The Lucky Few

by Heather Avis

  “Shh,” I quietly said, “she’s fast asleep.”

  Josh set the car seat on the floor as we all gathered around Truly and watched her sleep.

  Harmony grabbed my hand. “Heather, she’s so gorgeous.”

  “I know, right?”

  “But really,” Hana chimed in, “she’s a total babe.”

  Macyn was sitting on the floor next to me, and I scooped her up into my lap. “Hi, big sister.” I kissed her on the head. “What do you think of your new little sis?”

  Macyn’s sappy grin spoke the words she didn’t know how to say yet.

  “Baby?” She pointed at Truly and looked at me.

  “Yes, Macy, that’s our new baby. Do you love her?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She responded with the same googly look everyone in the room shared at that moment.

  Truly began to stir. We all gave our own quiet little gasp, and then the whole room held its breath while her eyes began to open. Josh and I leaned in closer to her.

  “Hey, sweet girl,” I whispered, “welcome home.”

  9

  Love in Action

  Girlfriend, you cannot wear that today.” I was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs when four-year-old Truly came down the stairs.

  “But, Mommy!” our second daughter whined.

  “Truly, it’s super cold out today.”

  “But look at it twirl!” Truly gave a spin, and the light summer dress flared at the bottom.

  “Sweetie, it’s wintertime. You may not wear that dress.” I grabbed plates from the cupboard and began to divvy up the eggs.

  “But, Mommy, I’ll wear a sweater and tights.”

  “Truly, please don’t argue with me.” I stopped what I was doing in the kitchen and got on my knees, eye to eye with Truly. “We have this conversation almost every day, sweetheart. You know better.”

  “But, Mommy!” Truly’s shoulders slouched, and her voice went up ten octaves.

  “Truly, do not argue. Please go upstairs and put on something warm.”

  “Fine!” She stomped upstairs with the sass and finesse of a sixteen-year-old drama queen.

  “And change your attitude, young lady.” I shouted to her as she walked away. Then I mumbled under my breath, “Dear Jesus, full of mercy and grace, I’m gonna need a little extra.”

  This scene was repeated numerous times as Truly continued to come downstairs in dresses that were either too summery or too fancy for preschool, until I finally went upstairs and pulled out an appropriate choice, which she was opposed to. Of course.

  These disagreements about almost everything in life—what she’d wear, what she’d listen to, how she walked (or rather, jumped, skipped, crawled, rolled, scooted) from point A to point B—seemed to follow Truly and me throughout our days. This tension showed up quite soon after she joined our family, and it rocked my world as a mother. Remember that work God had done in my heart through our adoption of Macyn? He wasn’t finished with me yet.

  Let me take you back a bit.

  I stood in a dimly lit room at the back of our church sanctuary, often referred to as the “mothers’ room.” I cradled Truly and shushed her to the rhythm of my bouncing. “Shh, shh, shhhhh. Shh, shh, shhhhh.” My mantra should have helped her fall asleep. Truly looked up at me with her big sparkly brown eyes, wide-awake.

  “Truly, you need to go to sleep,” I whispered softly to her. She wiggled in my arms and tried to sit up. I held her tighter and bounced higher and shushed louder. And I began to feel it bubble inside of me: extreme annoyance.

  Within weeks of Truly coming home, this feeling of annoyance started raising its nasty head whenever she would refuse to let me feed her or would fight me when I tried to dress her. The irritation was something I had not felt before, not like this, and I hated it.

  “SHH, SHH, SHHHH!” I made the sound through gritted teeth. “Just go to sleep.” I held her even tighter. Still, she just looked at me with those beautiful eyes, wriggling to get out of my almost-too-tight grip. She did not want to comply. I felt all kinds of negative feelings toward her as I continued my bouncing and my shushing until finally her eyes got heavy, and she fell asleep.

