Gotcha Day 2012: I Hope You Love Well

There is something magnificent about 6:45AM, even on a Saturday morning.  It is quiet.  And this morning I am in the quiet, with the espresso brewing, dawn is breaking with a gentle light in the sky and big clouds are moving across the horizon because it is supposed to rain in Houston today.  This particular day I am reflecting on the two most important guys in my life who are sleeping upstairs.  You see, 12 years ago this weekend Dave and I were preparing to welcome Nate home.  I recently reflected on this marker moment a couple of posts ago (Walks With Nate).  I told my close girlfriends at lunch yesterday - "We are so blessed.  Nate is such a great kid, such an amazing human being."  And it's true.

So this is my letter to Nate on the occassion of his 12th Gotcha Day, who might someday decide to read this with fresh eyes, long after he's left my home and gone on to live life independently (sigh).  This blog, in so many ways already, has been my history for him.

Dear Nate,

Watching you dip your toes into the Pacific this summer

I am not sure you will ever fully understand how much my heart longed for you - even before I saw your face, or knew your personality or heard your cry for the first time.  No little boy could have been prayed for as much as you were prayed for - long before we knew who you were and when you were coming into our family.  But, I will never, ever forget the day your Auntie Sue placed you in my arms.  Never.  It was one of the best days of mine and Dad's life together.

You have been a gift far greater than I could have ever imagined when I was dreaming of being a mother.  You have always had this demeanor of quiet strength - and you needed it for all the time you spent in the hospital in those early days.  I love that you remind me of your dad's gracious, kind and mellow personality.  You are so much like him in that way.  And, like your dad, you smile at my passionate, fierce, push-hard ways.  You even laugh.  I love that you and I can laugh about what a quirky mom I can be - so different from you and your dad.

With Dad in Montana

I love that you love others so well.  I love that you care about how someone else feels and have an empathy for the rest of the world that I think is quite rare (again, this is your daddy in you... and your Heavenly Father at work in your soul).  I love that in spite of the fact that you are quite confused about some of the places I boycott eating at out of principle, you love me enough to go along with it and even go out of your way to honor it when I'm not around. 

I love that at 12 you still want to hang with your parents (although I understand that you are wanting to hang with your friends these days too).  I love that you tell me you love me every day after I hand you your sack lunch.  I love that you tell me you love me at random times when we're just padding around the house - and I love that you can say it in Chinese now.  I love that you love spending hours in the Yellowstone River picking up rocks and floating around.  I love that you have the drive and the patience to learn fly fishing and go on a float and encourage your dad even though he's caught the tiniest trout ever.  I love that you love adventure - rollercoasters, nerf gun wars, begging me for the day when you can go sky diving and bunjee jumping off of the Williams Tower in the Galleria (not yet, dear).  I love that you love college football as much as us and that, like your cousins, uncles and father, you know sports trivia in a way that I never will.

Hanging out in San Diego during our trip this past July/August.

And, I loved our trip, just the 2 of us, to California this summer.  I loved our stops at all the In-N-Out Burgers up and down the West Coast and I loved singing "Payphone" with you by Maroon 5 every time it played on our satellite radio (which was a lot this summer since it was apparently at the top of the charts).  I will never hear that song again without thinking of our road trip along the Pacific.  It was one of the best times ever with you and I am so glad you were willing to be my Wingman on that trip.  I'm also glad that because of that song I could tell you what a payphone was. :)

As always, I can't let a message from me slip by without continuing to speak into your life all the things I hope for you.  I hope you know how much Dad and I love you.  I hope you know how much your Chin and Quan families love you and the beautiful legacy each of these families leave for you in the people they are and the ways they have loved you.  I hope you know how much more God loves you - the deepest love you'll ever know is the Source of the love you've experienced in your family life.  I hope you know that whatever you decide to "be" when you grow up, that your heart leads you there and that you do something you love doing with all the love you can do it with.  Changing the world is a large task and I think parents leave their children with the impression that they are raising them to do something big - like be the President of the United States or start the next Apple - and I think you could do those things.  But when I say to you, "I hope you change the world," I mean that "I hope you love well and that the people who are blessed enough to be around you will be changed and bettered because you have loved them well."  I have no idea what that will look like for you.  But, I do know that I don't really care about you being a huge success story like Bill Gates.  I just care that you stay true to the soul that has been developing in you in this little house in Houston - the "kind Jesus heart" we've seen in you all these years and talked about non-stop.

