The Gift of a Wait

Dear Little Bro,

You’re everywhere it seems lately.

Every morning brings some new thought of you. The sight of the double shopping cart at Target. The fact that your hyung has taken to calling his bed “Little Bro’s bed” in an attempt to avoid having to lay down at night. Planning a final “Mama’s Getaway/30th Birthday” trip on the fly to fit it in before you come home. A sweet e-mail from a friend. The video I’ve already watched so many times I can practically repeat the Korean being said, although I don’t entirely know what I am saying. The HR process at work we’ve begun for my transition time with you. The travel plans being made with your presence in our family in mind (don’t get too excited, you and mama aren’t going to Hawaii). A touching song from a friend who has you in her heart, too. The way your brother makes out with your picture every night and can’t sleep until he’s “dissed” it and blown another “diss” to the big map of Korea (“Dahya”) where he knows you are. The clothes Little Bug has grown out of that I can’t pack away because I know you’ll be fitting into them within a couple months.

The way my heart has been feeling lately: nervous, sad, excited, hopeful, incredulous, and most of all, peaceful.

Over the last 11 months since I realized so suddenly that we were your family, not a day has gone by that I haven’t felt every one of those emotions bubble to the surface. Sometimes it hasn’t been graceful or gracious or entirely transparent, but they’ve been there. Your presence in my life, even from across the world, has challenged me and helped me grow in ways I didn’t think I could or needed to go.

The truth is that you’re just fine where you are. Better than fine. You’re great right where you are. You don’t NEED me right now. But I’ve needed you. It isn’t your hair I needed to smell or your body I needed to feel, but your smile that taught me a valuable lesson about appreciating what I have, instead of what I don’t. In choosing joy over sadness. Waiting for you has changed the way I practice patience and given me courage to hope and faith the endure. Not small gifts, and possibly something I should cross stitch onto nice dollies.

It's easy for me to forgive the wait when I am at the end of it, but it's also so much easier for me to see how waiting for you has changed me. I'll be a better mama for you because of it, and that's a win-win for us both.

See you soon, baby big star.
Love Mama