All in the Family

One week ago today, I had a moment at the local ski hill that made my heart literally leap for joy. 

Before I dive in to the story, allow me to give a little family history.

 

You see, Jason and I have two boys. One boy looks just like me, the other like him.

 

This is a picture of my mother, whom I resemble incredibly (she's the one on the right).  She was probably about 4 in the photo.

 

This is a picture of our eldest son, Korban.  When he first saw that photo of my mom, he asked me why the picture of him wasn't in colour!  Then he looked closer and realized it wasn't even him!  They family resemblance is striking!

 

This is Jason when he was 8 weeks old.

 

And our second son, Shalem, when he was about 10 weeks old.  Again, the resemblance is obvious!

 

Hold that thought...and let's re-enter the story from last week!

 

I was at the ski hill for work.  Yes, the best 3 days of school all year (c'mon, at least the most fun!!) are when we get to go skiing.  Well we have one little girl in our school who recently moved here.  She and I look nothing alike.  She has black curly hair and dark skin--she looks similar to the child we are waiting for*  Beautiful. 

 

Anyways, she has never skied before.  She went bombing down the hill and a basically wiped out in a big poof of snowy powder.  I raced down to get her, but another woman beat me to it.  When I arrived I quickly unhooked my gear and scooped her up to comfort her (she's 6 and still "scoopable"). 

 

The woman looked up at me and said (in a lovely British accent), "Are you her mum?" 

"No, I'm her teacher!"  is the reply that came from my mouth.  The shout of my heart, however, was something like this, "NO, SHE'S NOT MY DAUGHTER, BUT ONE DAY SOON I WILL HAVE A CHILD THAT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE ME!!  THANKS FOR THINKING THAT SHE COULD BE MINE!"

 

It was an amazing confirmation for me that our family is growing.  That woman didn't have any idea what she had stirred in my heart.  She had simply asked who I was in relation to a crying child.  Reasonable if you ask me.  But what she really did was let me know that people will accept our family as they see it. 

 

Some of us look alike, some of us will not.  Love will hold us together, even when our physical resemblances fail to do so. 

 

*I just want to note, we do not know who our adoptive child is yet.  I simply wanted to draw a connection between the physical features that the girl in my school and our child may have in common.