The Unimaginable Twist To My Unanswered Prayer
My daughter spotted it first.
As kids are apt to do.
Though, she probably didn’t realize exactly what she was seeing.
Just how enormous it was.
This is the story of how innocently standing in line at our favorite burrito joint,
With nothing more than quacamole and a margarita on my brain,
There it was.
My unanswered prayer.
My big, glaring, forever-wished-for lifetime prayer.
If you had been watching us, you would’ve seen Daughter and me patiently inching forward.
This food is worth it.
You do what you must to get by.
Including making conversation with strangers around you.
Who in this case,
Happened to be a little girl.
About 18 months.
We made eye contact, she and I,
And engaged in an oh-so-fun game of Hide n’ Seek.
Her mother’s left thigh was her prime hiding place.
This went on for some time.
Longer than most adults would engage,
I imagine.
But, I’m like that.
I like babies.
Love them actually.
I’m that lady who will hold your baby.
Jiggle my car keys to keep her entertained on a crowded airplane.
It’s one of the things I did to get by.
All those years I wanted,
Longed for,
Ached for a baby.
Left a man I loved when he told me for sure he would never have children because I couldn’t imagine a life where I would not hold my own baby.
This love,
This is what Daughter spied last week in the taco line.
“Are you sad you never got have babies?” she asked.
Which, of course, seems like an odd question from Daughter to Mother, unless you know our story.
How her first mom passed when Daughter was only 8 years old.
How I then met her and her dad.
How we all got married and did the legal adoption thing.
And the answer.
The answer, I would’ve been so sure, would’ve been, “Yes. Devastated and incomplete, actually.”
Instead, without thinking, I replied, “I love babies, but I would never trade you for anyone.”
It is so true.
Even if I only got a half turn at parenting.
She’s going off to college in a couple of months.
She, and our other child, my former Little Sister in the Big Brother Big Sister program who now lives with us.
These children.
They are so much more than enough.
More than I dreamed of.
Such is one of the gifts of life’s strange turns.
Aches and wants of years past lose power, because the answer I didn’t know to wish for came along.
Made things better.
Better than better.
Not all unanswered prayers end up this way.
I understand that, Dear Reader.
But enough do.
That I have to call it out.
From burritos to babies to whatever you are wish for,
The wait can be agonizing.
And sometimes,
Glorious sometimes,
The payoff more delicious than you could ever cook up yourself.
The family I was not capable of dreaming up all those years of aching for a baby at our oldest’s recent high school graduation.
((Please catch my column each week in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Dayton Daily News and other Cox Newspapers across the country.)))
And if you enjoy this column about finding love, you might enjoy my book,
