Francis
traded in his training wheels this weekend and under Mommy’s watchful guidance,
learned to ride his bike on two wheels.
But
for Francis, who has been with us for just seven months now, it means so much
more than just ditching the training wheels and learning to ride a bike by
himself. For Francis, this is a symbol
of how far he has come in seven months with us, and the fact that this awesome
little boy was able to learn to trust us – to trust me – and to learn to fly.
As
I’ve said before, there was no “honeymoon period” with Francis. We brought him home and hit the ground
running. He was afraid to have another mother figure in his life and he made that
very clear to me with some unexpected and painful behavior. He couldn’t tell me what he was afraid of,
and all I could do was take an educated guess – and be there for him. We found treatments that worked to calm his
anxiety and he started working with a speech therapist. Mommy and Daddy didn’t give up on him. For the first time in his life, Mommy stayed
with him. His drawings started to
change. Family portraits went from
having three sad faces to three happy faces.
For the first time, he was genuinely happy. He took me by surprise one night when we were
outside playing. He had made friends with
a family that came walking down the street, and he introduced himself formally
for the first time using his new last name instead of his birth last name –
something he had been opposed to even learning for almost six months. I was floored.
Then,
last Friday, as I was checking my e-mail, Francis was sitting at the table
drawing on an old receipt. He asked me
how to spell “finally.” I spelled it for
him, and then went to see what he was up to.
This was the result…
My
sweet boy finally found his family – my family is finally complete.
So
here’s where I see that Francis’ ditching the training wheels was so much more
than just learning to ride a bike.
Francis was afraid of falling from the bike when he started, but he was
still willing to trust me to hold that bike and then set him free. He was willing to listen to me and believe me
that I wouldn’t let him go until I was ready – me – the one person who, up
until recently, carried the most risk.
(After all, mothers leave.
Mothers are not to be trusted.)
Yes, he fell, and he has some bumps and bruises like any little boy who
just learned to ride a bike – but those bumps and bruises are so symbolic of
the bumps and bruises we’ve earned in our journey to become a family. But what joy when he jumped off his bike and
came running to me – to me – and shouted, his arms wrapping me in a bear hug, “Mommy,
I did it! I did it! I love you!”
You
did it. You defeated fear with more
strength than most adults I know possess, and now you have nothing to do but
fly!
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao-tzu
