The Christmas List

Today I was asking the kids what they wanted for Christmas. I explained to them that we were going to scale back our Christmas this year so that they would not be getting much from us. In response, KA says, "that's okay Mom. You already gave me the best gift of all this entire year.

 "What is that, KA?"  

KA: "Love mom, you gave us love."

And little did he know that was MY Christmas present from the boy to whom emotions are like some uncharted territory as explored by Lewis and Clarke.

 Ye,t as wonderful and tear dropping this was

 I still wonder....

...what does he really want?????????????

Love Sick

So third grader, KA, says to me "How do you know if you love somebody?"
Me: "You mean someone like your mom?"
KA: "No, I mean a girl."
Me: (Thinking "what do you think I'm not a girl? thanks bud!" Which is quickly replaced by "holy crap, you are only 8...I don't want to listen to this...but on the positive side it does answer that question of whether or not he is gay)" Well," I begin, " when you are in love your body feels all tingly when you get near that person and you really just want to be around them all the time because they makes your heart feel good."
KA: (who now drops to the floor and with a big sigh declares) "I guess I'm in love then."

In His Eyes

I don't seek perfection for I know I will never reach it. Like the brass ring it will always be beyond my reach. But I do try to seek my sense of perfection through your eyes. I don't always try my hardest. There are times when my get up and go got up and went. Sometimes I succeed when I least deserve or expect it. And sometimes I fail myself and others. Often I try again. But whatever I do I know that it is alright if I am with you. For you accept me for who I am and who I am striving to become.You know me and love me anyway. You teach me about patience, contentment and happiness in your quiet loving and just "being". If love is indeed "two people leading each other onto themselves" then lets keep walking on our journey together. I will walk alongside you discovering who I am while you discover who you are meant to be both in our relationship and outside of it. Together we will find our way to ourselves and each other in a way that is beneficial for both. Yet, although we walk along the same path during our journey we will each see the pathway differently. We will notice different things along the way. I see moss and yellow roses. You see the mountains and the trees. And when we put the pieces together of what we see...it makes up the whole picture of...you and me.

Today is Kylee's 17th birthday. It seems so strange to have someone who was the main focus of your life 17 years ago not here to celebrate that wonderous day. I miss her. I want to hug her and tell her how much I love her. And then this happened:

Kylee and I were IMing each other when she says," Mom I want to have a serious discussion with you."

Of course with words like this coming from you 17 yo's typewriter your mind begins to fly wildly. She pregnant...she was hurt...she's in love...she never wants to come home...and a host of other absurdities crammed into the old gray matter.

And then she types, "I just wanted you to know that when I am 18 and if you have saved a little money, if anything were to happen to you and Dad I want to take the kids."

And I started bawling. Not because her offer is necessarily a possibility but because she would offer knowing all the challenges that our special needs children face in the years to come. And because I have secretly wondered at times if the adoption of our younger children had perhaps made Kylee feel left out or at the bottom of the pile. That somehow her needs became secondary to theirs.

But maybe I was bawling because that is the minute that I realized my daughter had matured and grown up. That was the moment I realized that she was beginning to think like an adult, love like a parent and grow into a person whose concern about others that she loves outweighs her immediate concern about herself.

And so on the day I so desperately wished I could hug my girl and give her a gift, she turned the tables on me and gave me the best present ever. A one sentence treasure that came from her heart. And sometimes it just doesn't get any better than that!

A Special Place In My Heart

"I have a special place for you in my heart," I murmurred to Karson while holding him tight.

"Where Momma, where is that special place?" he replied.

"It's here," I replied, pointing to the top. "It's where I think of you when you are not here. It's that place that holds my precious memories of you."


"And it's here," I replied pointed a little higher. "It's where I dream of you at night when we are apart and my mind wants to see you again while I sleep. It's the place where I hold onto special dreams."


"Oh, it's also over here," I said. "It's near those parts of me that sing quiet happy songs to myself everytime I think of you. It's that place where I keep my special songs."

"Where else, Momma? he asked. "Where else?"

"Well, its the part closer to my legs so I can run to you whenever you need me," I said."It's that place that gets me to you when I am needed."

"And its over here near my arms so I wrap you in them and hold you close to me when we both need a hug to sustain us and keep us closer," I told him. "It's my hugging place that keeps millions of hugs ready and waiting whenever you need one."

"But most of all that special place in my heart it watches and waits," I said.

"For what, Momma,?" he asked. For what?"

"For you to have your own special spot in your heart that takes you to places that you have only dreamed of and to places that teach you and show you that it is never to late to live out your hearts desire."