Happy 12th Gotcha Day, Nate.  I could not be more proud of who you are and who you are becoming.  I am so glad I'm your mother. 

Love Always,

Mom



With your families:  The Chins and The Quans



My Thin Place

Emigrant Peak at sunset

No, this particular entry is not about weight - or at least about the kind that involves dieting and the shedding of pounds.  When I say "Thin Place" I mean a place, a space, a moment in time, a term first used by Celtic Christians - it's a space described as the place where heaven and earth meet, where the veil between the spiritual and physical world becomes very thin - so thin that you swear you have broken some barrier and are standing on holy ground.  It's a sacred place, one that is not oft experienced.  But, when it is experienced - you remember it, mark it.  You long to return to it.

So it is that the Paradise Valley in Montana is my Thin Place.  And it's the place I return to year after year.  The beauty of it all is that it isn't just my Thin Place - it is Dave's Thin Place and Nate's Thin Place.  And, for the friends and family who have joined us here each year, I would venture to say that they have had a similar experience here.

Brooks and Nate at the Lodge

This is the place where heaven and earth converge for me in a way that I cannot explain and have never been able to replicate in other spaces.  One cannot stand on the banks of the Yellowstone River, looking around at the Absaroka Mountain Range and not sense that something far greater than you has been at work, is at work and will be at work long after our footprints on the shore have been erased.  The veil between the spiritual and physical is always thin around here.  It's thin when the hard winds come down from Yankee Jim Canyon and whip through the cottonwoods.  It's thin when a storm descends on the valley and drops snow on Emigrant Peak.  It's thin as the river rises and falls with the time of year, flowing north, sometimes so swiftly it takes whole trees with it, sometimes lower, slower and clearer - perfect for fly fishing. 

I live in the city year-round - off of a busy street.  I love my home because it is the home I've built with Dave and Nate.  The love that goes in and out of that place throughout a calendar year is special.  And I have experienced a few Thin Places during my journey in the city - Christmas Eve and the lighting of the Christ Candle every year, memorable visits from friends, cuddling on the couch with my now 12-year-old boy (and these days, any cuddling is uncommon and therefore memorable).  But Thin Places are rare, which is why they are special, and in our case, why we leave our city home and come back to the same place summer after summer after summer.

The whole family on the swing at Riversbend Lodge

 Here in the Paradise Valley, when I wake up in the morning, throw open the curtains and the door to our bedroom... and I hear the water moving by, see Emigrant Peak rising above it, I step out on the deck and close my eyes and step into my Thin Place.    When the moon rises over the Absaroka Mountains, perfectly reflected in the river, and the pelicans floating with the current suddenly take flight - quiet, soft, majestic - the boundaries between heaven and earth simply vanish. 

It is our last full day in Montana before we head to Colorado for work.  But, we'll be back.  Because we have realized that without our Thin Place we have a hard time making it through the rest of the year.  As I write this blog and stare up at the mountain, watch the river flow by beneath it, I take every second of it in.  I smell it, breathe it and tuck it away to pull out on a particularly hard day when I can't find my bearings.  Life is meant to be lived this way all the time.  And, we're working on that plan.  In the meantime, we've deliberately slowed down the pace back home as best we can over the years.  We've said "no" to many a thing, we've committed to more of these Thin Place moments, even when we're outside of our favorite place on earth.

