#One Week - Winter 4

Snow!

 

*Fun, memories created and shared, redeeming what was lost and recovering some lost ground*

 

Here goes:

It's snowing, she called - and yes! The magical white carpet had be laid across the land.

Let's go and throw snowballs and go on my sledge, she said. My blue one.

I'm not sure you have a blue sledge, PJ.

I do, I do. It was at the foster carers.

I remembered seeing one at the foster carers but didn't remember one being here.

I looked in the shed.

NO SLEDGE.

 

I could sense the loss mingled with the excitement and anticipation of the snow.

Dressed in coat and hat and gloves and wellies, we went out and did our snow angels and threw snowballs in the park and purchased a NEW red sledge and slid it home, had a quick go on it and built our snowman in the garden.

 

Fun, memories, created there, in those moments.

 

I felt her sadness, her loss at there being no sledge in our shed. She hadn't come with one. Despite my logical reasoning and reassurance of "it must have been their sledge, PJ", I had grieved for her. I saw her look of disappointment. Another loss.

So, after the park, I saw a store selling a pile of red sledges and got one.

I felt I was clawing something back for her, redeeming something that was once lost, restoring a joy for her, in some small way.

 

The blanket of snow stayed overnight.

 

The next day was one of those profound, to be treasured moments, for me.

 One of those recovering lost ground moments.

It has been hard these last few years, since embarking on our Adoption Journey, with some of the mixed opinions and feelings expressed with some of my closest family and friends. Just a few but it has been a turbulent and bumpy ride as we have sought to try and understand each other and to gain some common ground. Words have stung and cut deep wounds and relationships have been stretched and strained.

It has been a lonely and long Winter, with some of these friendships, where I have at times missed and longed for warmth and intimacy that their friendships had brought. There hasn't been the promise of Spring, just a hope that one day....maybe...

I've worked hard to remain true to myself and to maintain relationship. What became clear over time, was that our friendship and spending time together was important and valued. Around the time PJ was arriving, feelings, expectations and boundaries had been set, rigid, excluding, cold, heartless, it seemed and with it some distance created - and I felt the loss and the separation.

This was not what I imagined nfor how PJ and I would share our lives with them.

This was very different and not what I wanted but it was what they wanted and what they expressed they could cope with.

The outcast, conditional love, distanced, estranged, un loved, un welcome.

The separation of Adoption.

And so Winter has continued.

Cold, barren, empty.

Winter.

 

Imagine my joy, when the phone rang and we were asked to go round and to play in the snow,

 PJ and I.

We went of course and together, we built a huge snowman.

There was laughter, hot chocolate and huge beaming smile on PJ's face as she was pulled around on the sledge around the garden.

Lost ground re-covered.

Pure, white, crisp, clean snow.

It has been a long Winter.

Winter has been harsh, with a bitter sting.

The snow has brought some cleansing, healing some of the past hurts.

Relationship building, slowly, with each snowball.

Friendship gathering momentum as the sledge travels along the snow.

Thank you, Winter Snow.

I will treasure the breakthough moment when the ice pick hit and broke the ice.

The ice that is now, slowly beginning to melt as love and joy seem to prevail and join hands, together.

I will treasure the memory of PJ's beamimg smile in the Winter snow.

The winesome smile that won some.

Big time.

The joy of breakthrough.

Spring, I feel is on it's way.