never in Vain

"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime..."
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

"I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."

Emily Dickinson

I.

As I ponder and await reunion with my birth parents, the natural barrage of questions and what-if's unload in my mind...

II.

What will happen to life after all of this…? How is this already changing our lives? And how will this continue to change our lives?

Once I have met them and contact has been established, the agency steps away, and it is just my birth parents and me left to communicate and maintain contact in the years to come, what is going to evolve?

Perhaps, it will metamorphose from the anomalous to the normal. The novelty of it will diminish, and it will begin to feel like every day life…

Yet, I don’t ever want this to become something resigned to the mundane and unremarkable…something that I take for granted and allow to linger on a shelf like a forgotten book.

Not after all the pain and crying out, all the tears and longing. (Although, I sense that such will always remain for as long as breath and blood flow through me).

I want to persevere to remain grateful and to hold to the wonderment of this event.

III.

I stare at the photos of my birth parents and wonder how we will be in the years to come…what kind of relationship we will have. What kind of dynamic we will foster. I cannot help but speculate. Of course, I hope for the best. But I also know that perfection is not something that we can attain.

I am afraid, of course. Afraid of the worst-case scenarios. I have never been one to live in a fantasy world where princesses find their prince charming and the evil ones come to their doom.

And yet somehow, I find myself in the odd and unexpected place of being able to say that perhaps, a fairy tale has stumbled upon me…over the years, much to my surprise, my life seems to continue to unfold in ways that I only dreamed and imagined as fantasy.

Despite tremendous fear and multiple attempts at sabotage, my prince charming did not only appear, but did not waver, and remains ever stronger and ever more loving.

Although I have encountered the trials and tribulations characteristic of this life, the evil that has so often strangled me within its grip eventually weakens, and even comes to its doom when faced with the love and hope that is so freely poured out to me when I least expect it.

IV.

Certainly, I have never had difficulty anticipating the worst possible outcome...One cannot lay claim to the status of melodrama queen without the ability to cultivate inner turmoil and fear with the intent to foresee absolute disaster and cataclysm, even when the sun is shining and peace has reigned for eons. The presence of the sun and peace is all the more reason to believe that the sky is about to fall at any moment, right?

And yet, I think, perhaps conversely, because I can be so, let's say, catastrophe-minded, I have developed the propensity to respond just as equally with the hope and determination to match.

V.

Hope and determination never disappoint.

That's a bold and broad generalization that I am certain many would contest. Even I despise such a statement at times.

But over and over again, throughout my experience of life--and not just my life, but the life of others--hope always delivers.

Now, a caveat--I'm not saying that hope inevitably leads to the event that we always get what we want or what we wish. I'm also not saying that bad things never happen and that hurt and suffering elude those who hold to hope...that's quite impossible.

And I'm not saying that the key is to stick one's head in the sand or the clouds, and thereby falsely and deceptively convince oneself that everything in this world is wonderful and lovely.

What I am saying is that there seems to be an intrinsic quality to hope that transforms the heart and mind, the pain and suffering to give birth to meaning that comforts and consoles even in the darkest and bleakest of moments.

Hope does not necessarily fix that which is broken, but rather can give what is broken new purpose and renewed life. Hope draws out strength from that which is weak.

VI.

I have hoped for many things in life...some have been realized and some have not or have yet to reveal their conclusion...

But more often than not when those things for which I hope seem to be crushed or devastated, delayed or destroyed...I have come to experience again and again that such happens only to save me for something even more beautiful, even more magnificent than I could have ever imagined before...

VII.

Perfection cannot be attained.

But I venture to say that it can be experienced, even if only when we allow ourselves to be broken and still cling to hope nonetheless...

Knowing, believing that we do not live this one wild and precious life in vain.