The Grace of Grace

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Going through life has meant being able to have the opportunity to feel. Since I was born, I have enjoyed the experience of being a daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend, niece, cousin, then aunt, girlfriend, and finally wife. But at that moment, I had to experience what it feels like to be a mom.

Sometimes God has different plans for us; the secret is in seeing life as if you were an ant on a leaf, clinging well to it and letting yourself go wherever it takes you and always being grateful for what you have. Getting to think like that takes time.

Before I got married, a friend asked me if I would adopt if I was not able to have children. To which I answered quickly and with certainty: no. To adopt, it is necessary to be able to give love, which I do not have in me at this time.  It was a really hard time for me. I think God heard me, and maybe He changed plans for me.

During that hard process, when I had not been able to get pregnant, I came to question not only myself but even God's will. It was difficult for me to understand the process where I even came to think that what was happening to me was a total injustice; in my mind, I always seek to fulfill what is expected of me. I was in a period of great pain and confusion where I spent time, resources, emotions, and health in ultra-specialized medical treatments trying to become a mother. What I did not know is that there was a plan that was already in place, and I would become a mother in one way or another. I never lost faith.

On the other side of the city, at the same time, there was a woman who, without knowing it, was going to give me the greatest gift of my life: she would give me her children and allow me to become a mother. A woman labeled as a bad mother for abandoning her children in an orphanage, a decision which to me remains unknown until this day. I always thought, maybe poverty, living on the streets, the lack of support from her family or the father of her children, the lack of opportunities to get an education and have a stable job, or maybe she simply could not handle the responsibility alone.  I will never know, but her name is Graciela, just like me.

So, I see it this way: while I suffered through the journey to become a mother, I was surrounded by the love and support of my family, with a roof over my head.  She was pregnant, living on the street and alone with her children. There is not a day I do not appreciate all the blessings in my life.  Not a day goes by, that I do not thank Graciela for the greatest gift of life that she unknowingly gave me by leaving her children in that orphanage, where they would  not go hungry or cold. I can only imagine that she did it as an act of love and that there is not a day where she does not think or worry about them.

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My husband and I were finally able to become parents. For the first time, I was able to experience the wonderful sensation of how the warmth of a small hand felt when taking mine could transmit so much love to me and make me feel like the most loved woman on earth.

The path of adoption is not an easy one; adopting is complex. You must open your arms and close your eyes to embrace angry, hurt, distrustful and sometimes broken children with great emotional baggage that need a lot of love.  They are often received by inexperienced adults eager to be parents, full of expectations, but without the appropriate emotional and psychological tools to support them. They say that nobody prepares you to be parents, nor to adopt children. 

Once my son jumped on my bed while I was sitting next to him, and my daughter entered the bedroom and said to him, “Did you know that our mother (me) had a baby in her belly that went to the rainbow bridge?”

My 5-year-old boy stopped jumping, he looked at me and said, “That baby had to leave so that we could be your children.” He kept jumping. Really at that moment, I understood God's plans.  I had been angry for so many years, but he had listened to me carefully, and chose me to be an adoptive mother to show me I was wrong - I was indeed capable of giving love with my eyes closed. 

God knew that I wanted to go through this life feeling, and the plans were already in place.  After that whirlwind of emotions, today I am sure that we changed the lives of not only these two children, but their future kids and generations that descend from them.  Above all, they have not only changed my life and future forever, but also my entire family’s - we get to welcome and  love Graciela's kids.

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Graciela, my eternal gratitude.