Are there words of comfort?

I am not, nor will I ever be, an adoptee or a first parent. But as an adoptive mother in a very open adoption, I voraciously read the writings of adoptees and first parents with the hope of better understanding their experiences. My daughter is almost four, so I have yet to fully see how she processes her adoption, but I do have a close relationship with her first parents and extended families in which they feel open to express their feelings of loss and pain to me. This is not to say they don't support me or my role in Lily's life. I feel that they like me, think of me as part of their family, and believe that I am a good mother to Lily. In fact, a person who I lean on a lot when I'm struggling emotionally is one of Lily's (biological) grandmothers. She is among my closest friends.

I've written recently that we're going through a tough time in our open adoption right now. I don't feel like writing about the details, but basically new members of Lily's extended first family just found out about her existence. So in a sense, we're back at day one in terms of them processing their feelings, which in turns brings all of us back to that time with them.

I have experienced deep loss and pain in my life. I've experienced dark periods that I wasn't sure I would ever come out of. But when I reflect back on the times I fell into the abyss of despair, what I remember -- who I remember -- are the people who stuck out their arms and pulled me up out of it. How did they do that? Of course, they listened, and I felt understood. But it was more than that. They spoke words that gave me encouragement and hope, hope that better days were ahead, hope that as awful as things felt at that moment, that there was a path to healing, and over time, the pain would subside. Had I not believed that the pain would ever subside, had I not seen a ray of hope, I'm not sure if I would have grabbed their arms and let them help me out of that abyss.

I am not a parent or a grandparent or an aunt who has lost a child to adoption. I only know a kind of loss that is different than their kind of loss. I can listen, and I can do my best to put myself in their shoes and try to understand. And I have. But beyond being there and listening, I struggle with what to say. I certainly know what NOT to say, but I wonder if there are right words for an adoptive parent to say to a first family member who is feeling sadness over the adoption.

The Hard Parts

This week I was reminded that open adoption can be hard. For everyone.

As the adoptive parent, open adoption requires me to witness the pain, the grief, the sadness, and the regret of my daughter's first family. The emotions I bear witness to are strong and real and messy and overwhelming. In a closed or even semi-open adoption, these emotions would not be within my realm of consciousness. I would not see them, hear them, respond to them, and think about them during my daily life.

But I believe that as Lily's adoptive mother, I have to learn to hear and hold those raw emotions without letting them consume or swallow me. I have to listen, to be there, to let her first family know they are understood. And I have to consistently remind them that our hearts and doors are open, and then embrace them tightly when they walk through.

Open adoption is not easy, but I do it because I can do it, and I believe it is what is best for my daughter. And each time I walk through a dark tunnel with Lily's first family, I find that as long as we hold on to one another, as long as we approach each other from a place of love, respect, and compassion, that we come through that dark tunnel, and the light shines on us once again.