I can't believe I'm typing these words... As of today, Lucy has been home one whole year! It's strange to think there was a time she wasn't a part of our family. What's even stranger, is to realize that a year ago, she didn't even know her brothers. The three of them now are so tight, such a incredible unit, that it's difficult to even imagine them entering our lives individually.
For the past several months, I've had this post worked out in my head. I was going to tell you that today is not, in fact, a day of celebration. It was this day a year ago that I first heard the cry that shook me to my very core. It was the day Yu-Ting was pulled away from everything and everyone she had ever known. It was the day she looked at me like I had ruined her life, not forgiving me for that for a very long time. The days, weeks and months that followed that day weren't easy. If you're going through the process now, I apologize for shedding a little bit of real life but IT. IS. NOT. EASY. Lucy rejected me for such a long time, I began to just go with it and shut down. I was sad and depressed and frankly, pretty pissed off. What I thought it would be like couldn't have been further from how it really went down. I don't care how many books you read, people you talk to or stories you hear, each and every adoption is different and you just can't know until you live it.
But that's not what I want to focus on. While I planned to go into how "gotcha day" was really the hardest day in all of our lives, when I woke up this morning, all I could think was how it was the biggest gift I had ever experienced. Sometimes we have to get through the mud and the ugly stuff, just to surface stronger and more beautiful than ever -- like a lotus flower.
So while I don't really know if we'll commemorate this particular day every year for the rest of Lucy's life, I do know we're celebrating today. Because a year ago today, the strongest, smartest, funniest, most beautiful girl in the world completed our family, making us look within ourselves, finding strength and love when we thought we had none left, and face tougher challenges than we could ever had imagined. And today, we're a better family for it.
Thank you, Lucy, for giving us a chance. I can't believe how lucky we are to call you our Mei-Mei.
