Dear Reese,
This morning you climb into my lap, again and again and cry when I leave you at daycare Your teacher picks you up and I wave goodbye I cry for a moment over my steering wheel When I was a little girl I remember how it felt when my mom left for the day Last night I read an article from a grown-up adoptee that said kids who are adopted grow to know that they were not the first choice Birth parents who didn’t want them Parents who wanted biological children first My sadness overtakes me And I need to tell you what you cannot understand just yet That your Mama A loves you forever I wish you saw how she cared for you in that hospital room If you did, you'd never say you were not wanted And you were always my first choice. While we brush your teeth tonight I tell you this -- how much I wanted you I tell you how adoption grew in my heart years and years ago How I walked that path of parenthood before any others And the universe must’ve planted that knowing in my soul Because I was meant to be your mama I waited and waited but there you were in my future, waiting in return And now I hold you on my hip and you hold your pink elephant toothbrush Love, Mama
P.S. The Castle in the Pond — Part 8 (previous)
You wake to find yourself resting on a lily pad and curled into duck feathers. It is a grey morning. And eerily quiet. You don’t see the pond jumpers you saw the day before. The normal buzz of the pond kingdom is gone. You blink, trying to get your bearings and come eye-to-eye with a crocodile hidden in the pond reeds.
Not just any crocodile, The Fierce Croc you battled the night before! He regards you quietly and though he doesn’t move you tense and prepare for an attack.
“Stand down, little one,” he says in a deep voice. “There are greater battles to fight than between you and I. My enemy is the enemy of The Great Bullfrog.”
The duck wakes next to you and calms you down. When you ask where you are, he tells you somewhere safe and hidden on the edge of the pond. “Those most loyal to The Great Bullfrog have begun gathering!” he says. You see the snapping turtle is here too and are quick to ask him about the black swan since he has lived so long.
“He is before even my time,” the turtle says. “But my father knew him — it is said the pond was different then. All I know is that the magic of The Great Bullfrog was able to defeat and imprison the swan.”
Then it’s agreed, you must find The Great Bullfrog! But where could the black swan be keeping him?
The Fierce Croc jumps in, “The swan was imprisoned in the beaver damn all this time, who knows how he got out, but maybe The Great Bullfrog took his place.”
You decide to set out, and to your surprise, The Fierce Croc offers to take you on his back through the safest parts of the pond to the beaver damn.
“I’m sorry I made you bite off your tail,” you tell him before you go.
“We will settle that another day,” he says. And off you go, sticking the far sides of the pond on the way to beaver damn. You catch sight of the black swan in the middle of the pond, floating over the sunken castle but he is not looking your way when you quickly hop from the crocodile back to an entrance to the dam.
“Be careful!” the duck warns. “I’ve heard it’s a maze in there!”
Until next bathtime. . .