Tomorrow we'll pack up and drive out of the valley again - teary eyed and ready for next summer's visit.  I hate to give away our sacred place, but will do so anyway.  A "shout out" to Jeff, Pete and Carol Reed for sharing Riversbend Lodge with us each year.  You know the treasure you have in the lodge and the B&B, and the rest of us have enjoyed being the recipients of this Thin Place.  Of course, we're working on being your neighbors someday. :)

Wherever your Thin Place is - our prayer is that you would find it and live there as much as you can!

-Rachel for the Quan Clan

Walks with Nate

The first time I held Nate - at Hobby Airport

As Mother's Day approaches I am reflecting on one of the best days of my life... September 16, 2000, when the cutest little chubby-cheeked Korean baby boy with Don King hair was placed in my arms at Hobby Airport by my dear friend, Sue Gold.  For those of you in my life that were there, you know how precious this moment was for Dave and I.  It was an out-of-body experience.  Everyone who was there at the gate faded into the background on that beautiful day. I didn't hear much of what anyone said... what I remember from that day is how Nate smelled, how soft his hair was, how squishy his arms and legs were.  We had a stroller at the gate, but why would I have ever used it?  I was going to hold that baby boy all the way to the car because I had waited and waited and waited for that moment... the moment I officially became a mother.

Motherhood didn't come easy for me.  I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, my journey looked a lot different from others - and since we've been in the realm of adoption, we have found many people who have had a similar journey.  Mothers love their children fiercely, passionately and whether you carried that child in your womb, or in my case, in my heart, this is something that is the same across the board.  I think my journey, however, has given me pause on many a day - because I have noted things in a way I might not have if it had come easy.  With the celebration of both Nate's birthday (in March) and his "Gotcha Day" (in September), we are reminded more often of the gift that he is and the wonder that he has brought to our lives.

On a walk at our favorite park

On this particular Mother's Day I am grateful for my walks with Nate.  On weekdays, it will be just the two of us and Brooks (the Wonder-Dog), sauntering through our neighborhood.  During those walks I try and listen carefully.  Since I am the mother of a boy, I have recognized that I oft don't get a story from him right away.  It comes out in bits and pieces in different conversations and I will string together the entire story from those small reflections he gives me on different occassions.  So I try very hard to listen, to be ready to engage in both silly and deeper conversations.  In spite of knowing this, I think there is always at least 5 minutes in the one hour walk wherein I lapse into lecturing him.  He has now gotten to the age where he can tell me I am doing so and graciously tells me he has heard me.  I didn't say I was perfect!

We have talked about everything under the sun through the years, and even more as he has gotten older.  The other day it was his silly game of "what if" and then the revelation at the end of the walk that he had given one of his "25 point math coupons" to a girl in class who needed it because she had gotten a bad grade and he had four such coupons in his possession from doing so well in class. Her name was Ruth, but he couldn't recall her last name.  I was impressed (and please, if what he did was not legal in the grand scheme of things, let's keep it a secret.  I just loved his heart on this one).    Another memorable walk entailed trying to figure out which Middle School he would go to of the three choices he had. 

The walk where we decided on what Middle School to go to

I always take away a little more about what he's thinking and who he is, how his heart is forming and what his dreams are.  These walks will always be some of my most precious memories as a mother - and I know that one day they won't come as easily when he goes off to college or begins a family of his own.  I can imagine someday in the future when he's all grown up, that we will still find some time to walk together... or I see myself walking with his daughter or son and trying to listen well, to find out more about who they are and what is important to them.

And there's the other side to that coin... the fact that he hears my heart and my dreams and my hopes, that he knows what makes his mom tick and what she feels passionately about, how her faith moves her and her community inspires her.  I hope that during these walks he carries away with him some of those things and perhaps comes to find that a few of those things are worth taking with him and passing on to the next generation.  Because, someday too, he'll have walks with his own children.

We came back from our walk the other day and I asked him - "Do you like walking with me?"  Because he is almost a teenager, his reply was this:  "I don't like walking sometimes because it's exercise.  But I like talking to you, Mom."

Be. Still. My. Heart.