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The Moon and the Stars

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Last week, I was asked the question, "What about your biological daughters? How do they feel about their new brother and sister?" It is an inquiry that still gives me pause, as I sit and struggle to write these words today. For, in order to accurately describe the reactions to the arrival of their siblings, I feel the need to try and accurately describe these children themselves. It is a task no more simple than holding wind in your hand or counting the stars in the sky.

Amanda came into my life when I was but a child myself. Ignoring the ties of her biological parents that were stretched taut and near broken already, she welcomed the world peacefully. She forgave me my ignorance of the things that a more veteran mother would know. She forgave her biological father his weaknesses as he drank himself into walls that she could not penetrate and hid from the responsibility of her. In all of the darkness, she chose light. I have an image of her, at about three, walking beside me on a moonlit country road. As we walked, Amanda suddenly stopped and tilted her head way back, reached her arms over her head and jumped as high into the air as her small legs would propel her.

"Whatever are you doing?" I asked, as she repeated this strange ritual once again.

She pointed to the pale moon above. "It's ice cream, mom," She whispered. "I want to bring some down for you, so that you will be happy." What she didn't know then, and what she likely still does not know is that her very presence to me is worth all the brilliant sweetness that the moon could ever offer.

Alexis arrived two years after Amanda, and we were in awe of her. She entered the world in silence and blue coloring. The doctors said she was lacking oxygen at birth and then went into shock from the trauma of the experience. Knowing her as I do, I believe she was merely making a dramatic entrance. Two days later she screamed of the injustice of her beginnings and in the days of her life, she has protested many injustices. She fights for fairness, for the rights of those oppressed, with the staunchness of a high court judge and the drama of a premiere actress.

Alexis sees the world not simply as it is, but how it could be if we all do our part to make it so. She pushes me to higher limits and she says the stars are attainable if I only dare to reach them.

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