—have done all we could to make it that way. Since that day in August of 1995, it’s as if the three of us have been drawing up a blueprint: this goes here, do this when that happens, this should lead you there, over here is where you will find this. Yes, the blueprint has gotten more detailed as the years have gone by, and tweaks have made when the unexpected events of life happen. But today, I believe it is a very good design … and it’s time to start building.
So many wonderful things lie ahead for you. Grab onto it with everything you have. Know that the mistakes you make will probably be much like the mistakes we have made. Know that your moments of doubt will lead to moments of clarity. Know that the failures that interrupt our journey through life are only that—interruptions. Grab onto those failures, look at them, inspect them, learn from them, then toss them aside and move ahead in your life with the zeal you’ve always shown for the past eighteen years. And know that blueprint the three of us have designed together is always there, ready to be referred to in times of trouble and doubt, but also ready to be adjusted, revised and expanded when new changes, challenges and ideas come along.
So, I’ll say it again: I don’t know how things could be better than they are right now. Of course, we’ve now established I’ve been wrong about this before. It turns out, the best is yet to come.