One week ago I finally found time to go buy a Christmas tree. I took Daniel with me, and even though his attention span last all of a few minutes, we did come away with a tree that we were both satisfied with! That day we had about enough time to get it put in the stand and placed in the living room; the decorating would have to wait several days.
This past Monday we made salt dough ornaments and also began pulling out Christmas decorations. We placed ornaments on the tree, reminiscing about people who had given us the ornaments, especially my grandma. By the time we went to bed on Monday, the tree looked quite nice...even though there were clumps of ornaments here and there--clumps which Daniel had oh-so-carefully arranged :-)
By Tuesday the salt dough ornaments were ready to paint. Daniel was crazy with excitement! He carefully painted each one and then left them to dry until the afternoon. Shortly before it was time for my afternoon students to come, we threaded string through the ornaments and Daniel went about finding places to hang them on the tree.
I was sitting in the dining room cutting string and saw Daniel standing on the back of the couch in order to reach up higher on the tree. Then I heard a strange sound, saw Daniel's horrified expression, and watched as the tree disappeared from my view...onto the floor. I walked into the living room and saw puddles of water creeping along the floor, an abundance of pine needles covering the furniture and floor, and several ornaments that had flown off the tree! Not a pretty sight. Thankfully it was pretty easy to clean up and only a few ornaments had been broken but they could be easily glued back together.
Meanwhile, Daniel was letting loose with wails and cries of dismay. He was totally upset that the tree was on the floor and even worse his ornaments were sitting in puddles of water. I didn't react but just picked the tree up and told him it was okay and could all be put back together. Daniel however could not be calmed and began blaming himself and calling himself the "D word" (that's one of the banned words in our house--dumb.) I tried to tell him it was an accident and accidents happen but he completely blamed himself and then got angry at me for trying to tell him it was okay. He ran out of the room and my mom commented that he must still feel a lot of deep rejection from his early months. I agreed. Eventually he settled and came back and all was well again.
I don't talk about Daniel's early months very much anymore. In fact I don't think about it much anymore. The stress of the first two years of his life was so intense that I happily left it behind, and for the sake of his privacy I rarely talk about it much with others. For the most part Daniel is a confident, happy, bright, articulate child and most people--unless they witness a full-blown tantrum--probably think of him as pretty normal. And for the most part he is. (I hate to use the word "normal" anyway because what is normal?)
On those difficult days though I have to remind myself that Daniel's first couple of years were not normal. He endured a lot of stress and confusion and unfortunately those stress chemicals affected his brain. Every so often I flash back to one of the many times as a baby that he raged and struggled with intense emotions. I'm no expert in psychology but I studied enough (earned a Bachelor's degree in it), as did my mom, to know that Daniel's very earliest experiences, even from the womb, have affected him. We all endured many sleepless nights when night terrors interrupted everyone's sleep. We held him and comforted him when he raged and couldn't verbalize the emotions that surged inside of him.
So back to the Christmas tree incident....it made me sad to think that he would be so harsh on himself for something so accidental. Even though Daniel is usually confident and appears resilient, I realized yet again that inside he still has a fragile part of him that struggles with insecurity and maybe wondering if he's really "okay." I only recently went into more explanation with him of what "adopted" means. I've read that those who are adopted sometimes experience insecurity and feelings of rejection because of the fact that they are no longer with their birth mother. I see how Daniel so desperately craves approval from those that he admires and I always pray that those desires will never lead him down the wrong path.
Ultimately I pray that Daniel continues to heal as he is surrounded by loving people, but especially as he opens his heart to God's love, for I believe that some of the deepest hurts can only be healed by God. We have come a long way in the last few years so I'm looking to a hopeful future and praying that I can continue to walk with love and grace.
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