🧵Thursday Thread: Tomorrow is Adoption Day ❤️

Kahlil Gibran said, "Your children are not your children / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself." Can we hold space for Billie & Z at the threshold of this enormous portal?

The view from my porch yesterday during a thunderstorm

Dear WITD Community,

You’ve been witness to a long, complicated journey filled with many twists and turns through deep uncertainty as Billie Oh and Z made their way from strangers to family, and, tomorrow, that becomes official through adoption.

The reading that has been most helpful to me during these long months of fostering—almost two full years—has been Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”:

What’s interesting, though, is that “On Children” isn’t, for me, specific to Z and the complicated way in which he has come into our family through the foster care system.

Not at all.

It’s about something much deeper—the reality that each human being truly does belong to the future, and we are only here to shepherd each other’s journeys.

Thank you for your love and kindness through these past eighteen months together here. Both Billie and I have been so glad for your company.

We’d love to hear your voices today on the topic of family, any family—especially found and chosen family, but any and all stories are welcome. We want to revel in, as Mary Oliver puts it, finding our “place in the family of things” and your beautiful voices would be most assuring.

Thank you, friends. Please know how much your presence has buoyed our family.

Love,
Jeannine & Billie

PS If you are new here, you can read a little more about Z here and here.

PPS Threads/comments are for paid members; you can upgrade/manage your membership here any time. Thank you so much for reading Writing in the Dark!