This has NEVER happened to us before.
HOME.
Our 4 yr old pup ran away from a friend’s HOME Sunday evening. “Nala” was sighted headed, south, towards OUR HOME Tuesday. This means a 6 lb dog, in 90 degree heat, has walked at least 7 miles, admist cars, in less than 2 days.
Poor thang..She WANTS to come home…She is SO close… She just wants HOME.
[THIS is Nala….sigh….Praying she shows up on our front step or we get a phone call that someone found her….some hearts hurt around here…]
I know this is SUCH a stretch but….But, pondering the instinct a dog has to return “home, even after months in some cases, has me contemplating what ‘HOME’ truly means. It’s a dang big deal.
Let’s pretend we are not talking about “Nala the Dog” for a second….but a baby that doesn’t have a home. I know…big stretch. Canine versus Human…HUGE difference…but…
I’ve been dwelling on getting Nala HOME since Sunday. It’s natural for my brain to meander into other avenues of what “HOME” means…to all sorts of all of us.
A baby…don’t you think…don’t you KNOW they have an instinct for a Mother? A Father?
They KNOW when they do not have that. They KNOW when they do not have a HOME. A PERMANENT place of love and safety.
If the baby grows into toddlerhood in this same situation…be it in an orphanage, a temporary foster home, etc., does an instinct kick in to LOOK for “Mom” or “Dad”.
I know for a fact it does.
If they do not find a parent, or someone who functions like a permanent parent, they do not develop the ability to BOND.
To know the safety net of “HOME”.
To understand unconditional love. To know the feeling of falling asleep without fear.
And the longer they are without ‘HOME’ the more jaded they become. But…jaded is removable..ask us how we know …. phew.
Children…starting at a startling young age…yearn for ‘HOME’. A HOME.
Our Tye [this is how we know…] did not come “HOME”, from China, until age 2.25.
It was APPARENT that he HAD yearned for a home but had not found it and, as a result, had hardened himself against what he did find…which was chaos, transitional caregivers, boredom, and hunger.
How do we know he had an instinct for a HOME, A Mommy, A Daddy? Because he was so closed off from all that was normal for a 2 year old’s heart.
He was walled up inside himself.
He was behind a wall of protection he’d set up for himself, mentally, because he had not found the things he instinctively knew he needed. Up went the walls.
It took God, and us, over 2 years to break those walls down…and to let his instinct for ‘HOME” resurface.
He had to learn to trust again….to learn to go to sleep at night without fear that there would not be food the next day or that someone would take his only possession…his shoes.
When he came home, he REFUSED to take his shoes off for months. He WANTED his shoes to be there ALWAYS. He had substituted a pair of shoes for a set of parents. [this world is so hard]
[they are similar to these but orange..of course I saved them 😉
When we finally had him as ours forever… he went to sleep STANDING UP in his crib….flat-out-FEAR. He was on HIGH ALERT.
He also screamed his lungs out while he tried to decide if he was safe or not. Was this HOME? He had lost the instinct for such a thing and was crazy-confused about what was happening.
It did not matter what we, new and -again- random to him, people did to help him sleep…he had to figure it out on his own. Decide that he was safe. That his shoes would still be there. That there would be food.
That, what he wanted and needed the most but did not quite know what it was, our LOVE would be there when he woke up. Eventually…he knew he needed it but he had to be ‘taught’ to let those feelings back out and to rest in the security of his HOME.
It was an IMMENSE struggle. Some of the hardest years of our lives.
But…now Tye is, mentally, “HOME”. He’s been physically home for 7 years. He’s been mentally home for about 5 or a bit less. We knew when it happened. It was the 100+ days we spent, alone as a family, in Guatemala during Aven’s adoption process.
He ‘settled’ during that time. He decided we were his and he was ours. The timing of that trip was divine for so many reasons….And one was to help Tye’s give that one last “nod of the head” that ‘this is going to work’.
HOME.
LOVE.
It’s instinct.
WE ALL NEED IT.
Especially those that don’t have it.
If you are called to adopt…If you think about adoption all the time…If you lay awake at night thinking about “your baby”…..
You know what to do. Do it .
Adoption is not on everyone’s plate…but it is on some. As much as we are not to be ‘inside-the-envelope-type-people’ (snirk)…Others LOVE the routine of the corporate life. We all have our own paths.
However, if you feel the adoption bug but think there is NO WAY….We have been there. Knowing we were to do adopt but it did NOT make logical or financial sense.
However…It has worked out. God stretched dollars, blessed business, and had our backs.
I cannot promise roses and long walks on the beach (smile)…..but I can promise a sense of wholeness that is not found in ANY other way…if you are laying awake at night thinking about “your baby”….
Andrea
