19th
On a personal note…
Dear Friends,
One person has dominated my feelings and thoughts this week – and no, it has not been the Pope. Lily has been on my heart and mind! I know, for many of you, she’s been on your hearts and minds, too. We thank you for all your prayers and good wishes.
So, I want to use this opportunity to catch you up on what has been happening. This has been a wonderful week: Lily was placed with us as adoptive parents on Wednesday and we were named her legal guardians yesterday. Our next step is for the folks in Tallahassee to communicate with the folks in Albany to allow us to travel with Lily back to New York. We are assured by our attorney that this is a routine process. Our plan is to come home on May 2nd.
As many of you know, Maria and I have been involved in a long and difficult effort to adopt Lily. In the fall of 2006, she even came to live with us. However, she had to return to Florida shortly after she had arrived and, overnight, several roadblocks were put in our path toward adoption. Our experience at that time brought us from the joy of having a daughter to the heartbreak of losing her.
Our journey with Lily has been a tough one, but we are not looking back. We look forward with a lot of joy to parenthood and having Lily with us for good. I do not easily use words like “miraculous” and “providential”, but this recent turn of events seems like nothing less than the work of God. We are still a bit cautious, or at least I am, but everything we have prayed for in this last year and a half is finally working out!
I know some of you feel a little left out of what has gone on; this is totally new news for a few of you. Many aspects of our experience are deeply private and personal, and will remain so (for our sake, and especially for Lily’s). The long and the short of it is: we love Lily and she is becoming part of our family. I am awed each time she calls me “daddy,” and we are so glad to have her as our daughter.
Lillian Marie is now three years old and has a wonderful imagination. She has been in the most loving care a child could expect in the home of Maria’s mother and grandmother. Speaking to Lily on the phone, we have enjoyed her rapidly growing vocabulary and her slight Indian accent; in these conversations she graces us with stories of dragons and her pre-school classmates (as well as sharing her penchant for catalog shopping—pray for me!).
Maria has been in Florida this past week, bonding with Lily and taking care of some of the loose ends. I will be traveling to Florida tomorrow after church to do some of the same.
Peace,
“il papa” Matt.
