I remember all of Cole and Zella's firsts. I have baby books filled with little lockets of hair and notes scribbled on paper and tossed in the books that say things like "today you smiled for the first time" with a date written next to it. Their birth stories are emblazoned in my mind. I will never forget the way I completely melted and gave my heart away when each of them was laid on my chest in the delivery room. Cole was a puker. He threw up on more occasions and for so many different reasons I can't even recall them all. But I was there, reaching my hands out to catch it in the car, washing sheets in the middle of the night, using q-tips to get it out of his nose. Zella didn't sleep for the first year of her life. And I was there. Pacing the living room floor in the middle of the night. I actually got evaluated for narcolepsy when she was about 6 months old.....because that's how little she slept. And each of those moments, those special, hard hard moments, are the ones that created our bond. Somehow, the sacrifice of being sleep deprived and puked on, didn't seem like a sacrifice at all. They needed me. And they loved needing me. And I never considered that I didn't share a lot of David's "firsts" with him. Because a lot of his "firsts" didn't happen until he joined our family and those are just as monumental. His first train ride, his first plane ride, his first comfy bed, first stuffed animal, first real family. But it's different. I said it. I got it out. It's different. About 4 months after David got home, it hit me, really really hard, that this is different. That this child will not require the same love that Cole and Zella will require. That sometimes, this sacrifice, will feel like sacrifice. That me not sharing the moment he entered the world with him or the first time he cried in pain or the first time he threw up or got hurt or needed food...me not being there for the same firsts that I shared with Cole and Zella.....it didn't hurt me. It hurt him. And hurt is deep. Children don't always have clear memories of exact circumstances, but they have memory of emotion. They remember fear. They remember loneliness. They remember pain. They remember distrust. They remember hopelessness. David remembers.
David's mothers' name was Angel. Around his second birthday, Angel loved him enough to send him to a hospital via ambulance. She never showed up to pick him up. The hospital records show that he stayed at the hospital for 7 months before he became property of Ukraine. He spent his next year in one orphanage. And the next year in a different orphanage. And one year ago today, on his 5th birthday, David became eligible for adoption in Ukraine. His file arrived at the adoption authority's office just 30 minutes before Jake and I arrived to blindly select our future child. We planned to bring two children home. And we were shown 7 files of siblings and had NO PEACE. The lady we were meeting with left the room and came back with an 8th file. I think Jake and I both started crying. That was our son. His name was written incorrectly on the paperwork so our translator originally told us his name was David. We had no intention of naming him that. We went to Ukraine with the idea of naming our son Isaac. But God knows. In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel was seeking a new king for Israel from the sons of Jesse. Samuel saw 7 of Jesse's sons but knew that none of them were chosen by God. Samuel asked Jesse if he had any other sons and Jesse sent for his youngest, his 8th son, David. When Samuel saw David the Lord spoke to Samuel "Rise and anoint him; this is the one". I didn't know the parallels until I started reading more about David. The more I started believing and trusting in God's plan for his life. One night Jake and David were reading from the Childrens picture Bible that we have. The story of David and Goliath reads like this "Goliath was a giant. He came to fight God's people.....But a boy named David was not afraid. GOD HAD BLESSED DAVID AND MADE HIM VERY BRAVE. David stood before the giant Goliath. He said, "I have come to fight you in the name of God." I was standing downstairs listening to Jake read and I started sobbing. God has blessed David, and God did make David very brave. And David is fighting a mighty mighty giant. Every day he fights his memory. He fights the first 5 years of his life. He fights the instinct to fight. He fights fear. He fights every single day, against an enemy that preys on the innocent. Matthew 13:19 tells us "When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart." Because David does not understand love, when we give it to him, the enemy comes and snatches it away from him. Because David does not understand what it means to be a family or what it means when we pray and thank God for him, the enemy snatches it from him like a thief in the night. And as his mother, my heart is broken. Because ALL I can do is take heart, and be strong and take heart and wait on the Lord. (Psalm 27:13-14) I KNOW that darkness will ALWAYS lose to light. But today, today I wanted it to hurry up. Today I wanted it to be different. Today is David's birthday.