"And when will I get my own special spot,?" he asked.

"Oh, you already do but it only opens its door to you after your own child walks into your heart and turns the lock with their own special key that no one else has. The key to the special spot is love, my darling. Yes, the key to it all is love."

Copyright 12/9/07 by Cheryl L. Dieter

Bleeding Hearts

In this month’s Oprah Magazine (April 2007) there are three stories concerning adoption. In one story author and adoptive mom, Carol Brennan, writes about when her daughter met her birth mother.

“ She said again how hard it was for her, giving me up. An undertone in her voice confirms that, diverse as the millions of adopted children are, this they have in common: the need to hear and hear again that they were not relinquished easily.”

Those words hit me like a bolt of lightning tonight. Perhaps I am ready to hear.

There appear to be two camps in adoption. One that says to tell the truth if you know it but to never say anything you don’t know as fact just to make things easier for your child. For instance, I have read and been told never tell your child that it was difficult for their birth mother to relinquish them unless you know for a fact that it was. This is because you don’t want your child believing made up truths in case they do meet their birth parents and find out differently.

The second camp seems to say that if your child asks if their birth mother loved them you answer “Well, yes she loved you very much because she took the time to make an adoption plan for you. She wanted to make sure that you were raised by a family who loved you very much.”

I have struggled with this question often but when my five year old asked my gut instictively went with the second answer, “She must have loved you very much.” At the time he needed to hear that as much as I needed to say it, even though I thought I never would. He needed to know that his birth moms love for him was not fleeting and inconsequential just like my love for him will never be. He needed to know that his core is built around the love that he has experienced, both transient and for the long haul. And that both are valuable because the short amount of time he experienced his birthmothers love helped contribute to who he is. And perhaps she is even in it for the long haul although he may never know for sure. Maybe she even prays for him every night.

When you think about it who doesn’t need to hear that they were loved and wanted? Who doesn’t need to believe that those who carry us, those who live with us and those who know us would not easily forget us? Because if they were able to just forget us it calls into question what the real purpose of our lives are and what is important. Is it just living life or is it living life in such a way that others wish to tell your story?

When we divorce we do not think that “getting over it” should come easily. We don’t want to believe that the person who loved us could just walk away and create a life with another person a day later. We want to know that our love is not easy to leave. That the love we give away is meaningful to others and that the feelings that are intertwined with it just don’t vanish overnight. We want to believe that love lasts a lifetime even though it may not be available to us throughout each moment of every day. That is one reason why heaven is so appealing. And it is why our “first love” remains so dear to us so much so that many people go in search of it many years later.

So why would my child want to hear that they were relinquished and then forgotten? Why on earth would I ever want them to think that their first mother just “got over them.” Love doesn’t work like that because in real life it is also filled with regrets and missed opportunities.The highs and the lows...the ying and the yang... that is what love truly is. Hopefully love doesn’t work like that in adoption even though I suspect many adoptive parents might wish it would. For love has meaning, truth and clarity wrapped within it. And love doesn’t just vanish in an instant. Instead love follows us, sustains us and lies with us and within us forever carrying us when nothing else will and all else fails.

So my child you can relax and you can rest assured that you are loved. It may be in different ways but your mother's have both loved you.

She Loves Me...She Loves Me Not

She Loves Me...She Loves Me Not
By: Cheryl L. Dieter Copyright 7/26/2005

I stare at my new daughter’s chubby cheeks and beautiful brown eyes laden with sleep. Everything is perfect in our relationship. I love her and she loves me. End of story. There is no happy ending that could make life better than it is right now. As I watch her breath in and out so effortlessly, I shed a tear knowing that in the not so distant future it is doubtful that anything will be quite this easy between us again. How do I know this? Easy. My eldest daughter is fourteen.

Fourteen is a terrible age. Not quite old enough to “know better” but just old enough to get in trouble for what you do know. While still the center of my universe, I am but a distant line in hers. And like a line drawn in the sand that constantly shifts with gusts and wisps of wind, everyday my daughter and I tiptoe back and forth across that line of independence vs. dependence, me vs. them, and love vs. hate. An almost grown up version of She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not that we once played together just a few short years ago with the white daisies and red roses grown in our own backyard.

She Loves Me... “thanks Mom for taking me to the mall.”
She Loves Me Not...I make her clean her room.
She Loves Me... “Come on Mom. I mean, I share more about my life with you than most teenagers.”
She Loves Me Not... “Why can’t you just leave me alone,” she yells as she slams the door to her room for yet another time.