  I was the only mother in there that morning, and I slowly made my way to one of the five empty rocking chairs along the back wall. I gently sat down, my arms cramping because I didn’t want to jostle her and wake her up. The small speaker in the corner of the room was softly pumping in the sermon, but I wasn’t paying attention. I sat there, staring at my sweet, innocent daughter asleep in my arms. My feelings of annoyance instantly turned to guilt.

  She’s just a baby, I thought to myself. Why couldn’t I just let her stay awake? Why did I insist she fall asleep? Why do I feel such irritation?

  I convinced myself she wasn’t aware that the harder bouncing and louder shushing were actions born from negative feelings. I told myself I wouldn’t let it happen again.

  But I knew something was different this time around. Josh and I had decided to keep Truly out of the nursery because church happened to fall right during naptime. The deeper reason was that I didn’t want a sweet nursery worker to bond with Truly when she and I were still far from bonded. The truth was, this adoption was not unfolding like I had hoped it would.

  During those first few months after we brought Truly home, everything felt new and exciting. Macyn embraced her role as a big sister, and she and Truly seemed to become instant best friends. Truly was a happy baby and a good sleeper. When we went out in public or spent time with friends, Truly quickly owned her middle name, Star, and made herself the star of the hour. Her undeniable beauty paired with her charm made her a crowd favorite.

  So it’s not surprising that I didn’t notice right away, especially in those first few months, that my feelings toward Truly were not what I wanted them to be. As time went on and the newness of our relationship faded, an ugliness in my heart began to surface.

  As parents, we can only do what we know while continuing to learn. What I knew about being a mom was all wrapped up in Macyn. When Macyn came home, she made me a mother and filled my aching void. She needed me just as much as I needed her. Not only did she need my help to sit, crawl, eat, and walk; for those first couple of years, she needed me for her very survival. These realities helped us bond from the second she was in my arms. It’s embarrassing to admit, but as a recovering control freak, I liked how much she needed me.

  Enter Truly Star. Apart from the practical care she needed as a baby, Truly was Miss Independent from the second she entered our lives. She was able to sit, crawl, eat, and walk without one session of therapy or extra assistance from me. She was more curious than any child I had ever met. It was as though she was constantly looking to Josh and me to show her where the line was, just so she could cross it. She also happened to be the most energetic kid I had ever met, bouncing off the walls from the second she woke up until the time her head hit the pillow at night.

  “She sounds like a pretty normal kid, Heather,” my sister Harmony would say when I’d call to vent about Truly’s actions for the day. “I think you’re just used to Macyn.”

  “No, Harmony,” I’d explain, often through tears of frustration. “I’ve been around lots of other kids besides Macyn. Truly has excessive amounts of energy, spunk, and attitude.”

  When Truly was about a year old, we went to visit Harmony and her family.

  “Okay,” Harmony yelled after me as I chased Truly out the front door. My daughter had outwitted the child safety lock and was on her way to the yard. “You were right. She’s not like other kids.”

  The validation was nice, but it didn’t fix the problem. Because the problem wasn’t with Truly; the problem was with me.

  I realized I had put unfair and unrealistic expectations on Truly and then resented her for not meeting them. I expected her to be a tiny bit compliant. I expected her to need me. I expected her to allow me to be in control, not to want it for herself. As a mom, I could not figure out how to put age-appropriate boundaries
around Truly’s zeal for life, desire for independence, and immeasurable curiosity. In all honesty, these traits significantly challenged my need for control. After an especially challenging day, I’d find myself lying in bed, looking into the darkness, fearing I was taking Truly’s God-given gifts and squelching them.

  When Truly was smack-dab in the middle of her terrible twos, we took a day trip to my parents’ house. It was the end of summer, and the temperature was expected to hit the triple digits. Josh was working, and the thought of being stuck in the house all day with two toddlers was suffocating me. So I packed up our car and headed to the local mountains, where I could expect it to be at least fifteen degrees cooler.

  “Gum, Mama!” Truly demanded from her car seat.

  “Tru, you swallowed your last piece, so you don’t get any more today.”

