Real mom

So yesterday Josh and I are walking from his speech therapy appointment to his ENT appointment. In the parking lot he reaches up and doesn't just grab my hand but slides his arm into mine. I hear him say to himself "my mother" as he continues to skip along with my arm locked into his. Then I say "Yes I am, I love you Josh".

 

So here comes the hard part... he goes from gleeful to just plain old grief stricken in about 2.2 seconds. He then says "Well not my real mom, like we don't look alot and stuff like that". His face still horribly sad. (We don't use the term real mom around here.... we use mom, China mom, birth mom... since both of his mom's are very much real.) Nonetheless in this instance he used it.

It was such a visual for me at his struggle. In order to have me he has to have a loss. For all of his struggles articulating he has such a way of verbalizing his grief. This time it was his face. I'll never forget the switch from happy go lucky to grief that showed on his face.

It's so hard being a parent and not being able to "fix" this grief that our adopted children carry. He is such an amazing kid, we love him so dearly. I can't imagine life without him yet I wish he didn't have to face this kind of grief. Hard stuff.