Dear son,

Tomorrow morning, you and your caseworker will get on a plane and fly to Dallas. You don’t know this yet, but your dad is going to be there too to fly home with you because it’s your first time ever to fly and we just could not fathom missing one more “first”.

I’ll be there at the airport to welcome you home.

Home.

I probably won’t be crying.

Okay, that’s a lie.

I will definitely be crying but I’ll try to get it together before I see you because I really freaked you out when we met. I’d rather not do that a second time.

Or I will hide behind my poster.

I had to google “How to draw a Ninja Turtle Head” for this. My life is already so different..

Then, we will all load up in my car and come back to our house and then we will spend a couple of hours doing paperwork that legally transfers custody of you from your foster mom to us. Then, we will eat lunch and visit with our case workers.

And then they will leave.

And you will stay.

Because this is it.

This is the intersection point that we’ve all been hoping for, the point on your timeline where your life permanently hits ours and we’re all moving in the same direction now.

I’ve been trying to put into words how I feel about you and this commitment that we’re making. A friend used the word “covenant” in an email and I think it’s perfect.

covenant- of Latin origin (con venire), meaning a coming together; It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities. 

You see, covenants are a big deal, like pinky promises times a million (no takebacks!) Covenants are a promise before God, with God. In the Old Testament, to signify how serious they were about this promise, people would go get some animals, kill them (spilling blood), cut them in half, and then walk between them.

Our vegetarian family probably won’t be doing that, but if you wanted me to, I would go to Fiesta and buy some hunk of meat and hack it in half for you.

Probably not while CPS is at our house, though.

Anyway, we felt this way before we even met you, when we decided that you were our son, but I need to say it and now, now that you’re coming home for good, seems like a good time.

This is our covenant with you.

We will love you forever and ever, no matter what. 

I made a similar vow to your dad when we got married, but I think the words still apply.

I, Beth, take you, the Kid, to be my beloved son, to have and to hold you, to honor you, to treasure you, to be at your side in sorrow and in joy, in the good times, and in the bad, and to love and cherish you always. I promise you this from my heart, for all the days of my life.

I want to add in that your responsibilities in the covenant agreement have already been fulfilled. Just by being you, just by being here. That’s it.

My love for you is not conditional on your behavior or your feelings about how you became a part of our family. There will be days when the love comes so easy that I’ll wonder how I ever lived without you. There will be days when love will take work (and that goes for both of us).

With God as my witness, regardless of what happens from here on out, whether we hitchhike to the library or our volcano explodes all over the kitchen, I will love you with a mother’s love (fierce, passionate, unending, and maybe a little embarrassing).

Welcome home, baby.

-Beth