  “GUM!” she screamed at me.

  “No.” My reply was calm, but I could feel my blood start to boil. I turned up the music to drown out her cries.

  By the time we wound our way up the mountain, she had forgotten about the gum. We pulled up to my parents’ house. The cool breeze blowing through the blanket of green forest affirmed my decision to leave the heat.

  “Hi, guys!” my mom yelled from the large deck as my dad made his way down the steep steps toward the car.

  “Papa!” Truly ran from the car into my dad’s arms.

  “Hi, Tru Star.” My dad scooped her up.

  “Honey-gram!” Macyn sat on my hip and pointed to my mom.

  We headed up the steps and joined my mom on the deck. My dad set Truly down, and I put Macyn on the porch swing.

  “Tru, no!” I ran and steadied the flowerpot she was about to pull down. “Truly, you cannot pull these down. You can look at the flowers and smell the flowers, but you cannot pull them down.” The explanation was pointless, as Tru was already making her way into the house. I stopped her as she reached on her tiptoes for the handle on the screen door.

  I held the door shut. “We’re going to stay outside for a little bit.” Truly again reached for the handle and tried to open the door. “Tru, we’re staying outside.” She gave me a sideways glance as if to say, You say I can’t go inside? Just watch me! and proceeded to try to open the door again. I held it shut.

  “NOOOOOO! INSIDE!” she screamed. I picked her up, and she began to flail.

  “Let’s go sit on the swing with Macy and Honey-gram.” She seemed to like this idea and calmed down a bit—for as long as it took the seat to swing back and forth twice.

  “Gum, Honey-gram?” Truly asked sweetly.

  “Truly, we talked about this. No gum,” I answered before my mom could.

  From my daughter’s reaction, you might have thought I said I was going to throw her from the deck onto the street below.

  “Come on, Heather, she can have some gum.” My mom gave me a look.

  “Seriously, Mom?”

  I picked Truly up as she sobbed dramatically. “Hooooney-gram! I want Honey-gram!”

  I gave my mom a stern you-better-butt-out-of-this look and took Truly into the house.

  “Truly, it is not okay to behave this way. You are going to sit in time-out for two minutes.”

  “No!” Truly’s sobs increased. I set a timer. She screamed.

  Our day at my parents’ house proceeded in this fashion. She filled the next few hours with fits, sneaky behavior, persistent dramatic sobbing, manipulation, defiance, and more. I noticed the looks on my parents’ faces when I set Truly down for her millionth time-out.

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Heather, you’re doing a great job.” My mom came over and put her arm around me, and we both collapsed on the couch.

  “I feel like I’m working so hard for nothing.” I buried my head in my hands and began to cry. “It’d be one thing if I didn’t discipline and guide and correct her and she acted this way. But I’m working my butt off, and she’s still out of control.”

  “She’s not out of control, Heather,” my dad said, joining us on the couch. “She’s got a lot of energy, and she wants to figure things out on her own, and she’s only two. She’s a handful.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by a crash in the other room. I ran to discover that Truly had gotten out of her time-out chair, climbed onto the bed, pulled the lamp down, and broke it.

  “What in the world?” I picked her up, moved her away from the broken glass, and handed her to my dad. My mom brought a trash can over, and we began placing the big chunks of glass inside. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Don’t be silly, Heather. It’s just a lamp.”

  “Dad,” I yelled after him, “will you put the girls’ shoes on? We’re going to go.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “I know. But I need to. I’m sorry.”

  We packed up our stuff and headed to the car.

  “Thanks for having us.” I gave my dad a hug. “Sorry if we ruined what could have been a relaxing day.”

  My dad finished buckling Macyn into her car seat.

  “Elizabeth, you did not ruin anyone’s day, so don’t talk like that.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and got into the driver’s seat. I closed the door and rolled down the windows.

  “Wave good-bye to Honey-gram and Grandpa.” The girls and I all waved.

