"A Girl I Knew"

As time has passed since the arrival of our son there has been one thing that I could depend on consistently: the patience and dedication of my wife.

A typical day for me starts with leaving for work well before sunrise and coming home before most people have left work (shifting work hours to waste less time in traffic and spend more time with my family).  As I make my way thru the garage door and up the stairwell to our living room,  I can hear my wife feeding my son and waiting for my arrival at our dinner table.  It might sound pedestrian to most people with a family (perhaps even to those without one) but it was not trivial journey to get to this seemingly simple point in our life.

One of the very first things I realized when I became a parent (which I'm sure nearly every parent realizes quickly) is how selfish I've lived my life.  I'm not talking about being excessively greedy or selfish in the more cynical sense. What I'm referring to is the nearly singular focus my wife and I had on our well being and not placing another life before ours.  The extent with which you stretch your time and efforts for a child makes you really live life with a very different focus.  Its both exhausting and eye-opening.

The metamorphosis that undergoes people as they become parents also changes the relationship between them as well.  In retrospect, I can appreciate the freedom and time my wife had to spend with each other and how un-restrained we were compared to our life being parents.  I can also see how profound certain aspects of our life, daily routines even, have become by raising a child together.  Sharing a look while cleaning up after our son.  Enjoying a different type of dining experience as a family of 3 at some of the places we use to frequent as a couple.  Entertaining and teaching our child as a way to spend our free time together, sharing that time as a family.

Rewarding and fulfilling as having a child can be, the sudden and immense shock of having a child in their "terrible two's" who is fragile, frustrated, and frazzled is a very difficult, patience-testing, and at times depressing endeavor.  Helplessness frequently occurs when you are unsure of what your child needs to feel more secure.  Depression sinks in when the child you have sacrificed so much for and waited so long for rejects and doesn't show much affection towards you. And all the while, you can feel yourself becoming exhausted, frustrated, even questioning the decisions you made to get you to this point.

As is the case with many tribulations, with time, little by little, your child begins to bond with you, they learn to listen to you, they pick up little habits you taught them, and consider you more than just an oversize playpal. If you're lucky enough to have a spouse that will help put all those things in motion like my wife, then no matter how often things seems to fall apart, together you can manage to get thru even the worst nightmares of adjustment.  She constantly teaches me about patience and grace in parenting, which not only benefits our child, but gives me a good example to follow after - assuaging my feelings of concern and uncertainty.  And just as quickly as hardships of parenting (and its subsequent adjustments to our lives) came,  the laughter and sounds of our child coupled with the realization that parenting can be done make all those worries evaporate.

As always, I draw strength from my wife in the most difficult of times.  No amount of preparation prepares you for the mental, physical, and relational challenges that couples face when raising a child, particularly the additional struggles children by way of adoption poses.  But as I watch my wife cradle our son, prepare nutritious food for him, teach and encourage him........I'm reminded of a few of her greatest traits: patience and compassion.  And that always makes our world seem like a better place.

"“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
—J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”"