As I see it, everyday my daughter and I start out with a fresh flower from an old plant. Sometimes the petals seem to fall off by themselves whereas others it takes days for the bloom to disappear. Some days the petals are plucked and thrown with a vengeance and someday they are removed gently and placed lovingly in a book to be preserved and examined on another day. But even on those mornings when the blossoms are gone before the first cup of coffee is steamed all is not lost. For although the petals are the most beautiful and dazzling thing about the flower, there is so much more to the plant than that. While the center is still young and vibrant and holds the seeds that offer new beginnings and hope; the stem, older and more sturdy, holds the newer parts of the flower aloft. And the roots, well, they provide nourishment to both the old and new parts combined.

This morning the flower was bare by eight but as I bent down to inspect the last petal that landed at my feet, I knew that all was still well. For the plant from which this flower came still continues to grow, blossom and mature just like my relationship with my daughter. And the seeds still continue to be spread and planted for some as yet unknown day in the future. But most of all when the last petal fell... She Loved Me...at least for now.

Bound for Brazil

My 16 yo daughter has been a hand full since she has hit the teen years. It is hard because we have raised her to take risks, to believe in herself, to be independent, to know that she can accomplish what she sets out to do. We have taught her to trust herself, to go after her dreams and to not be afraid to step outside of the box that we call home. Somehow when you raise a child that way it seems that when they reach teen status they move away from you quicker, dislike you more, and in general cannot wait until they are out of the house far, far away from you. And of course, there are days that you cannot wait until the back door hits them in the butt on their way out too. But really as exciting and scary as it all is, we have raised our daughter to be able to take on us as well as the world. Although it is difficult for us now we know that when she is an adult we will be glad she has grown into who she is and who she is truly meant to be. But right now, who she is, is a girl who wants to spend her junior year of high school as a foreign exchange student in Brazil.

I have always been impressed with people who have been willing to leave everything they know to try to learn more about another country and her people.You have to dig deep within yourself to face the unknown with a smile. Yet, I have a confession to make. As proud as I am of my daughter for even contemplating such an opportunity; there is the part of me that wants to hold her back. A part of me that wants to say "No way, you are too young." A part of me that wants to scare her and a part of me that wants to dare her. I feel conflicted, confused and frankly, there is a part of me that is afraid. I am afraid of losing her, missing her, afraid that we are getting too close to an age where our family will no longer be important to her. Sure she knows all my faults and points them out to me everyday. But I want her around to keep me honest, to show me new ways of looking at things and to just have the comfort in knowing she is right here with us forever.I love her and want to keep her near. And if the truth is told, today I am not sure that I want to hold open the door for her. Not just yet. Really, I want her to explore the world next to the safety of my feet like when she was a baby. I want her to once again ask the simple questions like "Why is the sky blue?" And I want to know she is upstairs in her bed; snug, safe and warm. I want her to explore our world, not one thousands of miles away. Yet I know that's not love. Love is more than keeping someone close. Love is more than halting another person's growth to keep ourselves feeling useful and alive. Love is really about two people gently leading each other onto themselves. It's knowing when to let go so they can discover who they are on their own. It is about being confident enough in your love for one another that you know that holding on is more detrimental than letting go.

So although I may not always like it I know that I have to hold that door wide open for Kylee. Afterall, we taught her to go through that door in the first place and to embrace whatever she found on the other side. And although she will not know it, I will hold that door open wide, as I hide my tears and hold in my fears. For it seems like it was only yesterday that I held the door so she could get in as she stood on her tiptoes trying to reach the latch. I guess I didn't realize then that the time would come so quickly for her to step outside on her own. And although I may be tempted, I promise I will not let the door hit her on the butt as she makes her way out. However, I might just hide her keys so she can't go anywhere.

Umbilical Cords

Ever since my son told me on January 9th that I am going to become a grandmother I have been thinking about umbilical cords. How they are in fact the pathway to life until one is able to burst forth and discover their own. And supposidly after birth that connection is severed. But is it?

The other night I was telling Dave that I had a pit in my stomach. That I felt something horrible was happening. Now at times when this has happened terrible things have happened. Sometimes they are just as I envision them but other times I get the message wrong. Like the time I thought my father was in the hospital because I thought he had been in an accident when he in fact was in the hospital for another matter.

So yesterday, I was feeling horrible. I knew something bad was happening but after a while I decided to ignore it and then I forgot about it. Turns out it was a problem with my oldest son and Dave said, " See you were feeling his pain." And I wondered. How do these things happen? Do we have some sort of invisable umbilical cord to our loved ones. And is love the nourishment that keeps it alive?

Okay goofy questions but what do you expect from someone so sleep deprived!