SPARK!

My little brother (I love him dearly) is what some would have called a pyromaniac.  Growing up, he loved to set things on fire.  Whether it was my bed, the old fence on the side of the house, or some couches in the desert, he loved fire.  I, on the other hand, have simultaneously been terrified and fascinated with fire.  It was a powerful and hot source that could consume things quicker than my young brain could understand.  At the same time, it only took one spark of a match to light a large and scary forest fire.  

I found one small spark of adoption in my childhood.  Instead of pretending that all my dolls were my babies, I would line them up and adopt them.  Even the story of the Cabbage Patch Doll (which was very popular in my childhood) was about adoption and it fascinated me.  But, as I grew older.  I stopped fascinating about growing up and being a mother.  Instead, school consumed me in passion, and I dreamed of being a lawyer or a CEO.  The spark once lit, seemed to have been smothered out.

When I was a teenager, my cousin (who was just a year younger than me) ended up pregnant.  I watched her from a far, sensing before it was even public knowledge, the baby growing inside her.  Although her story is her own, and I don't even know the half of it.  The spark of adoption was kindled again as I heard the story of her bravely choosing a family to place her sweet child with.  However, as a teenager with a fatally sick mother and younger siblings to help care for, my thoughts quickly turned to surviving the brunt of the death of a parent.  The spark was smothered again.

Into adulthood, my sweet sister endured a lot.  She grew up in mostly in the aftermath of loosing mom.  She found herself to be a pregnant teenager.  And, I at the time suffering from infertility.  We spoke of adoption.  She found her baby's adoptive family through an adoption agency.  One week after placement, I was informed by an infertility doctor that I would need surgery if I ever wanted to get pregnant again.  In the depth of my pain, I found the kindling of those sparks and shortly a great fire ragged within me.

Adoption would not be a side story in my life; it could not just be something that happened in others lived.  It had to be a part of mine.  I HAD TO ADOPT!  I HAD TO FIND MY MISSING CHILDREN!  They are out there somewhere.  Adoption will be the course to fulfill the desire and cool the fire.