The hardest day of our 10 months home for me, was the day that I realized that I can't spoil David the way my heart wants to. I know his story. I know all of the awful, nasty stuff in his history book. And it makes me want to spoil him even more. And I can't. Because he can't handle it. I think back to all of the kids 1st Christmases. All 3 of them. We went over the top and gave them just a ridiculous amount of gifts and expected them to perform and be happy and cheerful and then we threw a camera in the mix and made them wear scratchy, uncomfortable outfits and THEN, when they started crying, we were like "what's wrong?!". Why do we do this? Why do overwhelm our kids? I was talking to my Uncle yesterday about the big birthday today and I was reminding him of all the Christmases gone bad and he said "well when you give all those gifts, it's not really for the kids". Sigh. Truer words were never spoken. David can't handle excess. It makes him uncomfortable because it is completely foreign to him. At Christmas, he was literally shaking so hard that I had to hold him tight under my arm. And birthdays are all about excess. The excessive sugar and too many gifts and it's just a lot. So a few weeks ago, I got nervous. I didn't want to force this birthday thing on him and ruin the whole day. BUT, every single person in our entire house has had a birthday (even the dog) since he got home, so doesn't he expect the hoopla?! Turns out, no. He doesn't want the hoopla. He wants to belong. And us crazy, over the top, Americans, well sometimes we give gifts to make people feel special. But you know what's crazy? The idea of giving material things to people to make them feel special. That's crazy. I look at David today, 6 years old, and I know that the excess won't heal David's heart. I know that the presents and the cake and big party, that won't erase the fact that for the first 5 years of his life nobody celebrated him. Ever. On any occasion. We have family members right now that are mad at us because we asked them to just send David a card with a note in it and not big gifts and they're mad because well this is his first birthday and we're making up for lost time so it should be crazy over the top, right? No. It should be safe. It should make him feel secure in this new life. It should tell him that we love him......and should teach him that love is not measured by gifts and dessert. Even if that is really really hard for mom.
There are days when I just want him to live. Days when I want him to jump out of bed with a smile on his face and just LIVE. I want him to walk in confidence and faith and not in fear and defiance. I asked God so many months ago to start planting these emotions in me and you know what? God answered my prayers. And you know what else? It's so painful. It's so painful to watch him struggle with his past. It's so painful to want to mother him....when he's too afraid to admit that he needs a mother. But in that pain.....it means that God is working. It means that God has started to burn out the ugly. And maybe the start of that was with me. Maybe the start of His healing started with the heart of our home. Just maybe.
And maybe God has big plans for David's 7th birthday. I woke up this morning and looked at the Bible app on my phone and the verse today said "No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him", 1 Corinthians 2:9. I'm trusting in that. That His plans are greater than my dreams for David. That His plans trump a 6th birthday party. His plans epitomize excess. That's where my hope is.
So today, in our house, there was a Happy Birthday banner and there was a Happy Birthday song. There was a watermelon cake with a candle and a big dinner. And there was one gift....and a little boy that literally gasped when he opened it. And he smiled. A real smile. Today wasn't huge. It wasn't over the top. It was a 1st birthday, 6 years in the making, for David Benjamin Kubnick. And at the end of today, he smiled. And THAT says so much. That means we're doing it. On the days when I feel like we have NO idea what we're doing, we're still doing something. And he smiled.
Happy Birthday, David Benjamin Kubnick. "And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6
**For those of you that are curious about kiddos that come from hard places, I encourage you to watch this clip and then read the letter. If you don't have time for both, read the letter. This was done by some parents of trauma kids. It's well done. And it says a lot about what we go through behind closed doors. https://www.attachmenttraumanetwork.com/mylife.html **
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