Close to where they live, the family gathers to enjoy what is left of the summer.  And Emma E. basks in the attention and love her presence assumes.  And this should be the right of every child chosen to come to us.  Because we choose them.

I have mentioned before that for over half a century I have told our sons thank you for choosing me as your mother.  Because I chose you and have loved you long before the world ever was.  Because I know I was before I am.  Not believe, not hope nor anything else, but know.

I think once we learn this truth, we have to act responsibly.  Every teen ager has shouted I did not ask to be born!  But we did.  For reasons long forgotten.  Mainly because we are unaccountably good and wanted to make a difference,  because we needed to learn certain things and our choice of parents is insanely correct.

Hard to swallow when in retrospect our childhoods have been unbelievably difficult, when we know we could have learned what we needed to know with less pain.  But our painful tract forced memory to surface and provided a history we could access.

We found we could still love, for instance, because at some juncture someone cared enough to teach us how.  If not accessible, life still teaches us to learn what love requires.

My Mentor, the Nazarene, said to us all, as the twig is bent. . . And bent we are before arrival and proceed with our intentions, but are different no matter how vehemently parents claim I treat them all the same!  Still the bent twig shows us that our history before we are in this place, will continue to shape our adventure.

Emma E.  is fortunate with her history and chosen family.  She is embraced fiercely with love and with everyone attending her with concern to her development.  This I wish for all souls entering a new world;  to be wanted and loved into being, to be given the tools necessary to grow and enhance life in all aspects.

Not to be given tools is to handicap the child.  To encourage pursuit of reasons why, the earnestness  to consider all work sacred, to learn to observe keenly, but most of all to understand that learning is what life demands of us.

With these, the deep satisfaction gives the greatest joy, a rich legacy.

photo by Joe Hallissey III