Neighbors

This past spring, our family moved across the state for my husband's new job.  We were excited to be near a big city again, and all the fun that would bring us, but were sad to leave 'home'.  We have moved four times in the nine years we have been married, but that place was the one that has felt the most like home.  I know that is because that was where we grew our family.  I remember where I was sitting in our home when we got the call we were matched the first time, the room that we held each other and cried because the match fell through.  There was a door in that house that was closed for years, because it was our nursery, and sat empty.  I know the street I was driving on when I got the call about being matched with Isaac's birthfamily, how I rushed to my husband's office because I was close, so I could tell him.  The doors that we walked through when we got back home with Isaac, showing him his home, his room, that was no longer empty.  Where we were surrounded by friends that cried with us through the pain and loss, and were joyous with us in the happy moments that seem to equally come with adoption.  We made several close friends there, that became our family, with Isaac calling them his Aunts and Uncles.  How would we leave this place.  The place where we had grown our family, with our boys, and the extended friends?

                

The day we closed on our house was a dreary, rainy day.  Perfect for the mood where we would say goodbye to that house, the house that we built our family in.  We took one last picture of us on the front porch with the two boys, put the keys on the counter, and drove away, our vehicles stuffed to the gills with everything that we 'lived' with after the movers had packed us up.

As we moved, and began to get settled in our new home, we started venturing around the neighborhood.  I was up to my eyeballs in boxes and packing paper, but I tried to leave the chaos at least once a day to take a walk around the neighborhood.  We met the family behind us, who has a daughter that just graduated from high school.  She is adopted, and has a very open adoption with her birth father and siblings.  It was nice to be able to have a common topic to share across the yards.  As the summer moved on, an new family moved in right next to us.  We introduced ourselves, and through the first conversation, discovered that their little seven year old was adopted. 

I would have never known how I connected I would be to our neighbors this quickly, the bond we would all share in common.  Though none of our adoption stories are similar, we do share one thing in common, the amazing process that has brought us our children. Though this place still isn't 'home' like our last city was, it's getting there, one friendly chat at a time.