  “Heather,” my dad called after me as I backed down the steep driveway, “don’t grow weary in doing the right thing.”

  I gave him a weak smile and drove away.

  During the drive home, I was all wound up and fuming. I blasted kids’ music in the rear speakers until the girls both fell asleep, and then I turned the music off, happy for some silence.

  The right thing? I thought about what my dad had said. The problem was, I had no idea whether or not I was doing the right thing in raising Truly. No idea.

  I looked in my rearview mirror at my daughters asleep in the backseat. What is my deal? I’m ruining her. I just know it. I hated myself for having these thoughts. I hated that when I looked at my sleeping daughter, I felt more frustration than warm fuzzies. I wondered if my lack of emotional connection was an adoption thing. I doubted I would feel this way had I given birth to Truly.

  I needed someone to tell me she was going to be okay, that I wasn’t going to ruin her. Or better yet, someone to tell me exactly what to do.

  The next day, I met up with my “village” for coffee. My village consists of five other moms. We found ourselves doing life together after I read the book Bread & Wine by the ever-so-lovely Shauna Niequist. The second I finished reading about Shauna’s cooking club, I shut the book and contacted the five women I most wanted to glean from. Our village was formed.

  Of the six of us, five have adopted children and two have kids with Down syndrome. Together, we have a total of twenty-seven kids, fifteen of whom are adopted, and counting! Yes, we are, in fact, a small village.

  We all come from different walks of life and have different ways of raising our kids. That day, I needed their listening ears and honest, transparent input. I told them about what had happened with Truly at my parents’ house. This was not the first time they had heard this sort of account from me. They were familiar with the challenges I was facing as Truly’s mom. As I buried my head in my hands, again, and cried tears of frustration, again, my friend Cynthia interrupted me.

  “Heather, this is totally normal. You know that, right?” Cynthia is mother to eight kids, three of whom are adopted. “I have less than lovely feelings toward one of my natural-born kids. And yeah, it sucks.”

  “Me too,” my friend Laura chimed in. “You know who my difficult child is. The way you describe your feelings toward Truly is often how I feel toward the child I gave birth to.”

  As we continued to talk, I realized we all have a child who is more difficult than our other ones, a child who squashes our warm-fuzzy feelings. For some, these negative feelings stem from a lack of bonding and the trauma their adopted kids faced before being placed in t
heir adoptive home. For others in our group, adoption has nothing to do with it. They simply have a child who is more difficult to like.

  I loved these women for being so real. I can’t adequately describe the sense of peace I get when something in my life is normalized. Not feeling warm and fuzzy toward our children isn’t something most moms ever talk about. So many of us have a child who is challenging to enjoy. Friends, I want to tell you that it’s okay.

  What happened that day over coffee with my friends opened a door for me to release the guilt I was feeling and begin to explore my love for Truly in a new way. I realized that my emotions did not determine my love for her.

  The apostle Paul writes the following about love:

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

  1 Corinthians 13:4–7

  Love is not an emotion. Love is not a feeling. Love is 100 percent an action. As a person who grew up reading this Bible passage, I knew this. But God, in his good, good grace, was teaching me his love in new ways. I had come so far in giving up control and allowing God’s best for my life to unfold around me, but I had failed to see the envy, pride, and selfishness hiding in my heart. Ouch!

  Yes, Truly was a challenge, but the real issue was me. I needed to continue to be refined. I needed to continue to learn what real, true, and meaningful love is.

  As the months and years have gone on, I’ve discovered my lack of emotional warm fuzzies toward Truly have in fact created a stronger, more meaningful love for her. I love her! I love her so much. I wake up every day and am able to show her patience, kindness, and honor. I make an extra effort to put her needs before my own. I do everything in my power to protect her. And by loving her this way with the love of Jesus, my hope is that the full weight of my love will root itself deep into her soul. I hope that when she thinks of love, she doesn’t think of warm-fuzzy emotions but of how I love her in action.