A year ago today our family of five piled into the minivan and drove to a church outside of Nashville. We sat in the tiny chairs of a children’s Sunday school class and listened as our social worker explained the situation, walked us through paperwork, and we signed our names. Our yes on paper.
Down the hall, in another classroom, Sambhaji played with toys while another social worker did her best to explain to him that he would be leaving his forever family to live with another family – maybe for a little while and maybe forever. Maybe.
After more than an hour of waiting in the same building just a few yards away from each other, our social worker walked us down the hall to the room where Sambhaji was playing.
Four children, all mine now, playing with puppets, dinosaurs and Legos.
Four parents and two social workers making small talk, nervously kind to one another, all wondering what we’d done, all questioning the forever we’d chosen together.
And then, after ten minutes of play, a social worker nodded to me that it was time. Sambhaji put on his backpack. I took his hand. I thanked the man he called “Dad” for his courage, his selflessness, for loving my son well and playing a part of God’s plan to bring him from India to America.
There were tears. A family was broken to bless mine.
And doesn’t blessing always spill out of the broken things?
The ride to our house was long and heartbreaking. Sambhaji whimpered, then wailed. His heart fractured, his mind perplexed, his understanding as limited as his vocabulary. Without words to tell us what he felt, what he wondered, he cried. I kept one hand on the wheel and the other reached back and wrapped around his leg.
“It’s OK to cry,” I said. And it was.
We never got to know Sambhaji through letters and pictures first. We never saw his orphanage in India, the bed where he slept, the windows he looked out of at the world, the table where he ate with friends. We never got to hug the women who raised him, the other children who taught him to share and play and hope.
We never boarded a plane together bound for America, or got off that plane to a crowd of friends and family with tears in their eyes and “Welcome” signs in their hands.
In a church parking lot not far from our house I – just a stranger – buckled a sobbing boy into a car seat and drove him to our house where he’d live as a much-loved guest, not knowing if we’d ever get to call him “son.”
Because the powers-that-be did eventually decide to make me his dad, today is a celebration: The day our family became six, Sambhaji became son (in my heart even if not on paper), and I discovered my capacity to love was so much greater than I’d imagined and that family is not built of blood. It was the first day of forever.
But this day of remembering hurts too. To remember the families he’s left behind, their love for him, their sacrifice for his good. To remember his tears and theirs, his fear, him standing in our driveway that first afternoon looking out across a new subdivision, longing for home-somewhere-out-there. This day last year was the last day of forever.
So I’ve cried a little today in secret. And I’ve promised ice cream after dinner. It’s that kind of day.
This is Sambhaji’s “gotcha day.” A day to mourn a goodbye and give thanks for hello.
God, to all those who no longer have Sambhaji in their life, please give peace today, surrender, comfort, joy. And on behalf of all of us who get to see his smile, hold his hand, pour his cereal and kiss him goodnight every day? Thank you, God. For this year. For my son. For ice cream. Amen.
Kim says:
Beautiful… I cried. Yes, happiness can sometimes come out of broken hope and shattered hearts. Praying with you today as well.
Kim says:
P.S. He’s beautiful.
Aimee says:
Awww… this is beautiful, just beautiful, Shaun! Thanks for sharing your heart.
Cathy says:
I LOVE this post! Gotcha days are definitely special and heartbreaking at the same time. And I love the phrase “First day of forever”. My writing is not nearly as eloquent as yours, but that was the title of my very first blog post a little over a year and a half ago.
http://througheverystorm.com/2010/finally-the-first-day-of-forever/
Ashley Pichea says:
Celebrating with you today!
Big Mama says:
Beautiful, Shaun. Love the way God worked it all together.
Stephanie says:
This is heart-wrenchingly beautiful, Shaun. Congratulations!
Aaron Hale says:
Shaun-
Today was my adopted son’s first day in pre-school, and I have spent all day remembering our journey together. I have been shedding tears in secret, too.
The “Gotcha Day” is something to celebrate and mourn at the same time. Our hearts leaped with excitement when we got the call about our son, Arthur, but we wept as we learned about his past.
When we picked him up for the first time, he cried harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. It was torture in the midst of joy.
Blessing in brokenness. I’m with you.
Thanks for sharing!
Alia Joy says:
Blessings from God in so many ways. Praying for you all in joy and tears. Enjoy that ice cream!
Michelle ~ Blogging from the Boonies says:
Amen. Thank you, once again, for sharing a bit of yourself with us.
Kris says:
sniffling here at the keyboard. What a gift… for you all… for him… beautiful.
Melissa Jones says:
You can make a candle out of broken crayon pieces (Google it). I think that is a perfect analogy for what God does with us – He takes our broken, only semi-useful pieces, heats them up, and they become something altogether different, something wholly useful, something that can bring a sense of calm and peace – but only after we go through the heat of melting/molding/shaping. Until then, we’re still just broken pieces.
