Origins

I had the chance to speak about the birth of my children this past Sunday, or more accurately, since two of my children are adopted, I had the chance to speak about the origin of my children, how they became a part of our family.

I talked about what it was like to hold my birth son for the first time (I tried to walk him down the hall and almost passed out because I hadn’t eaten for the whole of the delivery).  I talked about the deeply conflicting emotions that I felt as I celebrated picking up my adopted children for the first time even while I was mourning with the foster families who were saying goodbye to a child who had been a special part of their lives.  I talked about how I had prepared myself for fatherhood and about how no amount of preparation is ever sufficient.  I talked about how I had always wanted kids but never knew how much until I had them.

As I was reflecting on all of this after the fact, it struck me how important it is for parents to share those memories with our kids. They have no memory of how they joined our families, just as we have no memory of our own births. All they know is what we tell them, the story of how they came to us, of how we wanted them and welcomed them and made them a part of our family, not just by accident, but also by choice. They need us to remember for them what it meant to hold them for the first time and promise that we would love them as best we could for as long as we lived.

Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged nine, seven, and three.  He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university.  He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.