Celebrating and grieving with you and yours today!
Josh Kellar says:
Thanks for sharing this Shaun. Got to know Sambhaji for the first time on Sunday. He is an incredible boy. I know today is bittersweet.
Blessings,
~Josh
Lynne says:
I remember the day my husband and i went to McDonalds to have lunch with a social worker, a street-wise teen and his broken-hearted little brother. That was our gotcha day. Celebrate today, Shaun.
Jessica says:
Wait a tick. It’s been a whole year? Wow.
(Insert comment here about time’s ability for flight)
Congratulations! The people whose house we’ll be renting soon have 4 adopted children. They said that each child has a “family” day, the day that they joined the family. On that day the child is allowed to pick the activity and place of dinin’. It’s kind of like an extra birthday. ๐
Karen says:
Wow! *sniff, sniff* …off to grab another tissue and probably eat some ice cream!
Southern Gal says:
Happy Gotcha Day to all of you. And an extra prayer for his family who sacrificed to give him a better life with yours.
Moushette says:
Happy Gotcha Day to you all !
My heart breaks again when I think of what Sambhaji went through. His “first forever parents” should be proud to have taken the most difficult decision of their life in the best interest of Sambhaji. May they find peace despite their sufferance. And may Sambhaji build his life and his sense of security in your family as easily as he must have gulped that ice cream !
For us, our gotcha day was a few weeks ago, filled with nostalgia and blues amongst the happiness, excitement and laughter !
Moushette from France !
Kim says:
We have our own “gotcha” day in this crazy little house filled with God and love and screams and laughter. Our 6 year old Abby Grace was adopted. I still remember the day I watched the woman who birthed her hold her in her arms….at our request. How bittersweet that day was. it would be many months….9….and ALOT of paperwork before she officially became ours “on paper” but God knew she would be ours when he formed her in the womb and sent her to us in a most special way. ๐
robin says:
oh this is beautiful. Thank you for sharing a pice of your heart and story.
Amy says:
Thank you, Lord, for Gotcha Day! And ice cream. ๐
Amanda says:
So beautiful. I had to stop reading at a few points because my eyes were so full of tears. How our God can bring beauty amid the hurts & hardships of this world is a mystery. Thank you for sharing this special day so eloquently.
Kelli says:
Ugly Beaver crying. Thank God I’m alone tonight…
Redemption takes so many forms and it’s often jagged and rough and it fits together like a perfect puzzle piece. Thanks for letting us celebrate with you all. What a precious day. ๐
Colleen G. says:
Beautiful post today and touches my heart so much. I am an adoptive mom and on my sons birthday & Mother’s Day my heart & prayers go directly towards his birthparents (who we never meet). I call them our “angels on earth” who gave us the gift of life – our son.
Jenna B. says:
uh oh. this post makes me ask WHAT IF?
so beautiful.
Judy Grieve says:
Thanks for sharing . what a blessing you are to each other and to us
Jolanthe says:
Making me cry. Again. Thanks so much for sharing ~ just amazing to see where one year has taken your family.
Kaye says:
Congratulations on celebrating such a big day in the lives of your entire family. God does amazing things. Sometimes they hurt for a while, but in the end, His glory remains.
LuAnne says:
Beautiful words.
Beautiful child.
Beautiful God.
~Peace,
LuAnne
rebecca says:
What a beautiful post. Happy ‘Gotcha Day’! My husband was adopted as a teen and we celebrated his 18th ‘Gotcha Day’ in Feb. with his family. Congratulations to you and yours!
Jesse says:
appreciate you sharing your heart and for continually striving to serve our King!
Leigh says:
So sweet. I can’t imagine your feelings. I cried a big ugly awesome cry. It’s amazing the power of adoption and what it can bring to our lives. Thank you for being a part of it!!
Jill Foley says:
Crying here too.
Amy Hunt says:
Blessed are they who mourn.
Your worship is this. The acknowledging of the story that led to where you are right now. And how many people were involved and affected, and how God weaved every piece together. Seeing Him is so profound. Yes, it’s how beautiful comes from broken and that amazes me to the core.
janelle says:
Blessed by your story: Thank you for sharing. Today is the ten year gottcha day for two very special young men in my life. They were my first foster sons ever. God chose for my parents to adopt them, and I have been blessed to be a part of their lives forever.
Jason Cormier says:
Amen
Kristi says:
What a year!! Very well said. Praying…and crying for the joys and hurdles :).
Lindsay says:
Wow. I cannot believe it’s been a year. That’s incredible. Yes. Thank you, God, for Sambhaji and for all of his families and for The Forever that will never be broken because of Jesus’s blood. Amen.